Is materialism destroying society? By
Lawrence Baron
In theoretical philosophy we have
the old problem of materialism. Basically, is the physical world the highest
order of existence followed by mind, soul, spirit, and so on? Or is there some
form of higher order existence such as mind or spirit and materialism is just a
subset of this higher superior order of being?
This problem takes us back to such
ideas as the mind body problem, spirituality and superior intelligence by the
gods. In other words, early in our evolution we felt the world around us was
mediocre and our ancestors came to the conclusion that there must be a superior
power that can make our lot much better. This idea must be one of those memes
that originated in the archaeological mental past at the birth of Homo sapiens
but it is still with us today.
Of course, there is no superior
power since our idea of superior power fits perfectly well with the models of
natural selection and biological group structures. The low level monkey not
only had to contend with the whims of their second level monkeys, but all the
monkeys had to contend with the whims of the chief monkey. No doubt the first
philosopher monkey must have had the idea that surely there must be a better
and far superior chief monkey than the one we have. And thus Zeno’s paradox was
born and the superior intelligence model was formulated.
But it must have been a clever and
brave marketing and sales monkey to persuade the chief monkey to buy into the
idea that there is a superior and more powerful monkey than the chief himself
and that we should worship it. And then be appointed director of ideology. This
brings me to applied philosophy.
In applied philosophy, basically
the activities we mostly get involved with during our meetings, we have the
concept of materialism, as in the title of our discussion, which we also refer
to as consumerism, economic materialism and maybe even capitalist society. I
will use the term social materialism or even consumerism to distinguish from
philosophical materialism.
My only caveat about the terms used
is that I consider everything we need and desire that is not freely available from
nature must be considered as social materialism. Anything that requires human
brains or human labour must be regarded as social materialism because we do not
only consume sports cars and mobile phones but also medicines, packed food etc.
The idea is that consumerism is
changing or even destroying our society because we do not endeavour in more
lofty activities such as building better cathedrals, write more poetry, spend
more time preparing wholesome food and, of course, meeting in coffee shops and
rustic restaurants, like Plato, Socrates, and friends did, to discuss the
infinite and life in general. Basically, today we seek meaning in life by the
thrill of what we purchase. Spending money on big ticket items, such as a
sports car, gives us the emotional high and elation which is probably the equivalent to our ancestors bringing down a mammoth for lunch.
But this scenario begs two
questions: 1) how is social materialism changing or destroying society? And 2)
what is society changing from? We can quickly get rid of the idea that society
was better in the past. It wasn’t.
In 1846, the Viennes doctor, Ignaz
Philipp Semmelweis, suggested that if doctors washed their hands before
treating women during childbirth this might reduce the number of female deaths
at childbirth (a). And although the results were spectacular in 1847 there is
still an issue today about washing hands.
Furthermore, in 2016 the World
Health Organisation reported: Last year, an estimated 303 000 women died from
pregnancy-related causes, 2.7 million babies died during the first 28 days of
life and 2.6 million babies were stillborn. Quality health care during
pregnancy and childbirth can prevent many of these deaths, yet globally only
64% of women receive antenatal (prenatal) care four or more times throughout
their pregnancy (b).
These are just two examples to
illustrate the point that life and society was never better in the past. I also
use these two examples to show that even if consumerism is having a negative
effect on society there is still enough “decency” left in society to
"invest" in real needs technology. We don’t just produce sports cars
in our society.
But social materialism has changed
society; we understand the material and physical world much better today than
ever. We can manipulate the material world to meet our whims and desires: we
can build bridges over valleys, use efficient light cars instead of horses, and
in 2019 we can change and manipulate the human body with our technology that
would have been unimaginable in 1846.
In any event, we also interact with
our material world because that's the only world we have. This is, indeed, what
it means for something biological to be natural: something biological has to
interact with the material world around it. Our capacity to learn from
experience also makes us slightly different from other creatures who do not
necessarily adapt to new situations. And one of those differences is of course
our capacity to understand and formulate ethical concepts and the idea that
something can be better. Indeed our relationship with the material world is one
of more and better.
My two real world examples
demonstrate that social materialism, whether of real life need gadgets or
consumer goods, social materialism can solve some of our problems. What has not
changed is the will to make social materialism accessible to everyone. Consider
this fact about one of the richest country in the world: The number of
uninsured Americans has dropped from 48.6 million in 2010 to 29.3 million in
2017 (c). That‘s practically the combined population of Hungary, Austria,
Ireland and Denmark (29,220,087 Wikipedia).
The problem for Dr Semmelweis was
that his well run and paid for teaching hospital for midwives had a mortality
rate of one in 25, whilst the paupers hospital for medical students had a
mortality rate of one in 10 (a). If spirituality is the highest order of being,
why is there such a discrepancy in real life?
The reality about this topic is
that, yes, materialism has and is changing society, we can do better things at
the materialistic level. We also know more things about the world around us.
But in the philosophical debate of whether there is some lofty superior existence
to being human, the answer is clearly, no. No changes here as I have
demonstrated. The ethical and spiritual society of the gods has not changed at
all; we’re still the immoral and non spiritual biological blobs we have always
been. We have changed the monkey, but we haven’t changed the attitudes of the
human monkey.
(a) The
Dirty History of Doctors’ Hands by Leah Ginnivan
http://www.methodquarterly.com/2014/11/handwashing/
(b) Pregnant
women must be able to access the right care at the right time, says WHO
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/07-11-2016-pregnant-women-must-be-able-to-access-the-right-care-at-the-right-time-says-who
(c) 30
Staggering Healthcare Statistics to Know in 2019
Dr. Nikola Djordjevic
https://medalerthelp.org/healthcare-statistics/
Best Lawrence
Is materialism destroying society?
by James O'Doherty
Is Materialism Destroying Society? By Ruel F. Pepa (c)
Is materialism destroying society? By
Lawrence Baron
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