The Transcendental: The Church Project

Material Vice

I think there's no argument about materialism being a societal disease. Materialism suggests that something went wrong and it's to do with an excess. But I was thinking: How do we really define materialism? What counts as materialism? How does someone's relationship with money and possessions actually translate to materialism?

Now, I already had this thing in mind while I was doing the laundry and I found it really interesting how materialism could present itself in these subtle, understated ways. 'Cause when people hear the word 'materialism', the word 'corruption' comes to mind, but then what does corruption born out of materialism look like? How do you go: This person is corrupted by his money and possessions. How? It automatically turns into an ethical argument. 'Cause for the most part, when you think of corruption, then you go: unethical practices. But what are unethical practices when it comes to money and possessions?

But then I was thinking, you shift the lens from ethics to virtue vs vice and, well, hell, I think that's a better way to examine it. 'Cause materialism suggests excessiveness and well, that relates it to vice. It's like drinking alcohol occasionally and alcoholism. So, for a societal disease, materialism is a vice that manifests itself in corrupt practices, and this corruption results in something destructive or just generally, unwanted. The problem is that people could be unaware of the corruption. But what I found is that words and action reveal corruption in that when somebody speaks you just know that there's materialism and because the person's relationship with money and possession corrupted their speech, and the same goes for their actions. So, it is not really being rich or wealthy in terms of having money and possessions that make somebody materialistic, it depends on the speech and his relationships with other people. When somebody starts looking down on others and just because they don't happen to have as much money or possessions and when they become just disrespectful with their speech and their actions, that's corruption manifesting itself, where virtue is not present and there to be found is vice. Because the apparent placing great importance on the value of money and possessions became a corrosive agent that eroded somebody's virtue. The mind got corrupted and the person starts valuing people according to money and possessions, almost like they don't see people, just the material possessions, and then these people would only respect you if you have the money and possessions. And a virtuous man, well, he respects everybody, and treats everybody as equals. They don't objectify people, they don't disrespect people.

So, materialism gives birth to a lot of injustice and it's just like a disease that gnaws on people's character, people's spirituality, people's humanity. It's a manifestation of misplaced values that makes people look bad, actually. The vice replacing the virtue make them look uneducated and just out of control with their relationship with money and possessions. They mistreat people and just have these delusions of grandeur, superiority complex that is of course also a symptom of an underlying disease.

So, I think when looking for manifestations of materialism, speech or language is a huge revealing factor. But I think the problem is that when deep in the pit of materialism, people just kind of just open their mouths almost like they are incapable of thinking of anything that matters to them at all - it's just money and possessions - like they're obsessed. There's some sort of rabidness with the speech. But then the corruption happens in the mind and the spirit, and speech and actions just happen to tell us of what's happened.

Now, what could be the root of materialism? That's like asking the question: How do people get afflicted or get sick? How do they catch materialism?

I used to get put off by the smell of materialism in people. But now, I know that that's because I had this materialism at the opposite side of the spectrum. I'm gonna write about that later, but yeah, I also had materialism, just not that kind. And it just used to turn me off. I get turned off by the speech and the behavior, it's just very off-putting. But now, I just see it as an affliction, a disease, that resulted from, interestingly, a form of insecurity.