It's Toasted: Happiness is the Truth? Part 2

Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is OK. You are OK.--
Don Draper, Mad Men: Season One, Episode One: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes 

When I say there's going to be a part two of a particular post that's usually the clear sign that there isn't going to be one. But I guess I did have more to say on the topic of happiness. Here I connect our contemporary conception of happiness with consumerism and offer the spirit of detachment as the antidote.

The last time out I wrote about happiness by way of a Peter Kreeft lecture and Pherrell Williams song. The basic premise is that what we call happiness denotes a temporary, subjective state of contentment as opposed to the deeper Christian understanding of blessedness as a permanent state that transcends moods or passing states of physical comfort. Dr. Kreeft makes a point that the Ancient Greeks had two words for happy that covered these respective ideas, but we have reduced it to the one related to a transitory, subjective condition.

This is important because we speak a lot about being happy in life, and how this is the standard by which we judge if we are moving in the right direction or not. If we aren't happy then that's a sign that we're either not in the right school, the right job or even the right romantic relationship and need to get out of where we are. Certainly feeling emotionally uncomfortable, stressed or empty is a clear sign that something is wrong, and that maybe a change of scenery is in order. Or maybe the change needs to come from inside of ourselves. There are people who jump from job to job or from one partner to another and after the initial novelty wears off they're back to feeling bored, empty and stressed. Because the focus is on the feeling of being happy as the standard of what is true we paradoxically can fail to really look inside of ourselves honestly, automatically assuming that the people or situation around us is the cause of our lack of contentment. If we are to be honest our consumerist culture doesn't help us any in the department of being self critical.

I'm not going to get into a big debate about the relative merits or lack there of of capitalism (I happen the think its taken an unfair beating of late). But there is no denying that a negative byproduct of modern capitalism is a consumerist mentality that reduces us to consumers of goods as opposed to people who use goods. We consume food and water because we can't live without these things, quite literally. While the computer I'm writing on makes this communication and it's posting to the Internet possible, and my life a lot easier, I will live to see another day if it crashes and I can't get my hands on another. Would I be content with the situation? Of course not. My hope though is that my self image or feeling of worth as a human being would not be effected by such an occurrence.

Consumerism ties our self worth, and our idea of happiness, to what we own. It tells us that we can't be truly contented in the depths of our heart without a particular car, or the latest electronic devise or the hottest new look. It focuses us on our selves, and in many cases creates needs we often wouldn't even consider wants if they weren't presented to us in a manipulative way. Goods are no longer products we use when we need them for practical reasons, but objects of desire that we project our self image and self worth onto. They become what defines us, even for only a moment. Next week, next month or next year we will be on to the "next big thing" that will bring our life meaning, or so we think. The last big thing is thrown away, whether we might be able to get some more use out of it or not because it's simply not the latest.

Consumerism can also be pandering. It really doesn't want us to examine our selves or the reality around us. It anesthetizes our conscience so that we will keep on this never ending cycle of consuming, throwing away and consuming more, without much thought to whether it's actually in our best interest.

In the very first episode of Mad Men Don Draper struggles to come up with a new ad campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes. It's 1960 and the government is already putting limits on the claims tobacco companies can make regarding their product's healthfulness in light of emerging research to the contrary. After almost losing the client Don does his usual quick thinking and comes up with the "It's Toasted" tag line (in real life this had been their slogan for decades). When he's informed that all tobacco is toasted, he replies, "No. Everybody else's tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strike's is toasted." With one simple phrase he evokes the feeling of wholesomeness and comfort, and no government agency or consumer protection group can accuse him of misrepresenting the truth because all tobacco is indeed toasted.

Consumerism is indifferent to consequences. It doesn't judge. As the quote above tells us, it is here to reassure us that whatever our activities or habits are, we are a good people. So keep on going the way you are going, don't change habits, just change brands.

Now, I'm Catholic, which means that I appreciate and value the material world. Genesis tells me that creation is good, and that God even called it "very good," after beholding all that He had made. I believe that God uses material things to communicate His grace through the Sacraments. So this is not a matter of judging material possessions as bad and spiritual ones as good. But it is saying that material possessions are only good in as much as they help us to fulfill our vocation in life. Don Bosco, who was well known for his frugality, spared no expense to buy the best printing press available for the Oratory so he could train his students and print his books and pamphlets. It's this spirit of discerned indifference, or detachment, that separates a consumer of goods from a person who uses material things as they are needed.

By keeping this spirit of detachment from material things we can judge better what is of true value, what is really necessary to our lives and what is superfluous. Detachment helps us see that our worth as human beings is not tied to our possessions but to the fact that we are simply human beings. Detachment helps sharpen our critical sense; since we understand that we really don't need things to be fulfilled we aren't as likely to be taken in by false claims and deceptive practices that try to convince us otherwise.

There is another dimension that I haven't developed as fully as I would have liked: the moral neutrality of consumerism's promotion of a transitory happiness. That will have to wait for another day. So, no promises, but don't be surprised if there is a part three somewhere down the road.