March 15, 2006 at 11:15:58

The Challenge of Affluence: A Root of Our Moral Crisis?

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By Andrew Bard Schmookler (about the author) Page 5 of 5 page(s)

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At present, though, the most powerful educational influence now operating in America has no such goals, and no such effects. I am talking about that mighty teacher-- advertising.

Advertising is a highly developed technology of persuasion, operating largely in the services of a system that is all about buying and selling. For the overwhelming majority of the ads to which Americans are constantly exposed, therefore, the only distinction that matters is between choices that involve spending money and those that do not, and distinction between right desire and wrong desire is irrelevant. Indeed, as most of our spiritual traditions have taught that true fulfillment is not to be achieved through material acquisition, advertising is more likely to ally itself with wrong than with right desire.

Advertising not only teaches material values, it also teaches other ways of regarding life that run counter to our best traditions of wisdom and morality. It teaches a kind of self-preoccupation. You deserve it all. Treat yourself. It teaches an ethic of immediate gratification. By now, pay later. It teaches indulgence. Eat this, it is sinfully delicious.

Thus any cultural revolution to supply the missing ethic of wise choice must overcome the influence of one of the most expert and most abundantly funded molder of contemporary consciousness. And with the most powerful institution in America profitting from the culture of indulgence, it is hard to see where a comparable force is to be found to drive the advance of wisdom to discipline Americans' approach to the satisfaction of desire.

American society does contain other institutions that might help with this shaping of the new dimensions of moral discipline, this new ethic of wise choice. There are schools, churches, families, the media of ideas. At present, all these are deeply contaminated with the forces of moral anarchy, and some also with the darker forces that this moral anarchy has allowed to rise into positions of great power.

But cultures can renew themselves and grow in various ways. The teachings that comprise our the moral traditions of our ancient traditions took a long time to develop out of the cruelties of history, but emerge they did out of the human drive to live well-ordered and fulfilling lives, and out of the social evolutionary imperative for cultures to craft what works for the long haul. For the development of this new supplementary moral vision, we must rely upon those same driving forces.

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day

The changes that are needed, like everything deep and fundamental in culture, will take time.

And so we ought not flagellate ourselves over our failure yet to meet this moral challenge. Because of the magnitude of the cultural renovation our new circumstances require of us, our inability to accomplish this readily is entirely understandable . Our affluence, that is, requires of us such a deepening and broadening of our moral understanding --such a major cultural revolution in long-standing ideas about the good in human life-- that it is wholly to be expected that it would take generations to negotiate the transition.

Nonetheless, there are already some emergent signs of the emergent ethic. In this still-increasingly obese society, we can also see the emergence of an ethic of regular exercise and of healthful eating. In the midst of our trashy culture, there are signs of opposition to the debasement of the human spirit, and the emergence of other forms of expression that elevate rather than degrade. In the midst of our still unchecked materialism and self-indulgence, there has emerged and ethic of voluntary simplicity. And, in the realm of social responsibility, even as SUVs increasingly dominated the American vehicle fleet, the demand for more environmentally responsible hybrids has outpaced some manufacturer's ability to produce them.

Given time, the culture might well catch up with the new material circumstances of affluence. Given time, and if our affluence proves sustainable for the coming generations, our culture will likely succeed in developing an ethic of wise choice as fully developed as that ethic of duty it must supplement to create a moral vision adequate to our need. Given time, the culture will supply a discipline to help guide people toward a fulfillment deeper than mere consumerism can offer. And given time, people will integrate that inner discipline with their responsibilities toward other people and with the needs of the wider world.

First Things First

The task of that cultural transformation must, however, await our meeting the more immediate crisis--the fascist threat represented by the present American regime.

Even if it is so, as I have argued elsewhere -- www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=147 -- that the rise of fascism is a consequence of a general moral loosening; and even if it is so, as I argue here, that this moral loosening is the result of the inadequacy of our cultural tradition for disciplining and guiding our uses of our new-found affluence; the immediate need is to turn back these forces of darkness so that they cannot imprint their brutal and hollow vision onto the evolving nature of our society.

The house needs renovation. But it's burning now, and first we must put out the fire.

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Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. (more...)

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