The increasing rigid way in which our character is compartmentalized has me irked. Oh, I know, nothing new under the sun and all that, but my little hobby consists in pointing out what I believe to be trends. Human history is comprised, for the most part, of one bad idea triumphing over another; when someone finally does come up with some new truth, usually a forgotten old one, it is either ignored, misrepresented, or poked and prodded until its usefulness is nearly nil.
But back to character, or the supposed manifestation thereof. We humans, we Americans, are busy, oh so busy. Gandhi once said “There is more to life than just increasing its speed.” Americans would actually tend to agree as it is also important to accumulate endless supplies of mostly worthless junk. This Americanism epitomizes what Soren Kierkegaard would call the aesthetic lifestyle. In Either/Or, he explains, “Boredom is the root of all evil. Strange that boredom, in itself so staid and stolid, should have such power to set in motion.” To escape the evil of boredom, we rush and rush, and buy and buy. Kierkegaard concludes that this lifestyle eventually ends in despair, but willful and purposeful participants in the aesthetic lifestyle do not, as a rule, read much Kierkegaard.
Everyone reacts, in spectacular knee-jerk fashion, to the thought that they may be participants in something so trite as perpetual consumerism on speed. But pervasive societal traits must be the mark of a substantial portion of the citizenry or comments thereon would be utterly irrelevant. Nor do I claim for myself a life entirely free of the Kierkegaardian aesthetic. As Chesterton once observed, “we lose our bearings entirely by speaking of the "lower classes" when we mean humanity minus ourselves.” Count me in with the lower classes.
The problems with consumerism are many and well known. Because it is my column, I choose to concentrate on one: the degradation of character as marked by humanity's slouch toward a materialist viewpoint. Buying and selling things is not bad per se; but there is far more to life than the acquisition of mere things. Communism failed for many reasons, but even had it triumphed ushering in a utopia wherein everyone had all one needed—a curious employment of the term, given the insatiable human appetite—the utopia would have been a failure. One is reminded of Edward Bellamy's idyllic tome “Looking Backward”. I had to pause reading time and again to prevent myself from screaming—or laughing. The characters of the novels had all they wanted, all they could have, and had to work but little for it. And, evidently, they were happy. The poor saps.
The author of Ecclesiastes, very likely the wise and wealthy king Solomon knew better. He had tasted of all that the earth had to offer, and still he despaired. “I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity... And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor: and this was my portion of all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.” The despair of the aesthete is present in the Hebrew scriptures centuries before Kierkegaard. Bellamy's characters ought to have looked further backward.
Yet even before it leads to despair, aestheticism leads to shallowness. The character of the purebred consumer is one bereft, not only of virtue, but also of any real vice. It is pitiable because it is human, but it seems indicative of little more than animal instincts on autopilot. It is almost too dispassionate to be of any great evil.
As consumers, we now categorize our personalities, and that of our “friends” by these trite instincts. The best examples come from Facebook and Myspace; we match interests in things so important as movies and television shows, to favorite bands and special groups, in order to make “friends”. These friends we may never meet, never talk to face-to-face, but we know they because they like the same things as we do. How wonderful.
I do not propose that we scrap either Facebook or Myspace entirely. They, like any other tools, have their uses. Nor is it problematic to look for common interests. All ladies with an affection for Chesterton are encouraged to befriend me. But human character is not only made up of interests, even those so prescient as an adoration for a forgotten British author. Instead, it is made up of intangible characteristics, flaws and merits, which can neither be measured nor posted on a web-page. Chesterton makes a delightful topic for an evening, and even for a lifetime, but he would be the last to suggest that he would satisfy the soul. Humans are funny creatures, and we best not forget that there is likely more here than meets the eye—and which money cannot buy.
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