Materialism and today’s World
In some ways the gold diggers' rampant materialism
was understandable, since they were living at a time of great poverty, and for
many of them gold digging seemed to offer an escape from starvation. But most
of us in the country today, industrialized world don't have that excuse.
Our appetite for wealth
and material goods isn't driven by hardship, but by our own inner discontent.
We're convinced that we can buy our way to happiness, that wealth is
the path to permanent fulfilment and well-being. We still measure ‘success' in
terms of the quality and price of the material goods we can buy, or in the size
of our salaries.
Our mad materialism would be more forgivable if
there was evidence that material goods and wealth do lead to happiness. But all
the evidence fails to show this. Study after study by the psychologists it has
shown that there is no association between wealth and happiness. The only exemption
is in cases of real poverty, when extra income does relieve suffering and brings
sanctuary. But once our basic material needs are satisfied, our level of income
makes little difference to our level of happiness. Research has shown that, for
example, that extremely rich people such as billionaires are not significantly
happier than people with an average income, and suffer from higher levels of depression. Researchers
in positive psychology have
concluded that true well-being does not come from wealth but from other factors
such as good relationships, meaningful and challenging jobs or hobbies, and a sagacity
of connection to something bigger than ourselves (such as a religion, a political or
social cause, or a sense of mission).
Explanations for Materialism
Many economists and politicians believe that materialism
- the desire to buy and possess things - is natural to human beings. This seems
to make sense in terms since natural resources are limited, human beings have
to compete over them, and try to claim as large a part of them as possible.
One of the problems with this is that there is
actually nothing ‘natural' about the desire to mount up wealth. In fact, this
desire would have been disastrous for earlier human beings. For the vast
majority of our time on this planet, human beings have lived as
hunter-gatherers - small tribes who would usually move to a different site
every few months. As we can see from modern hunter-gatherers, this way of life
has to be non-materialistic, because people can't afford to be weighed down
with unnecessary goods. Since they moved every few months, unnecessary goods
would simply be a hindrance to them, making it more difficult for them to move.
Another thing is that the restlessness and constant
wanting which fuels our materialism is a kind of evolutionary mechanism which
keeps us in a state of alertness. Dissatisfaction keeps living beings on the
look out for ways of improving their chances of survival; if they were
satisfied they wouldn't be alert, and other creatures would take the advantage.
In my view, acquisitiveness is best understood in
psychological terms. Our mad materialism is partly a reaction to inner
discontent. As human beings' it's normally for us to experience an underlying
‘psychological discord', caused by the incessant chattering of our minds, which
creates a disturbance inside us, and often triggers negative thoughts.
We look to external things to try to alleviate our
inner discontent. Materialism certainly can give us a kind of happiness - the
temporary thrill of buying something new, and the ego-inflating thrill of
owning it afterwards. And we use this kind of happiness to try to override - or
compensate for - the fundamental unhappiness inside us.
In addition, our desire for wealth is a reaction to
the sense of lack and vulnerability generated by our sense of separation. This
generates a desire to makes ourselves more whole, more significant and
powerful. We try to ‘bolster' our fragile egos and make ourselves feel more
complete by accumulating wealth and possessions.
It doesn't work, of course - or at least, it only
works for a very short time. The happiness of buying or owning a new item
rarely lasts longer than a couple of days. The sense of ego-inflation generated
by wealth or expensive possessions can be more enduring, but it's very fragile
too. It depends on comparing yourself to other people who aren't as well off as
you, and evaporates if you compare yourself to someone who is wealthier than
you. And no matter how much we try to complete or bolster our ego, our inner
discontent and incompleteness always re-emerges, generating new desires. No
matter how much we get, it's never enough. As Buddhism teaches, desires are
inexhaustible. The satisfaction of one desire just creates new desires, like a
cell multiplying. The only real way of alleviating this psychological discord
is not by trying to escape it, but by trying to heal it.
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