A Culture of Consumption

Bewildered at the revelation that his whole life has actually been only a dream, Neo in the sci-fi movie The Matrix asks, "I have all these memories from my life - none of them happened. What does that mean?" "That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are," Trinity responds. In the car on the way to see the Oracle, Neo thinks out loud, seeking answers. Through the exchange, Trinity teaches him a valuable lesson about the nature of the "Matrix," or artificial world that was created to keep mankind enslaved: even though it looks and feels real, its message isn't, nor can it be trusted to tell Neo who and what he truly is.

Though I haven't met anyone who can dodge bullets or jump over buildings, we all share a lot in common with Neo. Just like him, we inhabit two worlds with two sets of values; also like him we must strive to realize that one is illusory, lifeless, and confining. Our "Matrix" is not a computer-generated fantasy, however, but an equally fantastic, material one, and our true reality the world of the spirit. Both are trying to tell us about ourselves, both compete for our attention. But what are the messages, and which do we believe?

The answers to these and other questions are important to consider for anyone interested in cultivating a spiritual life in the face of gross materialism. In this article we explore the features of modern American consumerism and how it has developed. Finally, we examine some of its spiritual implications in light of the Bahá'í Writings.

The "Real World"

The Wachowski brothers' 1999 masterpiece The Matrix is as much social commentary as it is futuristic sci-fi epic; it deals with many important spiritual themes on several different levels. (And it appears the Bahá'ís aren't the only ones to notice). It portrays a world in which a small band of truth-seeking freedom fighters come to realize that all is not as it seems; the world they know is actually an elaborate hoax, an intentional deception, and that true liberty lies in learning the difference between what is real and what is not.

How does this relate to our theme? We also have to learn to distinguish what's real and what isn't. `Abdu'l-Bahá said it best:

This present life is even as a swelling wave, or a mirage, or drifting shadows. Could ever a distorted image on the desert serve as refreshing waters? No, by the Lord of Lords! Never can reality and the mere semblance of reality be one, and wide is the difference between fancy and fact, between truth and the phantom thereof.

Know thou that the Kingdom is the real world, and this nether place is only its shadow stretching out. A shadow hath no life of its own; its existence is only a fantasy, and nothing more; it is but images reflected in water, and seeming as pictures to the eye.

You can imagine, like Neo, that this may not be so easy for some to believe. "This present life" is only our material existence, just a shadow of the real thing; the challenge is to free our souls and ourselves by embracing the former and rejecting the latter.

Unfortunately, however,

Not everybody knows this.
It's awfully easy to confuse the two even when you do (fantasies, after all, are supposed to seem real).
Worse yet, advertisers, media and anyone with something to sell have learned there's a profit to be made in the confusion.
But even this doesn't account for the current state of our consumer culture. How have we strayed so far from our spiritual roots?

The Early American Consumer

It's been some years since American society has been preoccupied with basic survival - at least not since the end of the nineteenth century. The birth of the modern corporation around the turn of the century (19th to 20th Centuries) permitted a virtually unlimited accumulation of capital, much of which was invested in the railroads that established a new, national consumer market. The revolution in manufacturing techniques, greater efficiency and reduced costs led to an abundance of goods. Companies began to face, for the first time, the reality of too much supply. It was in this period that sociologist Max Weber identified what he called the 'Protestant Ethic' literally, the religious pursuit of accumulating wealth, which was believed to be the sign of God's favor.

This was an era of big names and even bigger money. Andrew Carnegie and US Steel, John Rockefeller and Standard Oil, Billy Durant and General Motors - just to name a few familiar fortunes. Many of the companies we encounter today originated around this time. But it turns out anything mass-produced could be overproduced, and the problem quickly became one of regulating the consumption of an explosion of consumer goods. How do we manage a crisis of oversupply? How do we attract more buyers and foster perpetual demand? Simple - create a new world where consuming becomes central to life.

Until the end of the 1800's, American life was principally rural and agrarian. Most of what a family needed could be produced in the home and consumer goods were largely for the wealthy. But it was the lure of prosperity in the cities on account of the new industrial jobs that resulted in the exodus from the countryside and a shift in labor centers. During World War I, military strategists learned - probably to their surprise - just how easy it was to sway the public opinion, beliefs, and values of this new population looking for a new life.

Bigger = Better?

The propagandists of the 1910's became the advertisers and marketing innovators of the 1920's and 1930's as these fields developed into academic disciplines. Alongside the new and rapidly growing motion picture industry, department store magnates like J C Penney, Bloomingdale, and Wanamaker created enormous fantasy worlds of color, glass, and opulent magnificence. They became masters of presentation and their business was to sell dreams. Combined with a growing middle class, swelling urban populations, and increasingly expendable income, we can begin to see the emerging patterns of modern life.

The result? A rampant consumer culture. We live to consume. Gadgets, fashion, food, cars, television, anything that comes in a disposable container, all fueled by sophisticated marketing research, focus groups, and '18-49 demographics.' A material existence, quite naturally, concerns itself with material things: bigger houses, more luxury, greater comfort. And it's only natural to desire these things. Baha'u'llah Himself said no harm can befall the man who wishes "to adorn himself with the ornaments of the earth, to wear its apparels, or partake of the benefits it can bestow," so long as he doesn't allow anything to come between God and him.

But therein lies the problem.

Mixed Signals

It requires a tremendous, a Herculean effort to avoid being overwhelmed by this fantasy consumer world. Like the Matrix, it's everywhere, especially between God and us. In the Hidden Words Bahá'u'lláh tells us that "[t]he rich, but for a few, shall in no wise attain the court of His presence nor enter the city of content and resignation." And frankly, it's not hard to see why: by some estimates, North Americans are exposed to nearly 3,000 advertisements times per day, most of which appeal to our lower nature, subconsciously shaping who we are, what we want, how we live and what we value.

