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Consumerism as a Spiritual Disease
Last week I raised the issue of how the workplace can be damaging to our health. Someone emailed me with this question: "What would make people stay in such environments?"
A great part of the answer to that question can be found in our culture of consumerism. Consumerism enables the unsettling lack of equilibrium of the contemporary workplace. People will find it easier to stay in dysfunctional jobs so that they will be able to buy what Madison Avenue says that they need to be happy. Banks, credit cards, lines of credit, and a host of other facilitators step in to make all of these things attainable more easily -- with devastating results as we have seen of late. There is another sad repercussion in this consumerist cycle. The corporation or employer becomes enabled -- to do what it wants, to demand what it wants, to behave in whatever manner it wants. This occurs at the expense (literally) of the worker. After all, where will the debt-ridden employee go? In this era, options are very limited.
There is an alternative, however, a spiritual and healthier one. Christians do not pray for abundance; we pray for "our daily bread." In the Torah it was commanded that all of produce of a field or orchard not be harvested so that some would be left for those in need. The less we think we need, the happier we can become, not only with what we do have, but also with who we are as human beings.
As possessions matter less and less, something else happens. People begin to matter more and more. Talking replaces buying. Dinners with friends become places to discuss ideas and each other's lives rather than battlegrounds to prove who has the most toys or the most "A-list" friends. Families replace corporate personnel flow charts. Business contacts are replaced with real relationships. Competition is replaced with companionship. Joy arrives not in power or things or money or portfolio increases (remember those?) but in community.
A truly spiritual person understands that justice and not possessions is what really matters (please note that many people who do not consider themselves to be spiritual also promote justice over consumerism). Justice is the antithesis of "the golden handcuffs" of consumerism. Where the latter is an end-sum game of winning with the most toys, the former is about sharing them. The consumerist fails to graduate from the kindergarten mentality that "I" matter most. What matters most is that every "I" be afforded the same chance, consideration, opportunity, and respect as any other "I." Spiritual justice is meant to reach out to everyone with everything every day. While consumerism can result in hording, justice is always concerned with sharing. And sharing is healthy.
By
Albert Scariato
|
March 26, 2009; 3:44 PM ET
| Category:
Faith and Healing
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Posted by: coloradodog | March 31, 2009 9:04 AM
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While fundamentally right here, I wonder with consumerism and hyper-individualism so ingrained within our broader culture and more often than not even the churches within the West, what constructive things can Christians do on a day to day basis to resist this part of our broader culture?
Posted by: nunivek | March 30, 2009 11:42 AM
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As someone who was once a high roller and then sold all my earthly possession (including the Corvette and the black SUV),
I can testify that what the author says is true. My life is simpler and happier now and my motto is from the Rolling Stones: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need"