I have been told that job changes and moves are the most stress-inducing activities most Americans regularly experience. My family's recent move from Washington, D.C., to Minneapolis would seem to verify one aspect of this claim.
Striking out from friends, family, community, and a familiar neighborhood, the unknown world of the Twin Cities loomed forebodingly. Recognizable grocery chains, bookstore outlets, and thrift stores gave way to unfamiliar names and arrangements.
My then-3-year-old daughter, not one who reacts well to change, was quite concerned about the move. She was being asked to leave a familiar pre-school setting, close friends, and her dad's workplace (where she received consistently wonderful attention).
In the end, she was persuaded by the discovery that her favorite restaurant in Washington, Pizza Hut, would be just a few blocks from her new home. Same personal pan pizzas, same salad bar, same Tuesday night kids' specials, same movie promotions. Once the car hit the parking lot in Minneapolis, alight in a reddish glow from its well-known marquee, she acted as though she was re-entering the womb. She was in a familiar place.
Her experience, though somewhat crude, is not unique. For most Americans, the greatest sense of security comes from a familiarity bred through consumption. When vacationing, many people search for the Golden Arches rather than opting for the local cuisine, and head for the malls for the same merchandise they find in their own area. Why? To feel more "at home." In consumption, community is established.
In other ages, different institutions functioned to soften the effects of relocation, fostering the sense of "community" and "relationship." The church's denominational organization ensured familiarity in theology, mission, and ritual for those changing residence. Workers' unions provided similar social and political opportunities, as well as a place to find like people. And more recently, 12-step programs have offered people instant access to familiar circumstances, even in unknown surroundings.
Being a consumer is now the unifying factor. And national chains offer the eucharistic experience: In our spending we are united with people of all (recent) times and all (First World) places.
Perhaps the biblical message should be adapted slightly to reflect the culture in which we live: "By their possessions and lifestyle you shall know them." How and where we spend our money says as much about us as any activity--political, religious, or social.
THE READERS' GUIDE TO Periodical Literature, the bible for magazine researchers, has no listing for the term "consumerism." The American Heritage Dictionary offers two definitions--"the movement seeking to protect the rights of consumers" and "the theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is economically beneficial"--but neither reflects the heart of what I understand consumerism to be about.
Consumerism is the real-world transaction of goods and services. Broader conceptually than materialism, which embodies the negative connotation of greed and has become intimately tethered to the activities of the preceding decade and the difficulties of this one, consumerism is much more ambiguous: It incorporates the necessary barter of goods as well as the unnecessary accumulation of "stuff."
The problem is that America has become a consumer culture. It is being built on the manipulation of perceived need of things, not the identification and fulfillment of actual human needs.
Many Americans perceive consuming as their last and best exercise of choice. The experience of alienation toward a political system that seems to deny rather than encourage real choice has turned well-rounded citizens into narrowly focused (and nearly unconscious) consumers. Though the ethic of variety and choice is a promise of the pluralistic democratic system, the focus on consuming is the result of a lack of true access to that same system.
WHAT IS OUR RESPONSE to this dilemma? What can be done to control our consumption and thereby begin to unlock the system? One answer is that we must become more savvy to the politics of economics.
Those of us who attempt to live a "simple lifestyle" inadvertently contribute to the dissolution of community--and promote alienated consumerism--when we interpret "simple" to mean "cheapest." When we feel we must buy our goods at the cheapest possible source, we end up shopping at warehouse or chain stores where employees are paid low wages and the profits go to outside corporations; or dining at franchised restaurants, where the produce is shipped in from out of state; or reading books from nationally run bookstores that aren't concerned with local or regional reading interests.
If living simply means letting neighborhood stores die while national chains survive, we--the simple livers--have participated in a great injustice. Simple living with the potential for social change includes learning to recognize who benefits (and who loses) by how and where we spend our money, not just how cheaply we live.
For example, Sam's Wholesale Club, the brainchild of Sam Walton, has become a remarkably successful commercial venture as a membership wholesale network, adding to his estimated $23 billion estate. By buying in huge quantities and centralizing in key locations, these large warehouses lure buyers from far and wide--people who might otherwise shop closer to home.
In addition, growing national chains across the country such as Wal-Mart (with "everyday low prices") and Walgreens, both also begun by Sam Walton, sell merchandise at retail prices that undercut the prices of such small businesses as local 5 & 10s, card shops, and pharmacies. Shopping in America has been transformed.
The voluntarily poor of pocket, as well as the middle class, have been drawn to such places like moths to a campfire, unconsciously supporting industries in conflict with their values. Cheap comes with a price tag--usually poor labor practices, low reinvestment in the community, and aspirations for monopoly control of a market.
Many of us deliberate ardently over a $25 donation to Common Cause for its campaign reform effort. If, however, we purchase a $300 television at Sam's Club, "our money" may support financially an even more narrow political agenda, one that could seriously limit our options. Our efforts to increase choice may end choice, without us even recognizing it. After all, Sam Walton is quoted as telling Ronald Reagan in 1983 "to keep up the good work."
OUR POLITICS OF SIMPLE lifestyle don't mean much if they're not rooted in our politics of economics. In my Longfellow-Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis, a 10-minute drive from the Mall of America (see "Attracted and Repelled By the Mall of America," page 18), several choices for grocery shopping exist. Rainbow Foods is a large supermarket and Cub Foods is a food warehouse. In both, survival seems the primary goal of food shopping. Busy at all hours, these stores host shoppers and employees as interchangeable parts in the industrial machine.
At Riverside Market, on the other hand, where the prices are 10 percent higher even with a $5 rebate for every $100 you spend on groceries, people recognize you when you arrive. The employees chat about neighborhood children, and if you're lucky, you even get chided for forgetting to bring back your returnable milk bottles.
Walking out of Rainbow Foods, I feel mugged; at Riverside Market, I feel served. That's proof to me that we don't have to lose our humanity in the monetary exchange. Does the difference in quality of life carry a price tag? Perhaps, in a way. But strong neighborhoods require our resources--time, energy, and money--and they offer long-term benefits in return.
Every community has more economic, and therefore political, power than it perceives, at least all poor and moderate-income communities (wealthy communities know their influence). And communal responses increase the level of power and influence.
People of faith can be at the forefront of this endeavor. Congregations can commit institutionally and members individually to support neighborhood providers of goods and services. These congregations can then build coalitions of church and community groups to enlarge the commitment. Just this activity would provide significant security to neighborhood businesses.
We create the world in part by our spending habits. Are we willing to make the choices for the future we want? The benefits seem worth the cost.
I was heartened the day my nephew arrived at my house with his newly acquired T-shirt (from a street vendor at the university). With a hand-stenciled silhouette of a downtown skyline, the shirt reads: "Support your neighborhood....Don't shop at the Mall of America." Now there's a message (and vendor) worth supporting.
Bob Hulteen was Under Review editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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