A great episode of The Simpsons, called “Trash of the Titans,” opens with a pitch meeting in the boardroom of Springfield’s flagship department store “Costington’s”:
Cut next to the Simpsons’ living room, where Love Day is in full swing with decorations, presents, and celebrations, all for a holiday invented out of thin air. They open obnoxious, contrived presents, which only disappoint their recipients -- Bart disappointed by his nonsenical “Kisses-Make-Me-Boogie-o-Lantern” and Homer by his stuffed bear, who turns out to be Sir Loves-a-Lot rather than his wished-for Lord Huggington.1 Then, Love Day is over before it started. The gift exchange ends with haste. Marge has assembled an elaborate, gaudy lawn decoration display that she decides must come down immediately. The rest of the family gathers the wrapping paper for the trash.
Leave it to The Simpsons to properly lampoon our consumerism with such acerbic wit. We can’t help ourselves, and that’s what makes Love Day so insightful. While there’s a fitting time and place for gift exchanges and parties, the frequency and intensity of these moments feels out of control. We look for and invite these moments so often and do them up so big that our consumerist tendencies can’t help but get inflated.Think of engagement and marriage: proposal photos and stories, engagement party, engagement photos, engagement announcements, bridal shower(s), bachelor/ette party(ies), save the dates, wedding website, wedding invitations, Friday welcome party, wedding reception, late night snack, bride and groom sendoff, after party, Sunday farewell brunch...
Think of pregnancy and childbirth: baby bump photos on social media with time markings, baby shower, gender reveal parties and videos, custom embroidered clothing, newborn photo shoots, birth announcements, sip-and-see visit, baptism reception…
Think even of school: whereas high school and college used to be the benchmark graduations, now we celebrate 8th grade graduations just as significantly, and we’re even giving caps and gowns and full celebrations to kindergarteners2 before they start full elementary school...
My goal isn’t to destroy the fun we have in marking major moments. In fact, the hospitality and fellowship aspects are just what we need to stay grounded in relationship. Rather, I just feel like the inertia behind a “more is better” mentality in our social lives is getting scary. Once you or your family members have been to a wedding that includes most or all of the aforementioned items, it’s hard to imagine doing less than all of it, if not more. Once you know someone who’s had a kid and shared the process in all those ways, it’s hard to imagine not following the same template, or even adding to it. When you’ve seen your friends or family get the kindergarten cap and gown treatment, you’ll be darned if your kid isn’t going to get it, too.
I don’t mean to blanket-incriminate you, dear reader, but I imagine you can see such a creeping tendency in your social spheres. And its progress is tough to stop. If you choose to opt out of one of these major moments or to decline one of these elements in your celebration, you voluntarily open yourself up to social scrutiny and criticism. You can quickly be described as cheap, boring, no fun, or worse. And you can become a source of disappointment to friends and family, who may have “hoped you were going to do that, but it’s ok if you don’t.” The implicit disappointment of others when you try to rein things in can become quite palpable.
Spiritually speaking, it’s pretty tough to square a “more is better” attitude with any sort of grounded, centered peace. All kinds of red flags shoot up in my Catholic outlook when I see this consumerism running amok, none more prevalent than my struggling desire to more concretely live out the preferential option for people who are marginalized. I always think back to my friend as he prepared his wedding registries with his then-fiancee; aggregating all kinds of requests for things, he finally stopped and asked, “Where’s the option for the poor in all this?” Setting a beautiful example, the two of them created a parallel registry alongside their traditional registry that listed a few favorite charities to which they encouraged donations as part of the wedding gift process. Nothing in our faith tradition encourages runaway consumerism; a lot in our faith tradition calls us to intentional charity and justice.
Sometimes the best way to audit these sorts of tendencies in ourselves is to think of a kindergartener’s line of questioning -- Why? Why? Why? Something done with the right intentions and careful thoughtfulness will withstand this sort of scrutiny that forces it down to its core. I think a good test case is technology and social media. Even while having myriad ways to communicate -- face-to-face conversation, phone calls, video chats, emails, text/picture messages, social media (Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), and more -- we still struggle to succeed in communicating, as our many avenues often overwhelm us to the point that we don’t actually engage, respond, and interact, often leaving many messages and notifications unread or unanswered. So what’s the point of using all of this?
I think if you why’ed it down to its core, the foundational reason for using it all should be to connect better to others. To which I’d respond, “If you have all these means to connect better to others, is it working well if it’s making your interactions mostly passive and de-personalized?” If so, then more is not better. More is almost certainly worse. And while some may need to go cold turkey when fixated on something, the answer is often found in moderation, in tempering one’s usage and attitude such that the essential and good purpose of something can reemerge. It may come with some side-eye and smack-talk from onlookers, but it can declutter your mind and heart in worthwhile ways.
I find this battle tiring. Having a toddler invites a steady stream of gifts, and my desire to be less materialistic and more minimalistic leaves me looking like something between ungrateful and an asshole. So you gotta pick the moments -- whether in planning a wedding and moving through a pregnancy and childbirth into parenthood or in the humdrum of daily lives. Some things that have worked for me? When I’m reading a book or online content, I try to turn off the TV (or only read during commercials of ballgames). When I’m planning meals or eating, I decline pre-meal nibbles or big, lush desserts. When I’m feeling spendy, I try to remember I have a lot already and redirect the impulse toward memories and experiences to plan and share with family and friends. When I’m combing through our spending and updating our budget, I find a group with my wife that accompanies people on the margins, and we donate a little something beyond what we give to our parish.
My batting average with this stuff isn’t the highest, and I always wish I was more consistent and found more ubiquitous ways to practice minimalism. But the one thing I know is that letting the consumption and materialism unfold without constraint isn’t the way to go and only messes me up. While moments of luxury and indulgence are potentially fairly harmless, letting them suffuse my life hamper my outlook and draw me away from the solidarity and justice I desire and know is right.
1 Marge responds that they’re “the same basic bear,” but Homer turns the bear away from him and sulks.↩
2 Look, I’m not a monster. These photo ops are cute as heck. But to the point, it’s just another unnecessary thing that requires every school and family to buy in with more time, money, and planning to keep up with everyone around them.↩
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