Here’s a provocative and compelling post by Fr Stephen Freeman, explaining why it is hard for people in a democratic society to grasp the very idea of God. It is hard even for people who consider themselves “religious.” The assumptions of democracy, that every person freely defines himself and determines his course, prepare us to think of God as just one more choice.
Fr. Stephen is right on target in identifying a contemporary mindset that gravely disrupts our ability to relate to God, or even to think about him clearly. But I wonder if the culprit, even more than the democratic form of government, is consumerism.
Advertising catechizes us 24 hours a day to think of ourselves as independent, powerful, admirable, and wise. It tells us that we are unique and fascinating, and that we can show the world how magnificent we are by buying something cool. It tells us that we are “good” people, and therefore deserve to buy ourselves a shiny or tasty treat. (What if our conscience is troubled by something hard to call “good”? That can be swept aside on the grounds that we’re “only human.” Besides, it’s worse to be judgmental.)
So many billions of dollars are poured into researching and perfecting this program of manipulation—this brainwashing—that it’s not surprising how effective it is. It seems to be able to get under the skin of anyone anywhere. People in every land accept this view of self and the world without resistance. It might take a generation or two to wipe out a millennia-old traditional culture, but once this power is unleashed it is too tantalizing, too delicious to resist.
So here we have a person who has been continuously fed a message—one he likes very much—that he is a good and wise person who deserves a treat. He is in all situations a customer, and habitually scans an array of choices and selects the one that pleases him best. How, then, would he conceive of God? God appears to be, if not a product, then a service that he is being invited to consider. God’s job would be to serve him, the customer (as someone said, God is our “shield and butler”), keeping him safe, comfortable, and happy. Since God is omnipotent, he should find that easy to do.
But down the line the customer will develop complaints. This God is a bigger version of a human being, and like humans has a specific job to do: he’s supposed to keep everyone safe and happy. But does God do a good job? Why does he allow bad things to happen to good people? Why is this or that unpleasant thing in the customer’s own life? Is God just incompetent? The customer knows that he himself does everything right, for his own conscience confirms this. But when he looks at parts of life that are under God’s control, he sees a mess. God is either incompetent or a buffoon.
(I think this view of God as a bigger version of us, who should be doing a better job keeping everyone happy, is one of the reasons that the “problem of evil” has been so much discussed in recent years; it’s the favorite club atheists use to batter Christians. It’s a concept of God that is surprisingly infantile, but in many cases all people know about God is what they were taught as infants or children. It doesn’t occur to them that there might be more to know.)
As Fr. Stephen points out, this mindset saturates us so much that even when we sincerely seek to know God and submit to him, even when we try to give up our freedom to choose our own way, we inevitably continue to make self-directed choices at a lesser level. Orthodoxy is a strange form of Christianity for our culture, in that it is fairly relentlessly focused on God rather than the customer. But even we Orthodox can’t help arranging, decorating, the edges of our faith to please ourselves, to demonstrate that we are this particular flavor of Orthodox.
This ocean of advertising does not make Man the Consumer, Homo Emptor, happy, of course. There is always the disappointment with the thing purchased, once you get it home. There is always the needling desire for a new thing. There is always the tension of endlessly wanting more, but not wanting all that anxiety-provoking debt. There is always wanting to eat more, but not wanting to be even more overweight. The catechesis of advertising is designed to produce only the craving for something, and not to resolve the side-effects of that craving. Such negative side-effects might even be positive, in terms of sales, if the only way we know to comfort ourselves is to buy something new.
I think there are two other ways that the School of Buying disturbs and saddens us. One is that it teaches us to see ourselves as consumers rather than producers. When there is something to buy, it doesn’t matter how we made our money. All that matters is spending, and our only role is to devour. We are coaxed to devour by means of pampering, affirming messages, which are very pleasant to receive, and we know that the indulging of desires feels good too; but this cycle leaves us with a vacancy where there should be a sense of accomplishment, a sense that our lives contribute to the world. Humans need to work; even before the Fall, God put Adam in the Garden “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). It’s often said that “pride in workmanship” has disappeared, that people no longer feel good about the work they do all day, I think that is one of the effects of a culture wholly given over to consumerism.
The other negative effect has to do with the paradox of belonging and independence. Consumerism lays great emphasis on independence; how often advertisements tell us we are original, we are rebels, we think for ourselves! The problem, though, is that we are a deeply social species, and want to be cared for and loved. There’s such a thing as too much independence. We’re sold the idea that we can indulge ourselves physically and sexually any way we like, and it’s nobody else’s business; but by the same token, it’s nobody else’s concern if we end up broken and alone. In his Feb 2015 interview with AARP magazine, Bob Dylan noted that “We see the glamor of [vice] on a daily basis—everywhere we look, from billboard signs to movies, to newspapers, to magazine.” But “We don’t see the people that vice destroys.” They’re invisible.
The consumerist realm endeavors to finesse this by telling us we can prove how original and independent we are by buying objects that signal those qualities to the outside world. This is a paradox—maybe it would be more accurate to call it an absurdity—because the truly original, independent, rebellious person is supposed to scoff at the opinions of the outside world. One who is “marching to the beat of a different drummer” is supposed not to care what people think. But we do care; we want to be thought cool and fashionable, and we want to belong.
So advertising tells us that if we buying and using certain objects it will certify us as original and independent in the eyes of the world. There’s a bit of sleight-of-hand here, because if such an object is recognizably fashionable, it must not be too original. Its ability to communicate coolness is contingent on a public that can correctly interpret and approve the object’s message. (There’s a further paradox: how can something be uniquely self-expressive if it is being produced by the millions at a factory?)