The Religion of Consumption

The Religion of Consumption and

The Reshaping of the World.

. In David Loy's essay "Religion and the Market," he proposes that consumerism has become so widespread that it is becoming a religion. Benjamin Barber would term this growth as "McWorld" in his essay, "Jihad vs. McWorld" Benjamin Barber presents two ideals which govern the world today. The first being the ideal of Jihad, and the second is the ideal of McWorld. These two ideals are what eventually leads to what Barber presents as a world identity. He presents a world in which American styled commercial capitalism has transformed the world into theme parks. The world is also becoming more interdependent due to diminishing resources, and the multinational corporations like GM. Jihad, the weaker of the two opposing factors presented by Barber, is the idea of people isolating themselves into "tribes" based on culture. Within sovereign nations people are forming fragmented identities which do not necessarily correspond with that of the national identity. Barber uses the conflicts in what was Yugoslavia and in Burundi-Rwanda to enlighten the reader about the tribal trends that are found throughout the world. Peoples are forming groups or tribes based on ethnicity and/or religion and then, in some cases, feuding with other tribes within the same national borders. While Loy only believes that a world taken over by consumerism is harmful to our future, Barber believes that a world taken over by both consumerism and religion can be as equally harmful to our future. In Alister McGrath's essay "Starting All Over Again," religion and science can complement each other in understanding God, mankind and the world. It does so by arguing that scientific explanations are incomplete. Whereas science explains how things come into being, religion deals with their meaning, purpose and value. Since facts and values are different, religion cannot be based on science. Nevertheless, religious views should be in agreement with the scientific understanding of the world, in order to be credible and communicable in our modern society

The thesis of McGrath's essay is that dialogue is possible between science and religion. The scientific attempt to understand and explain the external world is controlled by the prior reality of that world, in that the theories which science builds and tests are constrained by the way the world responds to the questions posed by experimentation. .

Both science and religion models the unknown in terms of the known. ." This dialogue between science and religion can be used to analyze Loy's essay "Religion and the Market." Loy refers to what he terms as "the religion of the market", a belief system which offers "salvation through consumerism" and whose message, "buy me if you want to be happy", is transmitted through the mass media using "the most effective proselytising technique ever developed": addictive advertisements. Loy regards the desire to accumulate ever-increasing amounts of money and material possessions as a religion because he feels it is motivated by the spiritual drive which he believes all of us possess. All of us have a sense of lack. Buddhism says that there is no self. Well, I think all of us know this intuitively but we hold it back. And the way it comes out is in our great concern for security, for grounding ourselves. Benjamin Barber, however, does not have a Christian perspective. Barber is a humanist, and views liberal democracy as the most reasonable hope for humanity. He views the decay of the Nation-State's boundaries as a powerful threat to humanity, because of what typically fills the spiritual vacuum left behind: Jihad, or McWorld.

Loy says that many of us ultimately turn to religion or spirituality in an attempt to cope with this lacking that we sense within ourselves. Sometimes we do it consciously; but more often than not, we do it unconsciously. We try to ground ourselves in unconscious ways. And one of those very important ways in is money. We hope that if we have enough money then we will feel comfortable and secure and complete. But the problem with consumerism is that it's fed by advertising. And it's fed from the other end by the need to make a profit and that's the sense in which I don't see it leading, in itself, into something that's healthy. Similar to the fear Loy has of consumerism taking over religion, Barber fears the beginning of McWorld as a new Dictatorship, which would sweep human rights aside like the enlightenment did the Bible. As Christians, I don't believe we share this bleak view, because we do not have so much hope vested in democracy, or the nation. We understand that neither patriotism, nor economic success, are fruits of the spirit, but that goodness, peace, and love are. Furthermore, we understand that we are not commanded to pursue prosperity, but justice and mercy.

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All three authors poses issues that I believe they failed to provide solutions or alternatives to. Consumerism does not really make us happy because it doesn't really give us what we think we are going to get