Mark's Notebook


	If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of him. - Thomas Carlyle

'Tis the season to be cautious

San Francisco Chronicle

Sunday 27 November 2005, 1:58 pm
Keywords: Christian Topics , News Articles

By David Lazarus

Tim Kasser isn't surprised that Americans are once more turning out in droves to spend money they don't have for products they or their loved ones don't need.

Kasser is an associate professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois who focuses on consumer behavior. Economic conditions might be uncertain, he told me, but most people will be unable to resist the impulse to shop that's cultivated by corporate and political interests.

"We think we're all individualists," he said. "But we're actually being manipulated by the largest and most expensive propaganda system ever developed."

Americans are constantly bombarded with messages promoting a sense that materialism will foster feelings of satisfaction and contentment. "It's always the same: Buy stuff and you'll be happy, buy stuff and you'll be complete," he said. "And it works. People are buying stuff. But studies show that it doesn't really make them feel happy."

Kasser likens our culture's powerful materialism to a drug addiction. Momentary euphoria gives way to feelings of emptiness, and then to a burning need to go out and buy something else.

"Christmas is a time when we're supposed to be celebrating the birth of one of the greatest anti-materialists who ever lived," he observed. "Instead, it's become a time to go out and spend a lot."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/11/25/BUG08FS
09G47.DTL