In a philosophical sense, consumption is the unencumbered enjoyment of glamorous commodities. The demands and impositions of neighbors and even family members get in the way of our desire to do whenever whatever we like. But just as indulgence in sweets and fats leads to malnutrition, indulgence in consumption leads to a morally debilitating condition. This malady has become chronic through our common and implicit decision to shape our material culture in such a way that for anyone inhabiting it thoughtlessly the daily default decisions favor consumption. The New Urbanism is a principled attempt at restructuring the material environment so as to conduce to social and physical engagement.
Neighborhoods invite talking to neighbors and walking to stores, taverns, and concert halls.
In such ways, a common reality is regained from the isolation and distraction of consumption. While the daily fabric of walkable neighborhoods is a significant advance over residential areas that serve consumption, it is penultimate and subvertible as long as the crucial counterforce to consumption remains indistinct and implicit. That force is celebration. Genuine celebration in turn is the communal devotion to something that unites and surpasses us and is sacred in a broad cultural sense. In the small community of the family it is something like the culture of the table.