Consumerism
Best Buy developed a marketing campaign for the 2008 Christmas season that was oriented around the tagline: “You, happier”. For years, advertisers have been alluding to the fact that using their products will improve our lives. Best Buy was the first to come out and just simply say it: if we want to be happier, a purchase at one of their stores will do it.
Consumer culture attempts to give us the secret to happiness, joy, meaning and purpose. They spend billions of dollars each year teaching us that these things do not come from faith in God or in living a moral life. They do not come from relationships with family and friends. They do not come from doing good things that have meaning and purpose. According to Best Buy, happiness comes from stuff.
We live in the most materialistic and consumer-oriented culture in history. It is the very foundation upon which our society is built. We live to consume. We are bombarded every day by advertising and messages that tell us that we have to have more. We are promised happiness and peace in the accumulation of possessions. We are encouraged to pursue the ‘good life’, where anything that we want is at our fingertips. We are even told that if we buy the right products, our marriages, families, and friendships will improve.
What is most remarkable is that so many people have simply accepted this culture of consuming as a good thing. We decry the decay in values in our culture. We complain that our lives are too busy, that we are financially strapped, that we are stressed out about our bills, and that we want more time for relationships and things that we value. But we fail to recognize that these things are natural by-products of our materialistic culture. Most of us never think to question whether the race to produce and consume is costing us more than we imagine.
Ironically, consumer culture was not supposed to have this kind of impact. In the 1950’s the advent of new consumer products were supposed to make our lives easier – increase productivity so that we could spend less time working, and more time with family and friends. It was supposed to help cultivate strong families and communities that were more connected. But instead of the 20-hour work weeks that some envisioned, we choose to work harder so that we can consume more. The innovations that were supposed to give us more time have made our lives busier than ever. We are increasingly disconnected from our families, our neighbors, and the world around us. And we are increasingly disconnected from God.
The dangers of consumerism go beyond the impact that it has on our relationships and our emotional and spiritual health. Consumerism also creates environmental threats that are damaging our planet. The amount of energy we use and the amount of waste that we produce is simply not sustainable. As of 2004, almost 1.7 billion people belong to the ‘consumer class’ – defined as those whose diets contain a large amount of processed food, who have large houses, drive cars, and accumulate non-essential goods. As the number of these kinds of ‘consumers’ around the world grows, our ability to avert environmental decay is severely threatened.
If we know that consumerism has negative consequences, why do we continue to consume? Quite simply, it is because the messages of consumerism tell us to ignore anything outside of our immediate desires. We are told that if we want something, we should get it. Now. We are no longer able to differentiate between needs and wants. We are no longer able to wait for something. We live in an instant world and are losing the ability to think about the long-term impacts of our choices.
Consumerism works on the principle of dissatisfaction. Over the past decades, marketers have become quite proficient in creating new ‘needs’. We can’t even comprehend how anyone could live without a TV (and cable package), a cell phone, a computer, air conditioning, and regular trips to Starbucks. None of these things are inherently bad in and of themselves. But the fact that we view them as essentials says something about the power of consumer culture to define needs.
Clearly, there are many good things that are made possible by the advances in technology and innovation that our consumer culture has produced – access to information, technology, and entertainment options that previous generations couldn’t even imagine. We have made tremendous advances in healthcare and education. And we have the ability to connect with others around the world.
But we should not underestimate the dark side of consumerism. Because the pursuit of more has become so pervasive, we often lose the ability to understand how this pursuit can harm us and harm others. For those of us who seek to follow Jesus, we often fail to grasp that the culture of consuming is often diametrically opposed to the Kingdom of God.
It is not a stretch to say that consumerism is a religion. It gives us a god to worship (the almighty dollar), it gives us values (bigger, better, faster, more), it gives us rules to live by (work harder, buy more), and it even gives us holidays and rituals (Black Friday). It is a system of belief that shapes how we think and act.
The ‘religion of consuming’ puts us at the center of the world. Life is all about what I want. Consuming moves us away from community and into isolated bubbles. Consuming is about loving myself and has very little to do with loving others. It tells us that nothing can make us happy except to buy the next new thing. And as we have already begun to see, it leads to emptiness.
As Christians, we need to become more aware of the messages of materialism and how they contrast with the teachings of Jesus:
Jesus said that we are to love others
Consumerism says that we are to love stuff
Jesus says that those who would be great must serve the least
Consumerism says that those who would be great must crush their competition
Jesus says that we should not worry
Consumerism says that if we aren’t worried about getting ahead, we’ll be left behind
Jesus said that He came to give us life to the full
Consumerism says that ‘the good life’ comes to those who have the best products
So what are we to do?
The cure for consumerism comes in three parts: gratitude, simplicity, and generosity. Gratitude recognizes that God is the provider of every good thing. We recognize that we have been richly blessed, and that this blessing comes from God. We thank God for the ways that he has provided for us, and as we do, we learn to trust that God will continue to provide for our needs.
The next step in the process is simplicity. We learn to say no to things. We recognize that contentment does not come from having more. We don’t allow our possessions to own us. We create space for relationship with God and with others.
The final step is generosity. As we give to others, we find that we are incredibly blessed. As we share our blessings with those who have very little, we find joy and peace that can never come from consuming.