No major religion or philosophy suggests happiness obtains from the gathering of material possession, but that is the ubiquitous message of every mass media advertisement.
The deprivation of wealth, assuming basic needs are met, is a hazard more from the powerlessness it causes, as opposed to the unhappiness it brings.
The solution ought rest in assuring equal protection and influence and advocating a civil religion that holds material acquisition as frivolity (not as manipulation, but because it is).
By civil religion, I borrow from Robert Bellah, a sociologist popular in the 1970s, who identified the underlying foundations of the American belief system and argued without a unifying ideology, social coherence cannot thrive. Thinking of a society as having a “religion,” with an origin story, its share of prophets and heroes, its moments of sin and redemption, its sacred documents, and its mortal enemies, offers a mythological perspective we sometimes fail to see that underpins most (all?) human civilizations.
So, as long as poverty is seen as a failure because it involves the disparate allocation of resources and that the proper solution is seen as class warfare based upon wealth categories, the error of viewing material possession as the highest good will triumph. That is, the problem begins with worshipping the God of material acquisition, not in the fact that some have more than others.
This is to observe that the natural right to hoard isn’t a foundational American (or Western) ideology, appearing no where in American or other Western foundational history, but it’s a perverse outgrowth of legitimate individualism and property right guarantees, where somewhere it became thought that disuasion from any mindless urge fulfillment would be seen as an impediment to liberty.
I think this is an obviously false premise. Advertising wants you to buy for their success, not yours. It’s often framed exactly as other than attaining material possessions. I don’t suggest this never happens, but I think this is a vast overstatement and perhaps an unfair one. The American dream, for instance, is largely devoid of “possessions” as a motivator. It’s family, stability, security and enjoyment of time with one’s loved ones. Or, this is always what I have gleaned from most advertising.
I agree that this has been almost ubiquitous, but I, parting ways with those like Hitch, think it can be fully ameliorated given the correct circumstances.
I think it’s just one of hte risks. Perverse might be correct for that reason.
I cannot see how a different set of values would be better for people though. It’s proven itself pretty damn well.
I’ve been thinking lately about the long-term significance of Trump. If there’s some sort of civil religion in America, Trump doesn’t have it, and the people who elected him apparently don’t, and they’re in the majority.
Is America heading toward less respect for rule of law and more open indecent behavior?
Maybe, but I think we’d have to have a time machine to determine that. In a century or so, an assessment could be made.
In the meantime, I’ve been reading about complexity theory and how it bears on the likelihood of social collapse. Basically, it says that we can predict that a complex global system like ours will eventually collapse, but we can’t predict when.
Basically correct, but the problem is specifically American rather than Western. It is very difficult for the rest of the Western world to overcome US cultural and political non-leadership. I believe if (magically) we could cure the US of this affliction, the population of the wider Western world (especially Europe) would be open to moving in the other direction (towards sanity). This is in no small part due to geography and history: the old world has a deep cultural understanding of limited physical space and the consequences for borders…and wars.
My hope is that the US will break up into smaller pieces some time later this century. Although some of those pieces might end up being even more extreme than the current US, they would have less influence on the rest of the world.
An interesting OP, but I’m having trouble identifying your target. Who do you have in mind, for instance, in the above quote? Are the class-warfare proponents Marxists or oligarchs? Both? Who views material possessions as the “highest good” – that is, actually espouses this?
It attempts to avoid the tug of war over allocation of resources, with one side arguing entitlement by merit and the other entitlement by ability and need. Entitlement is justified by moral argument, but it’s fairly clear that the morality of a particular system will not dictate its effectiveness and may well be that the better intended theory may result in far worse outcomes.
My suggestion is to offer real buy in to American moral claims, which is that the hedonistic pursuit of stuff does not lead to the higher good.
I get that there are current day prosperity preachers, but they’re a far cry from the austere Protestants or the Thoreaus, and nowhere did Jefferson write of this values of material acquisition. The right to property was part of the right to self determination, not existing because the rebeling colonists envied the king and wanted their own castles.
The target then is the ideology of hedonistic consumption, which I’d argue would alleviate the need for wealth redistribution. If meaning and value can truly be felt to derive from something other than acquisition of material, then the wealthy will be seen as just ordinary folks with a strange fetish.
Calvinists believed that all work should be done to glorify God, not to become wealthy. Benjamin Franklin was a Calvinist, who did become wealthy, but he believed he had a religious obligation to contribute to society with his wealth, building public libraries and such.
