Paying attention to how consumerism affects us

Last week’s article ended by asking some questions that “might assist us in noticing what is shaping our desires and to decide what—and whom—we want to become available to.” I think this is a valuable exercise for anyone—Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist or agnostic—for it asks us to pay attention to how the broader cultural world that we live in shapes us.

It’s important to refrain from believing that the consumerist culture we live in, for instance, doesn’t shape our desires. Consumerism begins shaping our desires at an early age. We are formed to approach commodities, experiences, relationships and even our identities as things to select, possess, customize and discard once they no longer seem useful or enjoyable.

However, I am not saying that consumerism “causes” our desires. That’s a completely different giraffe wearing a fake mustache. Sorry, I might be channeling the surrealist artist Salvador Dali right now. Consumerism exploits the void or loss that desire circulates around.

The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan believed that when a child becomes a language animal—that is, when the child begins articulating its needs to its parent(s) via language— they can never say exactly what they need and the responses from significant others can never satisfy. Once we use language to ask for what we need, in other words, something is left over. We can never state our need perfectly, and even the most loving response cannot completely meet it. Slavoj Zizek, a Slovenian cultural critic and philosopher, states that the “final purpose of our demand for an object is thus not the satisfaction of a need attached to it but confirmation of the other’s attitude toward us (in “Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture” p. 5). When a friend shares a chocolate bar with us, the chocolate becomes a sign of their care and affection.

Consumerism can exploit this situation by offering the lure of satisfaction through the commodities on offer. This new shirt, dress, vacation, game or experience will fill the void; it will satisfy my feeling of emptiness. But, of course, they can’t. Some needs are real, though, like food, housing, safety, rest, friendship, medical care or meaningful work. The trouble begins when consumer culture turns an inexhaustible desire for wholeness, belonging or love into a series of solutions that can be acquired by a credit card.

I began by suggesting that it is worthwhile to examine our desires and the forces that shape them. I now want to suggest that attending to this void or emptiness may help us resist an endless consumerism that cannot satisfy.

Here, perhaps, Benedict and Lacan are not as far apart as they might appear. Lacan says that no object can close the void at the core of desire. Benedict, in a very different vocabulary, asks us not to run from our incompleteness by grasping for more. This is why he criticizes people who run from one desire to the next. His Rule instead invites a life of stability, prayer, work, shared meals and attention to other people. This is a life where we learn that we are not made complete by possessing more and more. Benedict is suspicious of private possession within the monastery. He writes, “Let all things be common to all, as Scripture says, so that no one may presume to call anything his own” (RB 33:6). In a modern context like ours, this might mean that, rather than pursuing endless satisfaction in commodities, we might pursue “goods” that strengthen the communities we inhabit.

Consumerism tells us that emptiness is a problem that can be solved with products. Benedict suggests something more difficult but perhaps freeing. Emptiness may be a place from which to listen; not only for what we want, but for how our desires might become part of the common good.