materialism

Turning on a Dime (from thankful to lustful in sixty seconds)

Lisa Borden — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:21:06 -0800

I've just been perusing news about the violence among bargain-crazed shoppers in the U. S. yesterday. "Black Friday" is a national phenomenon when retailers push sales to move themselves out of the red and into the black before the end of the year. It happens on the day after Thanksgiving.

So, we pause. We give thanks. We look around the table and say we're thankful for our families and our friends. We recognize that we are blessed. We say, "I am so thankful!"

But, apparently, it's not enough. It doesn't actually fill us up.

The very next day, we go absolutely mad over manufactured stuff that we HAVE to have.

I'm not above loving a good sale, but the whole thing strikes me as incredibly gross.

We are gross.

And the worst part of it is, we are willingly led down this path. We're told we need this stuff; that our other stuff is outdated and ridiculous.

And we believe it.

The Network of Consumerism

Daniel Hodge — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 11:48:35 -0800

On this day saturated in the praise, worship, and deification of consumerism, I thought it be good to reflect on an old film that gets at the heart of where a society is embedded. When California is at a 22% unemployment rate (that figured factored by looking at the state average of unemployed plus those whose unemployment benefits have run out, those who have worked multiple jobs who do not have unemployment insurance, those are considered “discouraged” workers, and those who are small business owners who do not “show up” on the economic map), a national average of at least 15% unemployment (same equation used above, but we’re not considering those who are also too sick and or incapable of working due to mental illness), and an economy that does not seem to be “restarting” as quick as the propagandized pundits would hope, you would think that people would think twice about buying that iPad or X-Box. Yet, people have been camping out for the last week just to get “50%” off of something that was marked up to begin with.

Moreover, much of society has become increasingly selfish and self-centered as it relates to actual sharing and the spreading of wealth. Folks see the “poor” as lazy, ineffectual and a scourge on societal resources; of course until they themselves end up there, which seems to be happening more frequently these days.

We seem to capitulate to the insanity of spending more while numbing ourselves with the material goods of our day; only to need the next hit once the “second edition” is revealed. Now, I make no bones about me being a consumer as well. However, over the last few years my family and I have had a chance to step back and look at some of our spending habits in contrast of our love for people. As I have stated prior, our society and American Dream has become less about “life” and more about the love of things and the use of people; rather than the other way around.

This clip below is from the 1976 film Network. In an almost prophetic voice, the clip illustrates where our culture has gotten in relation to consumerism, materialism, and the dis-enlightenment of the American mind. As Neal Postman has articulated eloquently we as a society have “Amused ourselves to death.”

Thus, as we sit back and reflect on food, family, and friends, let us also begin to peer deeper into the habits of our American mind in relation to community and those who “have not.”

Materialism and the New Minimalists

Lisa Borden — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:14:21 -0700

At first I was intrigued as I read an article on the BBC about today's minimalists who are getting rid of their stuff and living in sparse looking apartments. I was attracted to the idea of shedding stuff and perhaps gaining new spiritual insight through the discipline of reduction.

I'm keenly tuned to my own attachment to things because I'm a person who has had to pack and unpack the stuff one too many times. Things, things, things. I've moved them between 6 countries on 3 continents. I've also gone through a house fire which took most everything I had of material value. Topping it off, I live in a developing country that reveals my standard of simplicity as relative. I live simply compared to friends in the States. I live like a flippin' crazy person compared to most Africans. I know full well that my local friends must think we're nuts to "need" all of this.

So I was interested in this cult of less, as the BBC article called it. I was kind of hoping for an insight that would help nudge me toward being able to lighten the cargo more readily. But I was disappointed. The minimalists turned out not to be very minimal at all. Sure, they have less physical stuff, but they're building up a warehouse of technology all stored in their laptops. They have gadgets and gizmos galore, as Ariel sang, only it's all inside their Macs. I'm sorry but it seems to me that they are still driven by the urge to own, the need to posses. Owning a technology isn't that much different than owning a "hard copy" of something else. The obsession with the latest application or plug in or WHATEVER mirrors any shop-till-you-drop mall crawler out there.

