This article first
appeared in Evangelicals Now in 1998.
At the end of the 20th century, there is a profound feeling in
the West that somehow our civilisation is coming to an end.
It is interesting that this failing society is at the same time
the consumer society. What are we to make of the fact that with
wealth, production and choice honed to a pinnacle, somehow our
society is decaying? What are the connections between these two
great distinctive features of our times?
This is no doubt a subject which could properly deserve years of
research and close thought. However, as Christians, such a
connection should not surprise us at all. It is not the city of
man but the city of God which remains. his alone is the eternal
kingdom (Daniel 2.44; Mark 1.15).
Considering contemporary society, there are surely ways in which
we can see connections between cultural decline and the
assumptions of consumerism. We might say that consumerism has
within it the seeds of its own destruction.
1. The earth's resources
At the level of the world's materials, the way in which consumer
society is gobbling up our planet's resources makes such a
society unsustainable in the long term. The statistics tell us
that 20% of the world's population currently consume 80% of the
world's resources. If we all want to live in a high energy, high
pollution, throw-away society, there is no green technology that
can cope. The Green movement through the world is doing a noble
work in highlighting these facts and throwing down the gauntlet
to the crass materialism which dominates the aspirations of
mankind. Sadly, in our post-modern world of individualism, the
warning may not be taken seriously. Perhaps the ultimate
subjectivist would simply refuse to be concerned about the future
of the planet. In the words of Groucho Marx, their mindset is
probably: 'What's posterity ever done for me?'
2. The birth rate
Following on from the last remark, we should note that this
desire for individual pleasure fostered by a consumer society
does lead many people to turn away from the idea of having
children and growing a family. Raising a family is just too much
of a hassle for hedonists. Some would say that the
individualised, consumer society treads a path therefore which,
taken to its conclusion, leads to self-destruction. People are
living with 'happiness now' as their primary goal in life.
Writing in the early 1990s, A.H. Halsey said: 'Few women and
fewer men would rationally choose to have children in a world of
exclusively short-term egotistical calculation. The costs and
foregone satisfactions are too high. Hence rich countries with
the modern ethos have declining or incipiently declining
populations. (For a stable population, there must be a total
fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman; Britain has 1.8; West
Germany has 1.6; Italy and Spain have 1.4 or even 1.2). The
individualised, as distinct from socialised, country eventually
and literally destroys itself.'
3. Destruction of morals
Consumerism is, obviously, profoundly materialistic. There is a
strong argument which says that the idea that the physical
universe is the only reality (philosophical materialism)
inevitably leads a society which believes that, to slowly fall
apart.
The argument goes something like this: in the early phases of a
society in history, the force behind moral imperatives comes
largely from a belief in God or other supernatural spirits.
People keep the laws as they believe they are accountable to a
higher being or beings. But the dynamic which promotes economic
prosperity and higher standards of living arises largely from the
conviction that the material world is of primary importance. This
same dynamic, however, develops so as to attack belief in the
supernatural and thereby undermine the authority of moral
standards which have enabled the people in the society to work
together and to function. This eventually leads to the
destruction of the very security and prosperity on which the
society was built in the first place.
One of the latest proponents of this argument is Anne Glyn-Jones,
former Devon Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. In
1996, she published a book entitled Holding up a mirror: how
civilisations decline in which she showed how this thesis has
worked itself out already in the different civilisations of
Greece, Rome and medieval Christendom and is now working itself
out in our own Western culture.
A society which is fundamentally materialistic, Glyn-Jones calls
a 'sensate' culture. In an interview she gave to a magazine, she
said: 'I was surprised as I looked at different cultures that
having a superior technology does not save a sensate culture from
collapse. Greek technology was superior to Roman, and Roman
technology was superior to that of the barbarians. But they all
fell. And we can see a hint of that today in the way our Western,
technically superior cultures have been expelled from Somaliland
Afghanistan, Vietnam and so on. Despite considerably more
advanced Western technology, our sensate cultures could not cope,
obsessed with individualism as they are, with an enemy prepared
to die for a greater good.' (The Therapist, Vol. 4, Number 1,
1996).