It’s going to be hard to counter greed in a society where money is power. Money is emancipation. Even if you strive for self sufficiency like Thoreau advised, you’d still be subject to becoming a slave if you fall into debt. I think Calvinism disappeared for exactly that reason: working for the glory of God isn’t much comfort if you have nothing to give your children but a life of slavery.
This speaks less to the OP than your concern over US world power and desire it be checked. This view from what I recall has grown steadily since the fall of the USSR, and the unchecked dominance of the US, and it’s being particularly flexed under the current administration.
I’ll admit that US consumerism seems tob outpace most other European nations (although there may be exceptions), but I would expect a certain keeping up with the Joneses everywhere.
I tried to qualify this earlier, where I assumed a certain amount of sustenance wealth. I don’t wish to preach vows of poverty or even the evil of wealth, but instead some god other than wealth.
Maybe with AI, automation, and natural population decline, it will be possible. I think a new religion might appear later this century. Maybe that will be part of it.
This is incorrect. TV ads these days promote mainly consumables – drugs (old people are the main audience for TV ads; younger people stream or record and don’t watch the ads), beer, soda, fast food, insurance, etc. The ads do suggest that drugs, beer and soda pop make the consumer active and sexy, but that does not involve “gathering material possessions”.
Trump embodies one American dream not because he is rich, but because he is a grifter and a con man. The American dream was (in the past) embodied in the California and Yukon Gold Rushes, which enriched very few people. Bo Mason (in Wallace Stegner’s “Big
Rock Candy Mountain”) represents the American Dream of living by one’s wits. He’s active, smart and dynamic. If he would have tested his talents at some profession, he could easily have become (moderately) rich. But that doesn’t appeal to him – he wants to trust his luck and his brains to “get rich quick”. He thinks his intelligence entitles him to wealth without hard work.
Occasionally I see an ad that jolts, like one for a Lexus that intones, “Judge a car by the way it makes you feel.” Huh? Why not by how well it gets you from one place to another? IN general, though, ads are for insurance and consumables.
IN the past (more than today) American social status was tenuous – based to a large extent on wealth. This created both striving and insecurity (compared to Europe where an impoverished aristocrat retained most of his status). Americans (and everyone else) long for status and friendship more than for material possessions.
I think Trump is a dickhead (excuse hte languge, but its perfect). He’s not particularly smart (other than as a bit of a troll - he’s great at that, imo truly), he’s not across policy beyond his nose, he’s not across any longer-term strategies and he’s not across his own cabinet.
Potentially the worse, in a manner of speaking, President of all time. That said, I prefer him to Kamala by an absolute landslide. There’s a lot that goes into a decision like that, given I’ve not got much good to say about Trump. That’s more a DM conversation, i think.
His detractors are those in Government, and in the public who are willing to do “whatever” to remove his influence, stop his policies or whatever else. They are clearly the more violent group, and the descent into celebrating, or wishing for the death of other human beings, celebrating murderers, concocting ridiculous legal strategies seems to be squarely with that group - who deem it justified. I don’t argue with that aspect - if they do, then they do. This is not a comment on whether or not that’s defensible. It’s a comment that without a shadow of a doubt the individual behaviours of his detractors are infinitely more motivated by a willingness to devolve and be uncivilized in support of their political position than are Trump and his cohort - no matter how braindead, uneducated or plum dishonest I think (some of them) they might be (which I do, in swathes) (is my take.. .these are not facts by any means).
I do, however, reject entirely the cinematic and wholly ridiculous (imo) speculations about the US coming to civil war, Rule of Law breaking down or any other melodramatic crap that we’ve seen absolutely nothing to indicate. It’s just a difficult time. We’ve seen plenty. There’s only what, two years left - and then what’s going to happen? That’s when I might entertain some more dramatic claims.
Thanks for this interesting post. Its good to deal with a set of practical philosophical issues rather than another debate about the nature of our inner realities.
I am not an American. I am actually a Londoner so I am not inclined to the view that the Americam dream is exceptional but nor will I insult you by claiming that all the wotld’s problems can be blamed on America.
I do think, however, that the world problems are global and need global solutions. Outside of America we look to your country to support international rule of law and the institutions that promote it, and to make a meaningful contribution on the issue of climate change.
I am a humanist and sceptic so I wonder why we need something labelled civic religion. Civic responsibility might do. Or people might be encouraged to be active citizens under varous religious or secular banners.
