Materialism

A good talk by Mark Bond last Sunday about the call to leave material possessions, and how they take such a hold on our lives in Western society. I can see what he means, especially when moving house, but I would find it hard to give up my many books; I do gradually get rid of some to the Guide Dog for the Blinds book sale, but it is extremely difficult to do so I feel like Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings, who had a great struggle to give up the ring!

 

Materialism as he noted is fed by our society, with all the advertising playing on what we need, what we must have. Adam Curtis noted much the same in "The Century of the Self", when he showed how there was a great change in the 1930s, and the work of Edward Bernays (drawing on Sigmund Freud) changed the sale of products from information giving to slick manipulative marketting. Vance Packard gave a strong critique of this in a book I still have from the 1970s, "The Hidden Persuaders".  John V Taylor gave a strong 1970s counter-balance in his little book "Enough is Enough".

 

Parts of Jersey society are strongly driven by this. One has only to look at the corrupting influence of language. In architecture, we have "iconic", "world class", "luxury" "prestigious" - all empty tems from the arsenal of the promoter. In contrast we have the somewhat demeaning term "social housing" which has replaced what in my day used to be termed "States Housing". They mean, of course, in a shorthand way, housing for social need, but "social housing" makes one wonder if there is such a thing as "anti-social housing" - Les Marais Flats, perhaps? Or the new "luxury" flats which don't take standard size furniture any more, with box-room bedrooms?

 

The way in which house prices have been wholly driven by market forces is something that those in poverty now see most clearly, and desparately but those well on the property ladder seldom grasp. Ethical considerations are something lost from the materialism of the market place,

 

Amos 2:7 They trample down the weak and helpless and push the poor out of the way.