And I believe we're often worse off for being so heavily wired to the cyber universe. The impact of everyone being tied to their computers and glued to their screens is no small thing. Relationships as well as the ability to experience solitude suffer. What's more, materialism or pride in possessions is just as poisonous whether the thing I "own" is made of solid materials or made of electronic impulses and a lot of crazy code.

I'm not out to reduce my home to a monk's quarters, but I am looking for more of the freedom of simplicity in my life. I just don't want to be duped into thinking I've found it if my treasures are out of sight.

Our prayers: thermometer of our world view

Richard Dahlstrom — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:42:07 -0800

I recently read a survey that indicated 90% of American men self identify as being "above average fitness" compared to their peers. When you do the math (and even I can do this math) it becomes these men don't have self image problems; but they are delusional. Their problem comes, I suspect, from one of the oldest tricks in the book: confusing intention with action. They want to exercise, want to eat right, want get enough sleep, want to cut back on coffee and alcohol. They watch bow-flex commercials, drink low carb beer, and declare themselves 'fitter than average'. Intent gets confused with action. What's actually needed are objective measures of health; things like body mass index, resting heart rate, and the good/bad cholesterol ratio. The harsh numbers tell the truth.

There's a similar objective assessment, in my opinion at least, in matters of spiritual health. Many of us say that we live in a world where God is able to intervene in history, and does intervene in history. He changes hearts, heals bodies, brings the triumph of the cross to bear in lives that are wracked with self-loathing and guilt, sets people free. We say God does these things, and many of us even go a step further and say that, while God is able to do whatever he wants, he sometimes partners with us mere humans, "waiting" as it were, for us to get involved in God's activities by our doing one simple thing: asking.

We who believe this can offer a boatload of evidence that this is true: God steps into history to deliver Israel from slavery because he 'hears their cry'. Hannah prayed for a son and God gave her one. Elijah prayed for an offering to be consumed and it was. Jesus told us that we have not because we ask not. Later he said that 'this kind' (speaking of a certain demonic possession) can only come out by prayer and fasting. It's all through the Bible - God steps into history in response to prayers. We believe it - or at least we say we do.

But saying we do is like watching bowflex commercials while eating popcorn and drinking low-carb beer. The real thermometer of our belief that God steps into history actively is our prayer life. I was reminded fo this recently when some people at our church asked pastoral staff to come over to their house and pray through it because they were sensing 'dark spirits.' We don't get these requests often (all right, never until now) but a team went and prayed. The family said that the effects were both immediate and dramatic.

Dramatic encounters with the forces of darkness are, in my opinion, easier that dealing with the day to day subtleties of life, because there's so much noise telling us that we live in a purely material world, and because we've so many medical, and financial, and therapeutic tools at our disposal that we come to believe, practically speaking, that we can "do it on our own" in spite of what we say we believe. I mean, with a good marketing guy, a killer web site, and good sound and lights you can build a church.. right? Sadly... right.

Our prayer life, asking specific things of God, is a good indicator of the degree to which we believe God is at work in the world. We're saturated in a materialistic culture that says, both overtly and covertly, that God isn't active, that things just happen. We push back, maybe even pointing to the very verses I've quoted above.

Big deal. The real issue is this: Am I asking God to step into my world, or the world of another, to bring healing, faith, hope, provision, direction? Do I believe it when Jesus says, "apart from me you can do nothing?" Does the amount of my praying correlate to the amount of my talking about how great God is, how involved he is in history?

The house demons are gone, and I'm reminded through the event that, behind the veil of our material world, there's a God able to intervene, and forces of darkness intent on destroying hope and life. We've a calling here folks, to be people of prayer. I've taken to writing my daily prayers in a journal, just like I do with exercise, so that I can look back and see if I'm being consistent. When there's a gap of 13 days in the journal, I realize that I talk a good game, but have a long way to go in living what I say I believe. How about you?

