fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

There’s Materialism, and Then There’s Materialism

Moreover, saying the free market is a materialist construct steals a base. Critics of the free market say it is materialist. But, with the exception of some Randians, defenders of the free market do not ground their case in materialism. Adam Smith didn’t. Friedrich Hayek didn’t. Michael Novak doesn’t. ~Jonah “Lie for a Just Cause” […]

Moreover, saying the free market is a materialist construct steals a base. Critics of the free market say it is materialist. But, with the exception of some Randians, defenders of the free market do not ground their case in materialism. Adam Smith didn’t. Friedrich Hayek didn’t. Michael Novak doesn’t. ~Jonah “Lie for a Just Cause” Goldberg, Crunchy Cons

Goldberg likes the base-stealing analogy. He never tires of using it. He seems to regard this as some sort of rebuke, when in baseball successful base-stealing is regarded as something of a virtue. So it isn’t a very good analogy.

Materialism is a word that gets thrown around quite a lot, especially in economic and political debates where the term takes on a number of different meanings depending on who is using it and how. There are two ways that crunchies might be using it: as a word referring to the ethos that prizes consumption, acquisition and the satisfaction of desires (in which case, most Americans are materialists and contemporary conservatism is a cheerleader for this materialism) or a word that refers to philosophical materialism and a confirmed belief in monism that rules out the existence of anything other than the empirically observable material world in man and in nature (which few, if any, conservative Americans openly embrace).

The two are not necessarily related, but in his criticism of modern conservatism I believe Rod is linking the two in one way. That is, conventional or “mainstream” conservatism has made a virtue out of acquisition and consumption (which it puts under the umbrella of “freedom”), and has in practise privileged material conditions as the main and ultimately most important things in life. People continue to believe in God, and think that they have souls, and some of them undoubtedly believe this very strongly, but in their way of life many do not substantially differ in the least from the secularist across the street or across town who does not believe these things. They are not actually committed philosophical materialists, but they live as if they might as well be.

Goldberg is, as usual, ducking the issue. The issue is not what any particular theorist says in defense of the free market but the practical effect an unduly positive and uncritical view of the market and its effects has on the way all Americans, but particularly conservative Americans who should know better, live. Rod’s book is an account of the habits of people, habits formed in reaction to the superficiality and ugliness of the world of disposable and transient goods that modern Americans have made an unduly large part of their life. Likewise, what he is critiquing are the habits of “mainstream” conservatives. That’s what has really agitated Goldberg–it’s almost as if conservative ideas might mean something for how we should live, and that the “mainstream” conservatives have managed to get it, well, basically wrong. It isn’t that there is only one precise lifestyle for conservatives, but that conservatives, if they took their own ideas seriously, really should live in a broadly defined way that is not at war with creation, their own nature or their natural affinities. A materialistic lifestyle, whether lived by fine, church-going folk or not, is a life lived in conflict with those three things. Stated broadly, lots of conservatives will shout their agreement. Yes, don’t be at war with creation–that’s a crazy, leftist thing to do! But do they follow up on that agreement in their own way of life? Many don’t, and that’s Rod’s point. Goldberg can talk about stolen bases until the Kingdom comes, and he won’t be able to evade this reality.

There was a market, there was capitalism and there was even heavy industry before rampant consumerism. When crunchies are criticising “the market,” they are primarily criticising the market as it functions today. They might also regard consumerism as simply the logical result of this sort of economic system that prizes individual desire, but first and foremost they are rejecting the compulsion to acquire and the celebration of that compulsion that, among other things, drive Americans into tremendous debt. This drive for acquisition imposes costs on the family and community that a society that prized and insisted on restraint and self-control would not experience. Without this frenetic pursuit of things, modern American conservatives might find an occasion to live more stable and meaningful lives in which they might flourish and actually find happiness. The trouble with consumerism is not simply its incitement of the passions, its sheer emptiness and waste, but also the fragmentation and dispersion of the mind in its focus on these numerous, ultimately unimportant acquisitions. In such a state, there can be no spiritual health and no proper sanity, much less a real flourishing of a human person.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here