Finally, I agree that wealth amd status have become ends in themselves for too many people. But I question whether this can be fixed without at least the realistic prospect of measures to limit the growth in inequality which Americans and other western economies have witnessed in the past decades
The US (not unlike Britan), maintains a sense of independence and autonomy from Europe, not deferring to it for legal authority (Brexit for example). I doubt you mean you look to the US for guidance as a moral authority, but you mean you look to it for support of what you take to be right. To the extent you want compliance by the US for what is considered right but what is not accepted by the US as being right, that’s not really an ask America would consider.
The argument is that it’s insufficient for national cohesiveness to just declare a belief in Enlightenment values and expect that to unify. This might be particularly more important for America because it lacks a historical tribal anscestery, but I’d think the same as well for the British sense of identity.
Consider Churchill’s “we will never surrender” speech (compare to Lincoln at Gettysburg or MLK “I have a dream” speech). That wasn’t just clever rhetoric. It tapped into something British, a belief perhaps in autonomy from Europe, a refusal to assimilate to the greater world, a proud sense of history and tradition that will never waver. Americans cannot speak without reference to liberty oro God or biblical reference (as in we left Egypt to the New Canaan with the help of our various prophets, so to speak).
It’s a tapping into formative mythology that builds nations and the dissolution of those common threads leads to a breakdown (so the argument goes). That is why I reference it as a civil religion, not just philosophical ideology.
I’m not suggesting anyone should just accept their impovershed state of affairs and laugh off their suffering as being a small price to pay for the happiness of a close family and friend group. I’m not going down a Darwinian or Libertarian road here either. I agree that there are disparities that ought be corrected insofar as allowing people to live without suffering, but I think some reconsideration of the damage caused by aligning success with wealth should occur.
Indeed! I doubt anything major will happen, personally. I think Dems will have a hard time getting back in and things will just move on… The other option, I guess, is that libs will try to secede or start a war or whatever. But I can’t see that taking much shape either.
I like to think that American/western values are an amalgamation of a few things.
Greco-Roman rationalism as found primarily in the Socratic tradition and the schools that came later, such as the Stoics and the Neoplatonists. This would, however, include people like Heraclitus and other Pre-Socratic thinkers.
Biblical values, and I would define these as a respect for the teachings of Jesus (like the Sermon on the Mount) and a respect for certain ideas in the Old Testament/Tanakh (“Love the stranger,” the Ten Commandments, the Prophets acting as moralists). To quote Thomas Jefferson, “The Bible is full of diamonds of wisdom and dunghills of an age-old political agenda.” He is right to say this (and I’m a Christian); Anyone that says the Founders were openly Christian is lying to you. Their faith, for the most part, was a personal and private thing. I like to think that all the episodes of the Israelites doing completely immoral things show the fact that man is innately flawed. People like Ben Shapiro talk about “Judeo-Christian values,” but I do not like this phrase. Judaism and Christianity, while contributing to the morals of the West, are similar but not the same.
Enlightenment-era ideas stemming from people like Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, Locke, Burke, Rousseau, and Kant.
The classical idea that America is a Melting Pot: A society where different ethnicities, cultures, religions, and languages bring moral progress to a greater whole. For example, Confucianism was one of the greatest influences on the Enlightenment in the Anglophone world. Ronald Reagan paraphrased a line from the Daodejing in his 1988 State of the Union Address. Zoroastrianism, the religious and philosophical tradition historic to Iran and several other countries, talks about moral responsibility and choosing truth and order over evil and chaos. Buddha taught some incredibly sound moral precepts, and the same can be said of The Upanishads and The Bhagavad Gita. The writings of Avicenna, Averroes, Omar Khayyam, and Suhrawardi all champion the use of reason. All of these things can bring about moral progress in the West.
However, I think in the United States in particular the dichotomy between Left and Right, the Progressives and the Neoconservatives, has caused us to regress into moral nihilism. The Progressives do not in any way believe in the notion of “progress” while the Neoconservatives base everything in libertarianism, a free market economy, and “America is a force for good in the world.” Both ends of the political spectrum cannot actualize why they make these arguments because, in my opinion, there is no real serious metaphysical root to them (i.e. God/Providence, The Good, Nature). There are no “Burkean conservatives” anymore and Russell Kirk has been gone a while. Similarly, true liberals like John Rawls and Richard Rorty are not taken seriously by any self-labeled Progressive (I doubt they have even heard of them). According to Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and it is clear that the politically charged individuals should examine themselves in order to bring about a truly free country.