The Culture Industry of Christmas

Daniel Hodge — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:31:40 -0800

As I sit here reflecting on this past Christmas, the Holiday season, the days leading up to Christmas, family, friends, and our society, I also reflect on the past year, the mistakes, the accomplishments, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I am reminded that the culture industry of Christmas is a machine that gets going long before December 25th. I am also reminded that Christmas, at least here in the States, has taken on a commercial form that is trumped by little to nothing. I am even further reminded that the culture industry of Christmas has globalized itself and turned a Holiday that is supposed to be about a spiritual connection to Christ, family, religious traditions, humanity, and people in general more into cultural mores focused around buying, spending money we don’t have, getting that “good deal,” consuming products we don’t need, and waking up at ungodly hours to get a toaster oven for $4.99. Are we all consumed with just buying as a society? Where did the spirituality go? Yes, I’m sure that the praise and worship music blared through the speakers at Wal Mart gets us in the “mood” for Christmas and the blatant manger scenes at our local churches give us reflection on the “reason for the season.” I’m also sure that the once-a-year- giving spirit causes us to feel good about ourselves when we acknowledge the homeless person on the corner and give her/ him a couple of dollars because “Jesus would have done so.”

Now, am I some pessimistic, narcissist who hates the Holiday season? No. Of course not. But our society has turned the Christmas season into quite the buying frenzy followed with the guilt-ridden mantra of having to lose all that weight and get out of debt in the New Year, which most fail after the first 30 days anyways. I love the Christmas season. It gives my family and I time to reflect, connect, and prepare for the New Year ahead. It is also a time to see friends and get that “cozy” feeling that we have all come to love around this time of year. No, no, I love this season. But, I’m troubled when I see fights, people getting trampled, cars getting scratched, and even people getting shot over the tickle me Elmo doll—or whatever “must have gift” craze is dominating the buying frenzy that year.

This year we didn’t really do gifts. My wife and I bought a tree, decorated it, and Mahalia was happy with the boxes and fuzz that came in the boxes. Before you go and feel sorry for us or judge us for not celebrating Christmas “the right way” with our little one, let me tell you: this year we were really forced to “trim down” our spending—like so many other Americans in this economic recession. Money has not been our friend this year and work is even harder to come by—thus, no gifts. However, what it forced us to do was to refocus back on the real “reason for the season”: Christ, family, friends, good times, and memories that will last a lifetime. And guess what, it was really good!

Not having money was a real worldview shifter and gave us some perspective on where our priorities really lie. It also helped us to enjoy each other as people and to reflect on what Christ has done in our lives over the last year. This doesn’t mean I’m hating on anyone who went out and got that 60 inch plasma with the Bose sound system—no, no. Go on with ya bad self. Hell, I can’t lie and say I don’t want that at some level. But in the end, we came to realize just what the culture industry of Christmas has done to our own perception and social understanding of this Holiday season.

The great social critic and philosopher Theodor Adorno defined a culture industry that, “…involves the production of works for the reproduction and mass consumption, thereby organizing ‘free’ time, the remnant domain of freedom under capital in accordance with the same principles of exchange and equivalence that reign in the sphere of production outside leisure, presents culture as the realization of the right of all to the gratification of desire while in reality continuing the negative integration of society” (The Culture Industry [1991: Blackwell Publishing] p.4). Adorno was concerned with looking at how hyper-consumption actually degraded us and turned us into blind consumers with a focused groupthink only to buy and consume for sole gratification. Adorno had it right in many ways, he asserted that “under capitalism all production is for the market; goods are produced not in order to meet human needs and desires, but for the sake of profit, for the sake of acquiring further capital” (The Culture Industry pp.5-6).

