Consumerism

The word consumerism is occasionally used to denote the consumer movement and advocacy on behalf of consumers vis-à-vis the producers of consumer products. The term is also infrequently used to refer to the economic theory that maintains the growth of consumption is always good for an economy. Normally, however, consumerism is lamented as a significant behavioral blemish in modern industrial society. It suggests an inordinate concern—some might say an addiction—with the acquisition, consumption and/or possession of material goods and services. Consumerism implies foolishness, superficiality, triviality and the destruction of personal and social relationships by means of selfishness, individualism, possessiveness and covetousness. The prevalence of consumerism suggests a general contraction of the compass of modern culture.

Interpreting Consumerism

It is often suggested that consumerism is simply the necessary complement, on the side of consumption, to the modern capitalist economy’s dramatic expansion of production. Consumerism, from this first perspective, is largely engineered by the producers of products. It is the result of the artificial stimulation, principally by means of manipulative advertising, of an ever-increasing need for mass-produced consumer products. The ready availability of consumer credit in modern society, often financed by manufacturers, buttresses the plausibility of this (principally neo-Marxist) interpretation.

Consumerism has also been interpreted as a principal means of defining class and status boundaries in modern industrial society. Thus an individual might identify himself or herself as a member of a particular group by consuming, as the term status symbol suggests, the requisite products and services. As new consumer products and services are constantly being introduced, however, the specific indicators of class and status are constantly changing, in effect forcing individuals to continually consume new and different products. From this second perspective, consumerism does not have to do with greed or manipulation so much as with the ratio of what one thinks one ought to possess relative to others against the backdrop of constantly changing shopping opportunities.

A third interpretation combines the first and second perspectives to suggest that consumerism is simply the behavioral reflection of a fundamentally new kind of culture. Within this new culture need has, in effect, become a new religion, and advertisers and other specialists have become priestly mediators of new, and predominantly materialistic, virtues and values.

Historians point out, however, that many of the features of modern consumer culture, including manipulative advertising and the deliberate stimulation of desire, had already begun to emerge in the eighteenth century and so antedate the modern revolution in production by almost a century. This has led British social historian Colin Campbell to suggest that the roots of modern consumerism may not lie in the advent of modern production techniques so much as in Romanticism’s emphasis on heroic individualism and self-creation. Consumerism’s relentless “desire to desire,” in other words, is not simply foisted on consumers by producers of consumer products but stems ultimately from a romantic ethic in which the individual is bound to realize himself or herself in the experience of novelty and more or less immediate gratification. This ethic has been amusingly summarized in the quip “I shop, therefore I am.” It was this romantic ethic, Campbell suggests, that stimulated subsequent developments in production. The emphasis on self-creation by means of the consumption of things and experiences continues to animate much of contemporary culture.

Religious Consumerism

The rise of denominational, and now religious, plurality in modern societies has led to a situation in which we are increasingly encouraged to “shop for,” and so to be consumers of, religion itself. The consumption of religion, furthermore, suggests a fundamental change in the meaning of religious belief such that it has increasingly less to do with conviction and more and more to do with personal preference. Many churches and religious organizations have responded to the changing meaning of belief by obligingly repackaging religion to make it conveniently and easily consumable. Such trends have contributed to the emergence of a kind of religious marketplace in which modern consumers are faced with a veritable smorgasbord of religious options.

Christian Reflections on Consumerism

Understood as a preoccupation with the consumption of material goods and services, consumerism has little to commend it from a Christian point of view. In the first instance, it suggests a kind of mindlessness on the part of modern consumers. As essayist Wendell Berry observes in a provocative piece entitled “The Joy of Sales Resistance,” the contemporary preoccupation with marketing, salesmanship and consumption could arise only in a society whose members are expected to think and do and provide very little for themselves. More seriously, exorbitant Western consumption habits have undoubtedly contributed to the degradation of the natural environment and the rapid depletion of natural resources. Consumerism has also been blamed for the exacerbation of poverty, both domestically and in the developing world.