Reflect just for a moment: what is important to you in your life, and why? Who is responsible for the ideas and images that influence you most? Someone looking out for your best interests? Probably not. In fact, in most cases it's probably someone more interested in your wallet than in your healthy development. By contrast, how often do you hear that you are a noble being, loved and prized by a Creator Who longs to commune with you? How often are you aware of that love? It's not always easy to remember this reality on our own. No wonder the shadow world seems to be real, when our true and radiant spiritual natures are so dimmed by its obscuring clouds.

The Bottom Line

The consumer message is simple: serve yourself, for you are a physical being and deserve to be satisfied. At first, it can be gratifying. But there is no end to the drive for material satisfaction - it's a long highway, so to speak, and you've got plenty of gas. It is destined to be short-lived, by its very nature, and ultimately unfulfilling. Once again, `Abdu'l-Bahá said it best:

Such is the case with the man who is wise. He shall never drink from a cup which is at the end distasteful, but, on the contrary, he will seek the cup of pure and limpid water. He will not taste of the honey that is mixed with poison.

According to Shoghi Effendi, materialism is actually a social disease - he denounces it in the strongest language, calling it cancerous, brutal, destructive, crass, rampant, pernicious, all-pervasive. It affects the way we think about our selves and one another, and emphasizes physical qualities over spiritual ones, gratification over selflessness, imperfection over perfection. These are the values of the Matrix world. What has been their effect?

Facing Facts

"Let us acknowledge at the outset the magnitude of the ruin that the human race has brought upon itself during the period of history under review." So begins Century of Light, a document examining the history of the twentieth century from a Bahá'í perspective.

Our modern (and increasingly global) society is not a healthy one. Repeated emphasis on our physical nature is taking a devastating toll. In fact, it's been showing the signs of impending death for quite a while: the prevailing order does, indeed, appear to be defective. Whether we look at the disintegration of social institutions like government and family life, the abandonment of morals and standards of decency, the reckless destruction of the environment, the growth of pornography, the "betrayal of the life of the mind" to empty and squalid ideologies, seemingly unceasing tribal and ethnic conflict, or the rise of religious fundamentalism - wherever we turn, we can see at the heart of all of these trends the catastrophic effect of seeing ourselves and one another as material beings. Unsustainable in the long term, our society "must either be reborn, or perish" for there is a "titanic, spiritual struggle" being waged today over the lives of the earth's inhabitants.

The good news is, the struggle is one that we can win.

"Twofold Process"

The struggle to live in the Kingdom and not its shadow, fantasy world is not unique to modern day North American culture - it's part of the human condition. But what is unique to these tumultous, troublous times is the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, which, paradoxically, presaged the modern conditions which have allowed consumer culture to flourish.

The spiritual energies released by divine revelation, Shoghi Effendi states, has "upset the equilibrium of the world" and is acting "even as a two-edged sword," cutting apart the old ties that once held the world together, while as the same time "unloosing...the bonds" that still hold back the spiritual development of humanity.

The result? Integration and disintegration, order and chaos, the upbuilding of a new, spiritually-centered world on the ruins of the old. The reason that the Matrix/fantasy world has become so consuming is no accident: the strength of its attraction is in direct proportion to the spiritual forces available to us to overcome and conquer it.

In describing the role of the individual, Shoghi Effendi writes that ours is the duty...

...however confused the scene, however dismal the present outlook, however circumscribed the resources we dispose of, to labour serenely, confidently, and unremittingly to lend our share of assistance, in whichever way circumstances may enable us, to the operation of the forces which, as marshalled and directed by Bahá'u'lláh, are leading humanity out of the valley of misery and shame to the loftiest summits of power and glory.

Who Are You?

Do we learn most of what we know about interpersonal relationships from "Friends?" Do we pattern our daily after an episode from "Seinfeld?" Is pop music really full of life lessons? Are you simply a consumer, with purchasing power to be manipulated? An owner of labor hours to be exchanged for trivial and misdirected pleasures? A collection of body parts to be disrespected? Or are you something more? "Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form," Alí says, "when within thee the universe is folded?"

Praise be to God, for giving us life! We are His children, created in His image to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization, in the hopes that we might come to love each other, praise each other, be God's mercy to one another and attain unto a true and enduring happiness. We are the rays of one sun and roses in the garden of God's love; inspired by a noble vision, worthy of every gift, invincible champions of divine justice, we are ever present in `Abdu'l-Bahá's thoughts, stars of the heaven of understanding, shepherds of mankind, birds that soar, firm and steadfast, enkindled, divine, sincere, affectionate, chaste, quickened of God and quickeners of men.

Blue Pill, Red Pill

All of us have a choice. On the one hand, we can live lives of physical ease, comfort, and tranquility if by choosing the "Matrix." On the other, we can choose the Kingdom, which brings happiness and salvation - but it is the more difficult choice, for we will certainly lead lives of suffering and sacrifice. The spiritual path is a lonely one, with no guarantees, even until the hour of our soul's ascension. It's not an easy decision: we'll have to make it again, every day, and unfortunately time will not stop to wait for us. "With every passing hour a fresh affliction strikes at a distracted humanity." Which will it be? Like Morpheus told Neo, when the agents came for him:

"You take a chance either way - I leave it to you."

(all content Copyright National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States, 2000-2003, do not use without permission)