so what…? [a follow-up to the previous post]
May 10th, 2006 by Andy
So what? This was the response that Chris gave me when I asked him to read my previous post. I asked him if I was too opinionated (it’s hard to imagine, I know, but I am sometimes). Nope, he said. I’ve got nothing against what you’ve written, it’s just that I don’t know what to do with it… I said, well that’s what this week’s message is about, I can’t spoil it.
He didn’t know that and neither do you, so perhaps I should say it: this week’s message is subtitled ’so what?’. If the empire is bad, so what? If an all-consuming consumer culture is fighting to control my imagination, so what? If the clothes I buy are made from environmentally unsustainable textile crops and by the equivalent of slave labor, so what? If we are called to be an alternate community of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, love and peace… so what!? If we enjoy the benefits of living in a culture of idolatrous greed and violence, so what? If I buy bananas for $0.69 a pound while the woman who picked them can’t afford to feed her family, so what? If I live in a warm comfortable house while the coal that is burned to give it energy is mined by blowing the tops of mountains, so what? If the safety and economic stability of my nation is ensured by the destruction of other nations and the death their citizens, so what?
So what if I can’t imagine life in any other way? So what if resistance seems futile? So what if instead of imaging my creator, I am branded by the pushers of the ‘American Dream’ and their products. What if, faced with the ‘American Dream’, we stood up and said, “we beg to differ! That’s not my dream. Not if it makes an idol of consumption and distorts my call to image my creator!“
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It seems like there’s the chicken and the egg thing happening here with consumption. Do we consume because we are so influenced by the images of the empire that our resistance is futile? Or, do the distributors of goods and services respond to consumer demands?
I think there is a relationship void in America that is readily filled with “stuff”. New toys and experiences provide readily available affirmations and comforts in the absense of meaningful relationship-based counsel. Consumerism and materialism is less a product of clever marketing by the powers that be (are we really that gullible and compulsive? Lord help us if its true) and more a by-product of our business and shallow social lives.
[Insert cheap plug for Making Room for Life group here]
What do you think?
Comment by Chad — May 22, 2006 @ 9:58 am
Wow. Andy, you better becareful with stuff like this. The empire might come and get you. I mean you almost sound like a Christian who is not necessarily affiliated with a particular political party. What a phenomenal challenge to our way of thinking. Your challenge resonates with my heart becuase we as Christians so quickly and easily are caught up in the materialism and stuff of our culture. What would happen if all of us sought to live in a modest manner?
Chad, I think that sadly much our consumerism and materialism is due to the gullibility and compulsion of the general public, most will believe anything. I would like to think it’s simply shallow lives, but ignorance and the choice to not learn and engage is much harder to deal with.
Comment by Dan — May 23, 2006 @ 10:45 am
I would like to introduce my good friend from CMU days, Dan Rose everybody! I’m watching my back bro, dont’ worry
Comment by Andy — May 23, 2006 @ 3:03 pm
Dan, my man, I have a hard time believing that you would make a consumption decision b/c you were moved by the heineken commercial during the Pistons game. I think more highly of you.
Really though, people in our country move around so much that our social fabric is nill. When we have a bad day, there’s nobody to go to for affirmation or support. (the exception to weak social ties is found most often in faith communities, so I might not be preaching to the choir) Because we move around so much, its hard to establish deep binding familial relationship to find comfort and belonging. Those same feelings of comfort are fastly and readily available at the Gap, Best Buy, Home Depot, blah, blah, blah. Common, Dan, you know you feel like a new man when you walk out of a Baker Bookhouse binge.
Comment by Chad — May 23, 2006 @ 8:18 pm
I think it is a both/and to tell you the truth… I think that we are influenced in subtle and powerful ways from the moment we are consciously aware of our surroundings (tv, fairy tales, toys, etc.). It’s not gullibility but an inability to imagine the world in any other way.
I also think that as we as a society drift more and more toward nihilism, we tend to fill the void just as Chad suggests, with binge consumption.
AND, I believe it goes much deeper than a humanistic understanding of cultural forces would allow. You know, the principalities and powers that we would so like to ignore the existance of. In my humble opinion, we desperatly need to hear the prophetic voice again. Sadly, as A.J. Heschel puts it, this voice tends to ring one octave too high and is therefore dismissed as too uncomfortable or unsafe…
Comment by Andy — May 24, 2006 @ 10:39 am