4. Majority silence
The vulnerability of the consumer society to decline is also
caused by its concern for personal peace and security. The old
saying tells us that all that is required for evil to triumph is
that good men should keep quiet. Consumerism is the drug which
causes ordinary people to fall into moral sleep and remain silent
on all kinds of public matters. As long as their little world of
peace and relative prosperity is not disturbed, they are happy
not to get involved. It is against this background of consumer
complacency that all kinds of moral relaxation can arise within a
country.
The flip-side of this is that the consumer society is one which
rewards disruptive elements within society. If people make a
great fuss and cause much inconvenience or fear within a consumer
society, there will be great pressure not to resist unless their
demands directly threaten the material wellbeing of consumers.
Rather than pursue a course of difficult confrontation with the
disruptive element, the momentum of opinion will generally be
along the lines of giving in to demands, buying off the
vociferous protestors, so society can return to the serious
business of enjoying itself. Questions tend no longer to be
settled using ideas of what is right and what is wrong, but
simply in terms of pragmatism with the goal of maintaining
prosperity and peace
Highly motivated groups within society recognise this
vulnerability and are encouraged to pursue ever more extreme
forms of disruption until they get their way. Consumer society is
one prepared to sacrifice its ethics on the altar of the material
'feel-good' factor. How long can such a society remain
stable?
5. Taxes and government
It is taken as read that the idea of the possibility of increased
taxes was what lost the Labour Party the 1992 election in the UK,
while Tony Blair swept to power with Labour having promised
consumers that there would be no increases in taxes.
Alongside this desire to keep taxes as low as possible, we have
seen a general increase in the wealth of average wage-earners.
But in his 1997 book Dark Heart: the shocking truth about hidden
Britain (see review in July EN), the journalist Nick Davies has
set out how this piece of superficially good news hides a
terrible discrepancy. As wages and standards of living have
generally increased, the able and gifted, brainwashed by the
individualistic 'look after No. 1' philosophy of consumerism,
have left the poorest in society way behind. Let me quote some of
the statistics the book exposes.
'The rich have done best. By 1993/94, the wealthiest 5.5 million
people in Britain (the richest 10%) were each enjoying a bonus of
£650 income for every £1,000 they had been receiving
in 1979. In other words, as a result of changes in salaries and
taxes and benefits, they were 65% better off. This has nothing to
do with inflation. These figures have been adjusted to take
account of changes in prices. The very rich have simply become
much richer.
It is true too of the mass of other people. By 1993/94, the
population of Britain as a whole saw an increase in income of 40%
since 1979 . . . it was only the poorest quarter - 13.7 million -
who were left behind.
The Treasury's own figures show that by 1993/94, the 5.5 million
people in Britain who had least money (the poorest 10%) were
something like £11 a week worse off than they had been in
1979. This took account of all their spending, including housing,
and again this had nothing to do with inflation . . . they were
14% poorer. For every £1,000 which had come their way in
1979, they now had only £860.'
What Nick Davies' book explores is the shocking lifestyle of
abuse and crime in which many of the poorest people in our
country are caught up. Here is the heart of desperate drug
culture, of teenage prostitution and the violence of bored young
men who see themselves as worthless. How are such problems to be
tackled? Do we believe that central government has a
responsibility for the wellbeing of the nation? If we do, then
whether we believe the answer is in terms of increased education,
increased policing, increased social security or increased
opportunities for people to get into work, the obvious point is
that whichever route a government decides to take, it will need
money to invest in such schemes.
However, at the same time, as we know, the majority in the
consumer society is extremely reluctant to allow the government
to raise taxes to pay for these things. Any party which toys with
the idea of increased taxation has very little chance of getting
into power. This situation then leaves the consumer society in a
very precarious position. Here is a deprived, depressed and
potentially very violent underclass but, at the same time,
politicians have their hands tied behind their backs through lack
of finance to thoroughly address the problem. Again we see the
consumer society as one which seems to carry within it the seeds
of its own destruction.
Consumerism is extremely comfortable. It charms us and consoles
us at every turn. It has the effect of putting us to sleep and
telling us not to worry: 'You're all right, aren't you?' But for
all its claims, the consumer society is peddling a false sense of
security.
JEB
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