Part of a segment on 20/20 the other night was about Denmark, because it was the place where people were happiest in the world. One of the factors cited was that it was a post-consumer society, where possession of “things” was inconsequential in terms of personal prestige and hence self-worth.
As I was driving around yesterday, noting yet again that everyone on Long Island is required to drive a car worth nearly as much as a house in most other parts of the country, where Mercedes Benz, BMW and Range Rover were de rigor for anyone aspiring to someday be middle management, I was struck again by the absurdity of the status conscious.
What a source of unhappiness these things bring people. As a lawyer, I get to hear some of the sordid details that hide behind the facade of relative success. People struggling to keep up the payments on their baby Benz or maxing out their credit cards to put a Rolex on their arm. All to show their neighbors or colleagues that they aren’t losers. Mind you, it isn’t to prove success, because having the same thing as everyone else just places you in the pack, not above it. But to not have the accoutrement’s that are deemed a necessity is to tell the world that you are the loser of the group. No one wants to be a loser.
As I drove my Toyota Prius (because we’re “green”), I passed a Ford Taurus. It was an old one, looking pretty shabby. Mind you, it was an ugly car in the showroom, and it clearly didn’t get better with age. It stood out like a sore thumb amidst the shiny European SUVs and sports cars surrounding it. But it drove well enough to keep up with traffic. I assume that its driver found his way home safely.
One of my neighbors, a gentleman (in the old-world sense of the word) from an old and well-known family, who had inherited substantial wealth and did quite well with it on his own, once invited me to join him at his country club. It was a club where I would not be allowed to join, and I accepted. He picked me up in an old, amorphous looking Buick. After putting my clubs in the trunk, I kidded him about his car. Couldn’t he afford to get himself a nice little Bentley to cruise around in?
He smiled at me broadly. He told that this car wasn’t his, but his wife’s (who happened to be a scion of the Rockefeller clan), though his car was no newer or more prestigious. So I asked again why he didn’t drive a “better” car. He laughed and responded, “because I don’t have to.”
This quest for prestige is killing us. No one ever wins the battle. At least not for long. There’s always someone bigger, better, richer and possessed of a toy you don’t have. But the struggle to keep afloat is killing so many people, dragging them down, engulfing them, to no avail. This is the arms race with bling. Forget the TV commercials, does your wife really love you more because you drive a BMW? Would owning a Porsche really make you look taller, slimmer and younger?
Our consumer-driven society is not making us happier, but it is sucking the life out of so many people who struggle beyond their means to find self-worth in material possessions. Having just posted about how a law degree is not the guaranteed engine to wealth, I wonder how many lawyers don’t want their clients or in-laws to think they are unsuccessful and put on airs that their practice can’t justify.
For the sake of sanity and happiness, I hope this society can grow beyond this in my lifetime. Until then, I repeat to my children the words my courtly neighbor told me whenever they ask me why I won’t buy them some ridiculously expensive, and utterly inconsequential, trinket. Because I don’t have to. I hope they understand.
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OT — A Post-Consumer Utopia
Bookmarked your post over at Blog Bookmarker.com!
One of the best things I’ve ever done for myself was to spend a bunch of money studying abroad. I’m still paying on it, but it gave me the perspective to recognize the inherent futility and limitlessness of most American’s pursuit of wealth.
I was in an Irish pub, crying in my Stout over the beauty of hearing the locals sing songs together at closing time when I went to pay the bartender. He gave such great service but when I went to leave him a large tip, he looked at me as if to say, “What’s that for? Did you think I was being nice because I wanted some cash?” Instead of being grateful he looked at me as if I was enabling greed.
In England and Ireland it didn’t seem, like it would be here, that being a bartender beyond the age of 30 was a mark of being unsuccessful. Success seemed to come less from possessions and more from doing your job, whatever it was, well.
When I used to be a public defender, my clients’ name brand, typically loud-logoed clothes probably cost three times what the second hand suit I was wearing cost (I still shop at goodwill btw). Some people thought of this need to dress gaudily and faux richly as a cause of their indigency, but I saw it as a effect.
They were unemployed and poor, on the lowest rung of an hierarchical society and needed to “be like Mike” with that corporate logo not because they were greedy but because they were needy.
To not do so was to become not only members of a lower caste but to become almost untouchable, as if you were not only broke but unconnected.
Great points, David. That’s a fascinating observation of how the lower one is on the social ladder, the more one needs to feign wealth and importance. That was what my gentleman neighbor was saying to me, since he was on the very top rung and had no one to prove anything to. But it didn’t require that one be at the top of the ladder, only that one appreciate the mindset of no longer needing to use material things to impress anyone.
Hi, I saw this 20/20 the other night and found it fascinating. I hope to find soe excerpts on YouTube for my blog…found your blog while researching “post consumer societies”. I am a person who lives fairrly “lightly” I am an artist and filmaker…and the art work Ive been making for the last few years is about 85% recylcled materials.
Great post!
Candy
Your artwork is 85% recycled material? Then you have a lot in common with lawyers, because most of stories are 85% recycled material. Welcome and I hope you read some more.
I am the owner of a two lawyer law firm with two assistants. I was quite astounded when one of my assistants told me that she was moving into a $500,000 plus house. This was three years ago. I was also amazed to find out that my law clerk who is now an associate had decided to purchase a house that was $400,000. I live in a house that cost me less than $200,000. Even taking into account the real estate bubble that has popped all around the country, neither one of these people could afford the houses that they were purchasing. In fact, both of them are in serious financial problems because of their decisions.
My wife and I would look around us and always ask the same question how could people with less education or less income afford so much more than us? We live our lives for the most part debt free. We pay ahead on our 15 year note and try to buy cars pre-owned. Yes, I am constantly wishing I could afford more toys and bling. I love the bling. I blame marketing in this country for this predicament. I resent seeing sales people getting paid to convince people who are not predisposed to purchase a product do their best to convince us that we are in dire need of the latest and greatest product.
As I raise my children, I will try to remember the mindset that my family will not have to acquire things because we don’t have to. Of course my wife and I realized a long time ago that there would always be others ahead of us as well as behind us. We try to live our lives not in the pursuit of material things, rather we try to be the best parents that we can be and the best spouses. After all, I want to be remembered as a great father, a good husband and a beloved grandfather, not as a rich guy who had nice toys.
Hey Adam. And your kids will be better people for it. Shedding the need to possess and compete for material things brings enormous freedom.