As a behavior, consumerism betrays significant confusion about the nature of the human situation. More specifically, it discloses confusion about the dangerous logic of need. One of the desert fathers, Saint Neilos the Ascetic (d. 430), is said to have advised his disciples to remain within the limits imposed by our basic needs and to strive with all their power not to exceed them. “For once we are carried a little beyond these limits in our desires for the pleasures of this life,” Neilos warned, “there is no criterion by which to check our onward movement, since no bounds can be set to that which exceeds the necessary.” Neilos went on to outline the sorts of absurdities that inevitably result from attempting to satisfy material desires beyond the reasonable limits of need, and in so doing he described something very much like late twentieth-century consumer culture. And it is certainly the case that much of the dissatisfaction and disappointment that so pervade modern life owes to the insatiable logic of need in consumer culture. The “more is better” attitude of modern consumer culture makes it very difficult to say, “Enough is enough.” Of course, from a Christian point of view, the logic of need is insatiable simply because such things as pride, covetousness, lust, gluttony, envy and sloth are unlimited in the fallen situation.

The preoccupation with consumption may also betray a fundamental misunderstanding of one’s own identity before God. To identify oneself only by the things one is able to consume is, in effect, to lack a true sense of one’s self. This is the point of Jesus’ simple, yet penetrating, questions: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). To imagine that we can create or sustain ourselves by means of our possessions or consumption habits, Jesus suggests, is tragically mistaken. It is also stupid, for such things have no lasting future. If we stake our identities—our selves—to these things, then we will pass away with them.

Yet beyond folly, consumerism also tends toward idolatry. To the extent that we seek security in consumption, we in effect worship another god, thereby arousing the anger and jealousy of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Recall, in this connection, the apostle Paul’s equation of greed and idolatry (Col. 3:5), as well as the prophetic warning that the fate of idolaters is to become just as worthless as the gods they worship (Jeremiah 13:1-11). Of course, it is not difficult to trace the connection between the fragility and ephemerality of many people’s sense of themselves and the essentially restless and ephemeral nature of the gods of consumption.

Responding Christianly to Consumerism

The Christian response to consumerism is already suggested in the theological criticism of this behavior, but it may also help to recall that the original meaning of consume is “to burn,” “to exhaust” and “to destroy completely.” The object of our response to consumerism is to try—with the Lord’s gracious help—to avoid destroying ourselves in this behavior and to try to prevent our neighbor from being destroyed by such behavior as well (see Simpler Lifestyle). Our first duty, then, as Wendell Berry insists, is to “resist the language, the ideas, and the categories of this ubiquitous sales talk, no matter from whose mouth it issues” (p. xi).

It may also help to juxtapose the modern obsession with acquisition, grasping and possessing with the Christian virtues of gratitude, generosity and hope. Far from encouraging us to accumulate or consume as much as we possibly can, the Scriptures exhort us to view our lives as a gracious gift from God for which we are to be grateful. We are further exhorted to express our gratitude by giving ourselves generously away in the love of God and in the love of our neighbor (1 Tim. 6:18).

Finally, because the plausibility of consumerism depends entirely on the apparent permanence of life in this world, we must continually remind each other—and ourselves—that this world and its lusts are indeed passing away (1 Cor. 7:30-31). “Sell your possessions and give to the poor,” Jesus says to us. “Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys” (Luke 12:33).

» See also: Advertising

» See also: Money

» See also: Need

» See also: Pleasure

» See also: Shopping

» See also: Shopping Mall

» See also: Simpler Lifestyle

» See also: Stewardship

References and Resources

W. Berry, “Preface: The Joy of Sales Resistance,” to Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, (New York: Pantheon, 1993) xi-xxii; C. Campbell, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987); A. T. During, How Much Is Enough? The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth (London: Earthscan, 1992); J. F. Kavanaugh, Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural Resistance (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991); L. Shames, The Hunger for More: Searching for Values in an Age of Greed (New York: Times, 1989); T. Walter, Need: The New Religion (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1985).

—Craig M. Gay