After Materialism
by David McCarthy
When I was a kid I spent many of my summers at my
grandparents’ farm in Westfield, New York. We had a lot of wonderful homegrown
food: fresh vegetables, berries, and all the great meals my Grandma made. When
we would take too much food on our plates, my Grandpa would say, “Your eyes were
bigger than your stomach.” The wisdom he was expressing, in a way that even
kids could understand, is something that often eludes us.
To put it simply, we ordinarily don’t pay attention to how
the mind creates a limitless stream of wants and supposed needs. Of course, as
human beings, we do have very real needs for basics like food, water, shelter
and clothing. The only problem is that the habitual patterns associated with
getting these things don’t seem to have “off” buttons.
What we’re talking about here is the psychological nature of
materialism. At a superficial level, we all reject materialism with phrases
like, “money isn’t everything,” or “the best things in life are free.” Then we
go back to whatever habitual patterns of behavior, expectations and attachments
that we’ve internalized. As Americans, we have lived in an extraordinary era of
abundance materially, yet our national psyche (even for rich people) is
streaked through and through with poverty mentality. Rich or poor, we’ve bought
into the mythology of materialism, which makes it extraordinarily difficult to
navigate the treacherous waters of the present, when the consequences of our
prodigious era of abundance are coming back at us with a vengeance.
The real problem with materialism is not material things,
it’s the “–ism”. It is a matter of obsession and of letting the priorities we
put on wealth or possessions override our human values. We see the bad outcomes
of this pattern all the time, but to get to the bottom of it, we need to see
how, at the most fundamental level, it is the mind that creates the solidity
and along with it, the attachment, that coalesces into materialism. At a most
basic level, the mind solidifies—literally objectifies—the things that we
perceive and conceptualize. The duality of the perceiving subject—the sense of
self or ego—and its objects is the basic level of psychological materialism. In
other words, what is immediate and momentary becomes entrenched in patterns,
habits, and rationalizations. Then it’s off to the races with the things we
like (attachment), the things we don’t like (aversion and aggression), and the things
we don’t pay attention to (ignorance).
Because this is all so personal and immediate, it is quite
difficult to disentangle economics from materialism. After all, economics deals
with “the material world.” But this is actually why it is so critically
important that we do resolve issues
related to materialism if we are to create a healthy society for humanity going
forward. One interesting point, which highlights the psychological nature of
our materialism, is that in our culture of waste and destructiveness, we really
don’t respect the material world. Quite the reverse. Ironically perhaps, one
route away from materialism is to cultivate greater respect for “stuff” at a
basic level.
Whatever pattern our individual values and actions may take
(and I personally think we’re all either materialists or recovering
materialists), it is important to see how materialist assumptions pervade our
thinking, and more broadly, that of society.
As long as I’ve been fascinated by the study of economic
ideas, I’ve been both haunted and inspired by this subject. I say haunted
because we most certainly live in an era of materialism, and because it is such
a fundamental threat to the future of humanity. But I am inspired because there
is widespread recognition of the problem, and a lot of work being done to
create alternatives. In fact, we could say that the whole flavor of “the new
economics,” with its emphasis on human values, economic justice, and
environmental sanity is post-materialist in nature. Still, and despite the good
intentions of a lot of smart people, it’s a real challenge to develop a
coherent body of thought in this vein, let alone inspire the general public to
jump on the bandwagon.
What enables us to transcend materialism? In a word: wisdom—the wisdom that enables us to see that there is such
a thing as "enough"; the wisdom that lets us see what really makes people
happy. As well, there is the wisdom that cares about others, including future
generations.
People may think that a post-materialist economy would be
some sort of poverty-stricken situation. Actually, the reverse is true.
Materialism itself is a poverty mentality. What comes after materialism is
sanity, sufficiency, and yes, prosperity.
Posted by Chris Hewitt
on 9:34 AM.
Filed under
Feature,
New Economics
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I so agree with this. It's funny in a way...even when I try not to be materialistic with some things it doesn't work. Things are not as important as we think but we seem to make them more important in our minds. I have "things" sitting in storage that I don't' even think about yet I haven't given them up yet.. Go figure. Thank you for this article - I love it. I work hard every day to let go of "stuff". I will now work harder. My thought is- be happy with what you have and you will allow more to come into your life, whether that is stuff, abundance, love or whatever. Be grateful for what you do have!