I must, before I die, find some way to say the essential thing
That is in me, that I have never said yet-a thing that is not
love or hate or pity or scorn, but the very breath of life, fierce
and coming from far away, bringing into human life the vast-
ness and
fearful passionless force of non-human things.
-Bertrand Russell
For centuries, both Western and Eastern religions have tried to convey to us the sacredness of all beings, including inanimate things. Christians, for instance, hold everyday objects in high regard as vessels with which they can serve God, and Jewish mystics have taught that every creation contains sparks of the divine. Hindus are known to take great pleasure in ordinary things, which are viewed as manifestations of Brahma, while Sufi poets are able to find the fingerprints of the Beloved on everything. Despite this broad and holy tradition of all religions, many of us still have a hard time honoring and caring for things. Many of us have too many possessions. We value them little, and treat them shabbily. Our materialism lacks depth.
This century is preoccupied with the accumulation of things. Every century has had similar preoccupations, except that they did not have as many choices. Industrial society provided refrigerators, radios, televisions, videocassette recorders, and cars to almost every household. There is nothing inherently wrong with having possessions. It is only when consumption becomes a life philosophy that it undermines seeking higher meaning in life. The philosophy of consumption results in a sense of futility and internal unworthiness.
Paul Nystrom, an early student of modern marketing, portrays the industrial civilization as giving rise to a philosophy of futility, a pervasive fatigue, a disappointment with achievements. It finds an outlet in changing everything into the more superficial things of life, in which fads reign. The tired and unappreciated laborer, instead of changing the conditions of work, and often defeated in his or her attempts to do so, seeks an easier route: renewal in temporarily brightening the immediate surroundings with new goods.
Ironically, and predictably, the propaganda of consumption turns even alienation into a commodity. In short, it may address itself to the spiritual desolation of modern life but finds itself proposing consumption as the cure. It sings the negation of immortality and the futility of everything holy. The Industrial Workers of the World's (IWW) union chant is a case in point:
Work and pray,
Live on hay!
You'll get pie,
In the sky,
When you die-
It's a lie.
T. Byram Karasu is the author of The Art of Serenity
