Materialism, Poverty and the Root of Evil

By: The Mystic | 17June2000

Consider materialism, not in the philosophical sense -- "the theory that physical matter is the only reality..." or "the theory...that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good..." -- but in the common, informal sense, i.e., excessive regard for money and what it will buy. There are many people who spend a great amount of time and energy thinking about money. Day in and day out, practically their only concern is how to acquire more wealth and what goods and services they'll buy when they get it. They can't seem to find time to enjoy the worthwhile aspects of life that make it worthwhile, like well-balanced people enjoy: romance, poetry, a good book, a sunset, spirituality...whatever clicks your lock. It seems so sad, sometimes. It's interesting how one's perspective changes over the years. When I was a little kid, the world was made up of the "rich" and the rest of us. The "rich" were people who owned a car that was newer than the ten-year-old Rambler my father drove. (If they were exceedingly wealthy, they owned two cars.) They lived in houses where every kid had his or her own bedroom. To the "rich", a vacation meant going somewhere other than to stay with distant relatives, for two whole weeks at a time, and they didn't travel cramped together with suitcases in a car, neither. We knew that all the "rich" thought about was making money, spending money and what they could buy with it and paying good money to eat in restaurants all the time instead of staying at home to eat like us decent folk. The "rich" were materialists; two words that were practically synonymous in my juvenile vocabulary. Then I grew up, went away, and spent some time in other parts of the world. I met people, some of whom were so bastardly dirt poor that their idea of "rich" meant having electricity, a working refrigerator and food in it too. I have been inclined to agree with them ever since. Somewhere along the way, I discarded my childhood ideas about materialism too. I have known people at various levels of wealth and poverty. Maybe it's just a strange coincidence, but it seems to me that the true materialists I've known -- people who were greatly concerned with money and what they could buy with it -- happened to be the people who had little or none of it. Every person I've ever met who consistently thought about money did so out of a painful mixture of responsibility and necessity. They had to be materialistic; there were babies to feed, rent to be paid, and barely (or not) enough money to cover it all, let alone take care of unexpected emergencies. Even though I have found it impossible to completely rid myself of the thought processes I acquired in youth, in many ways, having known poverty first-hand has been useful. I learned skills out of necessity that I probably wouldn't have bothered to learn otherwise. When your car is broke down out in the sticks, far from a phone and a tow truck, it's nice to know how to make that simple repair that will allow you to limp to a garage or auto parts store. Another myth I believed as a child and later outgrew was the idea -- common among many traditional religionists -- that poverty is somehow compatible with sainthood. There may be some incredibly good people who choose to live in poverty. I've known the occasional hobo-like person who had nothing and seemed happy enough, but they also had no responsibilities and didn't mind living off the kindness of strangers or on the dole. (One that I met claimed to have founded the Jesuits.) However, many people don't have the luxury to choose to be poor [irony intended]; they just are. Many "poor" people (that's as relative as is "rich") that I have met were not only materialistic (again, out of necessity), they were also incredibly jealous of those who had more. That's the reality behind the "rich people aren't happy" theory. That theory is crap! Considering the third-world countries I have visited, I'm both rich (since I know I will eat tomorrow and probably the next day) and happier than most of the impoverished people I met overseas. Given what some people have to do to make ends meet -- cheat, steal, borrow money they know they can't pay back, sell their bodies -- money isn't the root of evil. If evil were a plant with a single root, that root would be poverty. That's not to say that "poor" people are bad because they are poor (or vice versa). The root of poverty is usually nourished by social conditions and government-enabled limitations that keep certain people -- whole societies, in some cases -- poor, regardless of how intelligent, motivated and pure of heart they might be. Poverty often leads to society's common illnesses, such as exploitation, substance abuse, child abuse, domestic violence and -- ultimately -- war. A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,     Loitered about that vacancy, a bird Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:    That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,    Were axioms to him, who'd never heard Of any world where promises were kept, Or one could weep because another wept. -- From "The Shield of Achilles" by W.H.Auden Jesus of Nazareth said, "The poor will always be with us." I happen to agree with him on this point. Short of selective breeding of the entire race, there will always be a certain number of people who are unskilled, unintelligent, unmotivated or unlucky. There will always be the necessity of charity (or government subsidy, which has almost entirely replaced it). It will also always be necessary for decent people to fight the injustices that lead to poverty. The next time some pious apologist for government oppression and the status quo feeds you the line that poverty is good for the soul, remember that when everybody's standard of living starts to increase, materialism will begin to decrease. If s/he is blowing that particular brand of smoke up your arse, it must be in his or her self-interest to keep you down.