After WWII, boosting the economy was a public good. Returning soldiers bought new homes with their new VA benefits, and filled those homes with goods bought on credit with the first charge cards that came available in the 1950s, avoiding the post-war economic slump many feared after the depression following WWI. One of the must-haves these new homes contained was a gigantic television, where the family could view other families buying and enjoying products, and have newly-minted television celebrities endorse those products.

With the rise of television, consumerism, already having been equated with virtue, became further enshrined by also being seen as fashionable, convenient and smart. With the 70s self-help boom, the virtue of consumerism became a way to cultivate the “self.” Buying things to define oneself, rather than to demonstrate one’s status to others, became the thing. Fast-food restaurants let people know that they had better things to do than make dinner. Cosmetics told women that they could realize their inner worth. Everyone was told that the right product could make them irresistible to the opposite sex, and that they deserved that attention.

But if selfishness has been transformed into a virtue, real virtues have become meaningless. Public opinion used to guarantee that everyone met a certain standard of behavior. Not everyone appreciated being held to a standard, but everyone understood a) that there was a standard and b) what that standard was. People believed in the 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule. With the “me” decade of the 70s, people decided that public approval was no longer a worthy goal.

With the 1980s came the rise of cocoon culture, where entertainment, gourmet food, and even shopping (via mail order catalogs) now happen in the home, which led to a degradation of public behavior. People wanted to be able to behave in public as they did at home, and vice versa. When you could rent a videotape of a popular movie and watch it at home in your underpants while eating shrimp scampi and repeating all the jokes, going to a theater where you have to be quiet, wear clothes, and eat non-smelly food becomes less attractive. When you can bring your telephone into the restaurant with you, that must mean that it’s okay to have a conversation in the restaurant, right?

Along the way, the notion of “respect” has gone from being something which must be earned by good behavior, to something automatically due by virtue of one’s ability to purchase consumer goods. Between 1989 and 2010, average consumer credit card debt more than doubled, and luxury spending (collectibles, high-end cars, boats) increased.

So what happens when people’s estimation of their own worth and importance goes up, but their estimation of the opinion of others goes down? You get people who can’t be bothered to either get dressed or to make their own coffee standing around outside the local coffee shop in their pajamas and demanding that they not be judged.

Help the economy. Help the environment. Help society. Put on some pants.