Materialism. One word that can mean so many different things to people. So is it good or bad, right or wrong, helping America or ruining it? According to James Twitchell, materialism has made this country what it is today. Materialism makes us happier and without our possessions we would be sad, lonely, depressed people. On the other hand, there are people who believe the opposite. Materials don’t make us happy, people make us happy. So who is right? It all depends on the person.
According to James Twitchell, buying things is our source of meaning and happiness. As a culture, the whole world spends most of its time making new things to sell. Sadly, this has made American’s materialists. In the United States, we have more than four times as much stuff as people in Europe do. Why is this? Well, Twitchell believes that in every culture people buy, steal, collect, exchange, and hoard things. Most of the things that we do buy have absolutely no use to us; we just want them to make us feel happy (Twitchell 389).
Twitchell also believes that commercialism isn’t the problem. It is only covering the more complex things that are hiding under the commercialism. He said that if you asked teens today what democracy means they would say, “Democracy is the right to buy anything you want.” He also goes on to state that, “Freedom’s just another word for lots of things to buy.” (Twitchell 391) So did he completely take this out of context? From what I’m reading, when asked what teens think democracy means they could have said that democracy, to them, means freedom and that to Twitchell freedom means the ability to buy anything you want.
Another thing that upset me was Twitchell stated that, “spiritualism is more likely a substitute when objects are scarce. When we have few things we make the next world holy.” (Twitchell 392) This completely threw me for a loop. I consider myself and religious and spiritual person. Does this mean I’m not happy and that I don’t have enough things? If I had more things would I still be a religious and spiritual person? To me this made absolutely no sense at all. He also stated that if we had fewer choices that we would be happier. I have to argue against that. My sister when to a private Christian school where they had to wear uniforms every day, and going from a public school to her new school was very difficult for her. She no longer got to choose what she wanted to wear to school. There was so self expression in her outfit and she looked like everybody else. According to Twitchell, this should have made her happier! She no longer had to choose from an array of clothing and she knew that nobody would be dressed better than her. I don’t know about you, but my self-expression makes me happier than my lack of choices.
“Can’t buy me love” was one of the most infamous lyrics! In my opinion this is true! In Twitchell’s opinion, you can buy love and happiness and lack of spirituality. Sure, American’s are materialistic; I’m not arguing there. What I am arguing is the fact that one man believes that our materials make us happy, less anxious, determine who we are, and that debt is actually good for us. What makes us happy is knowing that we have choices, that we are able to buy and spend and do what we want with our money, even if that means saving it. How anybody can understand where Twitchell comes from is beyond me.
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