Catholic theologian Reinhard Hütter, in an important article concerning the virtue of chastity in contemporary society, writes that “we live in a culture of excess.” By this, Hütter means that our culture is awash in materialism. Any and every material item is available to us at the touch of a button, and electronic entertainment offers near-infinite options for our continual distraction. Hütter argues that such materialism presents unique spiritual dangers for our time, chief among which are pornography and boredom, a spinoff of the capital vice of sloth. The virtue of chastity, together with fortitude, is needed if the malaise of excess is to be successfully resisted.
Hütter is hardly alone in noting the perils that come with a culture of excess. Commentators on the consumerist culture of the West have long noted the paradoxical emptiness that is produced by a culture of limitless stuff. The Polish-American writer Czesław Miłosz, for example, in his powerful book The Captive Mind, notes that despite the material poverty and terror occasioned by the Soviet system, it nonetheless had a spiritual grip on human beings because it provided a sense of belonging and so offered people a chance to live (and die) for something greater than themselves. Of course, such a system was evil. But, when we look to the West, asks Miłosz, can the West offer human beings a greater, more wholesome spiritual remedy to counteract the dark proclivities of Communism? Devastatingly, he finds Western society spiritually bankrupt. The rampant materialism of the West has dulled its spiritual conscience, and there is nothing—no spiritual bond—that is capable of calling Western individuals to live for something greater than themselves. If Communism is a failure, those who might look to the West for hope see it drowning in a sea of secularism.
The spiritual emptiness of Western materialism is also captured by author Barry Schwartz in his book The Paradox of Choice. While it is common in so-called advanced societies such as our own to believe that more choice equals more freedom, in fact the opposite is true. Confronted by infinite options, infinite variety, infinite choice, we become paralyzed and our freedom stunted. Schwartz illustrates this with a humorous story at the beginning of his book. Attempting to buy a pair of jeans, his endeavor is complicated by the unexpected variety of choice:
“I want a pair of jeans—23-28,” I said.
“Do you want them slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy, or extra baggy?” she replied. “Do you want them stonewashed, acid-washed, or distressed? Do you want them button-fly or zipper-fly? Do you want them faded or regular?”
I was stunned. A moment or two later I sputtered out something like, “I just want regular jeans. You know, the kind that used to be the only kind.” It turned out she didn’t know, but after consulting one of her older colleagues, she was able to figure out what “regular” jeans used to be, and she pointed me in the right direction.
Schwartz sums up this episode with a sobering reflection on our consumerist culture:
Buying jeans is a trivial matter, but it suggests a much larger theme. . . . When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.
Infinite materialism and the simultaneous choice it brings serves to constrict rather than expand our freedom. Why is this? Part of the answer lies in the fact that human beings are embodied persons, not merely physical beings. We each have an immortal soul, and this means we have spiritual as well as physical needs. We want to belong to and live for something greater than ourselves. We need and desire spiritual goods like beauty and love, happiness and friendship. But such needs are squelched in a society of rampant materialism, as Miłosz observed to his dismay.
There is, however, another reason why unchecked materialism is dangerous. It also influences how we think of our own bodies, including especially our sexuality and gender. The tyranny of materialism is perhaps nowhere more keenly felt than in the realm of human sexuality. This has been noted by sociologist Rogers Brubaker, who uses the apt phrase “the empire of choice” to describe the modern predicament in matters sexual. He writes,
What was formerly given must now be chosen: what line of work to pursue; whether, when, whom, and how to marry; whether, when, with whom, and how to have children; whether and how to practice religion; what to wear; what to eat; what cultural competencies to develop; and what cultural products to consume. Central to the expanding field of choice are questions of how to form, transform, and manage our bodies. As the body itself—our somatic, corporeal, neurochemical individuality—gets drawn into the field of choice, and is laden with all the demand that choice imposes, sex/gender and race and ethnicity become key sites of choice and self-transformation.
One of the distinguishing features of this empire of choice is the belief that everything is subject to our own construction. The world and our bodies do not make sense until we come along and make them make sense. We do this by constructing our own personal realities, and, so the argument goes, it is the mark of an advanced civilization that we should have the freedom to do this.
Of course, what depends upon my construction for its reality can just as easily be deconstructed. Hence the terrible fragility of modern existence. Nothing is stable, it would seem, if all is dependent upon my will, and so it should come as no surprise that our culture is rife with high levels of anxiety and depression. People think themselves free to construct their own realities only to discover that, like a house of cards, their reality could come crashing down at any moment because there is nothing constant and lasting that could maintain it.
How are Christians called to respond to such materialism and its attendant empire of sadness? It is certainly true that Christians are called to live in detachment from the world. Think of Christ’s words, “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mark 8:36). Christians are detached from the world and all its riches so as to be free for Christ. St. Paul put it this way, “For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things, and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Phil. 3:8).
We want to belong to and live for something greater than ourselves.
We have to go one step further, however. If Christians only cultivate detachment from the world, it might be hard to distinguish them from, say, the Stoics or the Buddhists. Specific to Christian detachment, and the inner light that illuminates it as a virtue, is gladness. Christian theology has always taught that the virtues of fasting and abstinence, virtues especially to be cultivated during Lent, stir up joy and gladness in our hearts. In this way, Christians offer the world a powerful antidote to the sadness of materialism. Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper draws our attention to the link between fasting and joy in his classic The Four Cardinal Virtues. He writes,
Hilaritas mentis—cheerfulness of heart. Christian dogma links this notion most closely to the primal form of all asceticism, fasting. This connection is based on the New Testament, on the Lord’s admonition, proclaimed by the Church every year at the beginning of Lent: “When you fast, do not show it by gloomy looks!” (Matt. 6:16).
Pieper here is simply borrowing a phrase from the great Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, who, in discussing the virtue of abstinence, noted:
For right reason makes one abstain as one ought, i.e., with gladness of heart [hilaritate mentis], and for the due end, i.e., for God’s glory and not one’s own.
That is, Christians are called to turn away from the world and its riches in order to turn to God. We do this by fasting, and as Pieper reminds us, fasting, when done for God’s glory, makes our hearts glad. In so doing, we can offer joy and hope to a world trapped in the sadness of materialism. This is especially to be done during the great period of Forty Days given us by the Church. Pieper is careful to remind us that Lent is a preparation for Good Friday and the joy of Easter Sunday:
The great fast of forty days for instance, signifies that the Christian is preparing to share in the celebration of the mysteries of the death and resurrection of the Lord, wherein our redemption, which has its inception in the Incarnation, came finally to fruition. To obtain a share in these exalted realities demands in a special sense the prepared vessel of a free and “ordered” heart; on the other hand, no other reality, no other truth can so assuage and transform the innermost man.
May Lent prepare us to meet the risen Lord in gladness of heart.