We have, in essence, a capitalistic market that operates, as Naomi Klein has reminded us (Anti Globalist and author of No Logo), as a crack addict, seeking its next hit and feeding. No other “season” demonstrates this better than the Christmas season here in the States. Moreover, with more U.S. citizens going into debt and living beyond their means, what does this mean for our future? Does this make us venerable to a different type of “terrorist” attack?

The culture industry of Christmas gets to me. It really didn’t hit me until my economic back was pressed against the wall this year. Our little girl was fine this Christmas year; she never knew the difference; she had one of the best Christmas’ ever with grandma in town. My wife had a great time as her and I had a chance to catch up on the year, our life, our marriage, and where we go in the New Year. It was great because I didn’t have to fight crowds, look for the “best parking spot” at the mall, and I spent time with the family and with good friends. Can this keep up every year though? What will happen once we do get some capital and income? I don’t know. But I do know that I want to continue this trend and focus less on the pure consumption of material just for the sake of consumption.

Because as Adorno posits, “The mass culture…absorbs the truth content and expends itself in the material but all it has left as material is itself” (The Culture Industry p. 65).

Sojourners or Settlers - an important question

Richard Dahlstrom — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:57:56 -0700

I'm teaching in Canada this week at a place where the international mix of guests, staff, and students always makes for lively discussion. I could tell you about conversations regarding health care (I hope you'll talk to some real live Canadians and Europeans, whose assessments of this subject might be a tad more realistic than Rush Limbaugh's) but I'll save it for another time because there's a more important subject worth considering.

Last night, after my lecture, I spent some time with a couple of German women who are passing through Canada on holiday before returning to their medical careers in Europe. Both were raised in the communist, totalitarianism of the GDR (East Germany) and even the small fragments of their story that I learned last night are worth sharing with you so that you ponder some important questions with me. They spoke of their childhood, and the role that the church played in the demise of communism. They spoke of the challenges that came with growing up as Christ followers in a political climate intent on silencing any vestiges of the gospel. They explained how, towards the end of communism's run, the church buildings of old became strategic centers where people gathered for to offer prayers for a change in national direction. The few became groups. Groups became 'the masses'. The masses became a national movement. And the walls came down.

"Right after freedom came" one said, "the churches were full. Everyone came." Then, after a moment of silence, the other said, "but not anymore. I suppose it's the materialism that comes with freedom." I I left our conversation shortly after that, feeling that our conversation held some significant elements to ponder. In my ponderings, I've been reminded of several things:

1. Historically, it's the people who are, existentially speaking, sojourners, that live clinging to God. Consider the Black Church in America, or the Reformationists in the midst of Catholicism, or the Radical Reformationists in the midst of the Reformationists, or the house churches in China, or the random few believers in Eastern Europe in the mid-twentieth century. It always seems to be true that it's the people without the power that are clinging to Christ most profoundly and, in their clinging, are shaped by God's heart, filled with unquenchable light.

2. This unquenchable light seems to shine as long as we're sojourners, but it also seems true that as soon as we settle down, we settle into darkness. Political power has seduced the church countless times throughout history. It's as if the church, at various times, has 'gained the whole world, but lost it's soul'. Mediocrity, greed, complacency, division, boredom, and gross materialism become hallmarks of the people of God, who increasingly mirror the values of the principalities and powers of this world. Thus does salt lose its saltiness. Thus do we suffer loss as we gain.

I wonder if I'm right, and if I am right, I wonder what can be done about it. As Eastern Europe gains their own versions of Walmart and Costco; as they fill their ears with the buds of ipods and their minds with our values, their churches are emptying. What does that tell us? I know what Jesus says: "No man can serve two masters." But I'm wondering what we, who didn't ask to be born into wealth and comfort, can do, to become sojourners who are clinging desperately to our God, rather than settlers who've made a pact with the comforts of this world, and in the process blown out our candles?

I welcome your thoughts...