Materialism

Certainly there's been enough said about the "Me Generation" and the change in American culture during the past generations to indicate that many people see a significant increase in greed and avarice, in a self centered materialism, in our society.

Materialism is not new in this country. For many explorers, pioneers, and immigrants, the "American Dream" was an economic one, a materialistic one.

However, America has also had a co-existing -- and contradictory -- idealistic "American Dream"-- an anti-materialistic tradition, both religious and secular, as seen in both the Puritan preachers and the New England writers, such as Emerson and Thoreau.

Yet, today's materialism differs from that of an earlier era. For example, Ben Franklin's materialistic maxims ("A penny saved is a penny earned") about the virtues of hard work, savings, and thrift have been replaced today by advertisers encouraging consumption and instant gratification, and by banks promoting credit cards as "easy money."

Religious critics emphasize that our religious values are being undermined and eroded by a commercialism which distracts people away from spiritual matters.

Although some TV preachers seem pretty cozy with ads, dollars, and creature comforts, most mainstream religious commentators are distressed with modern advertising practices.

By focusing on the temporal rather than the eternal, the Here instead of the Hereafter, such materialism -- religious critics of advertising argue -- cause us to neglect our own soul's salvation and the due respect, reverence, and worship of God.

Fundamentalists, including Islamists (like the Taliban and Muslim Brotherhood) and Christian (like the extremist right wing American sects) are especially angry at the mass media spread of commercialism and modernity.

But, as the moderate Steve Allen (in his book, Vulgarians at the Gate) writes: "... the consequences of rearing millions of initially innocent children in a social atmosphere characterized by vulgarity, violence, brutish manners, the collapse of the family, and general disrespect for traditional codes of conduct is to chill the blood of even the most tolerant of observers."

Secular critics emphasize that a consumer culture trivializes human potential and the genuine achievements of civilization possible in art and literature, in science and scholarship. "What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties...."

Advertising reduces human experience from an exhilarating adventure into a shopping spree at the mall.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) warned early of the influence of the new media, commercialism, and non-stop entertainment on our culture, trivializing not only politics, but also our human potential. Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1986), followed in Huxley's tradition, pointing out that Huxley was a better predicter than George Orwell. Even Hiliary Clinton, in It Takes a Village (1996), ventures a cautious centrist view of the potentially harmful impact of materialism.

Current commentary

In Thomas Hine's book about shopping (I Want That: How We All Became Shoppers), he uses the term "buyosphere" to describe the contemporary state of mind "thanks to TV, movies, magazines, and the Web fueling our desire to acquire." Pamela Klaffke, in her book Spree: A Cultural History of Shopping, points out that "we are a culture obsessed and beguiled by the desire for consumer goods." People have such a glut of stuff that they don't have any place to put it all, thus creating a self-storage industry!

Advertising defines "the good life" in terms of buying rather than of doing, of acquisition rather than of accomplishment, of consumption rather than conservation.

For example, Ronald Collins and Michael Jacobson, spokesmen for the Center for the Study of Commercialism, claim:

"The imperative to consume is rapidly becoming the supreme ethic in our culture. It is fueled by the ceaseless marketing and promotion of ever more numerous products. The craving for more profoundly affects our political, economic, and religious institutions in ways that run counter to certain core values, such as self-restraint, communal participation, and respect for the environment....

Put simply: Omnipresent commercialism is wrecking America. Our cultural resources are dwindling. Value alternatives beyond those of the marketplace are disappearing. The very idea of citizen has become synonymous with consumer...(consumers) are the ones who destroy or expend by use, the ones who devour all. Is this to be the model for world citizenship?"

In contrast, James Twitchell, in AdCultUSA, argues for the naturalness of human desires:

"Human beings like things. We buy things. We like to exchange things. We steal things. We donate things. We live through things. We call these things goods as in goods and services. We do not call them bads".

But, most people don't think about it that way, or take ads seriously.

For most people, ads are simply trivial annoyances, nuisances, but endurable as harmless trade-offs to get other benefits.

Most Americans, for example, have welcomed commercial television as a "free babysitter." Yet, the same parents might be furious if their young children were approached in the streets by a stranger selling something.

Many people have welcomed Channel One into the schoolrooms because there's "nothing wrong" with its daily dose of "harmless ads."

In brief, ads are accepted as uncritically in this century as earlier centuries accepted mosquitoes and flies as nothing more than pesty nuisances.