The motion of the ocean, and other ideologically flawed mumblings

I see many of my close friends, and people of my generation, haunted by the specter of materialist guilt. There seems to be this prevailing notion that money is evil, materialism is a shallow placebo, and consumer culture, as my history professor liked to put it, is "headed off a cliff."

The irony, of course, being that these same people want for relatively little, materially. They live comfortably, eat well, are in good health, and spend their off hours entertaining themselves with highly technology-oriented pastimes. So does this critique of crass materialism constitute a form of self-loathing, or is the enlightened existence of the gewgaw-free Luddite a Platonic form to aspire to -- or, even less flattering, something those troublesome "other people" should embrace on our behalf? (I've got mine. You give up yours. You know, for the Earth!)

But that last bit is too uncharitable a read. Perhaps we feel guilty because we have plenty, and we feel unworthy because so much of the rest of the world has so little. And so we feel guilty because we care. Not enough to really do anything about it, of course -- maybe we give a few bucks to a charity if we find them worthy of our leavings, but as far as giving of our time and ourselves you can forget it -- but we feel just bad enough to prevent ourselves from enjoying the plastic shit we just spent our entire work week plugging away to buy. What's the motivation? What are we trying to prove, and to whom are we trying to prove it?

Does the young American, disillusioned with consumer culture, sell off all his stuff and live a monkish existence, surrounded by only the bare walls, sitting lotus-style with fingers pressed to thumbs and muttering a Spartan OM to the gods of sustainable living? Idealistic, to be sure, but doubtful. I know one fellow who does this, and he is regarded by his friends as unsettlingly hardcore, teetering on the brink of madness. Most of us don't live in that universe. We have to drive to work, and replace our blue jeans when they get holes, and shell out for a phone so we can call our mothers on their birthdays. This isn't Tibet, and chances are we're not out for enlightenment, only satisfaction. It's time to stop lamenting our comforts.

As with most things, it's not the tool, but what you choose to do with it. We live in a culture where so much is built for us. Our gadgets become a form of self-identification: I'm a Mac. I'm a PC. My iPhone is my life. These things are hunks of plastic; of course life seems empty when you try to map your soul onto them. Unless you helped develop your cell phone, you have no reason to be proud. This is America, and in general, anyone can buy shit. Buy your things. Love your things. Don't try to become your things. Technology is neither good nor evil -- it's the purpose to which you set it that matters. Set it to no purpose, and life will seem purposeless.

If you want to feel good about your life and your place in American consumer culture, build something. It doesn't have to be profound, or world-changing, or even well-done. It's easy to tear things down, criticize, poke holes. These are, in fact, the easiest things in the world; for the clever, they require no effort, and no risk. You lose nothing at all by dismissing the work of others. Rejectionism is boring. Throwing away all your belongings probably isn't the answer, although throwing away the shit you genuinely don't want anymore is probably a good start. We are living in the 21st century, in the midst of a dizzying technological revolution: the post-information-scarcity society. We have the tools. We have the technology. We can rebuild the world.