The Cost of Materialism

James Twitchell in his article “Two Cheers for Materialism” makes several arguments why materialism is  a good thing. The first thing Twitchell uses to defend  materialism is the effect that our things have on us. He says that “we live through things. We create ourselves through things. And we change ourselves by changing our things.” (Twitchell pg 389 ) When reading this quote one gets the idea that changing oneself is good. He never goes on to explain why change is good. We don’t only change who we are with our possession, we define ourselves, according to Twitchell. He uses several example of this. He associates owing a BMW as helping one portray themselves as a “yuppie”.  Another of his has him associating the fact that materialism has gone up over time and today’s people are the happiest in all of history. He is also able to turn the idea of having debt from being a bad thing to be a good thing. He is able to play it off as no big deal as he claims that over 95% of debt is paid off. He also portrays debt as good as he claims people are now able to afford things that they usually wouldn’t be able too, specifically the “have nots”.

Twitchell makes several interesting arguments as to why materialism is good, but there are still several things that don’t materialism look so good. Materialism is going to be something that costs money, and people don’t always have the money to buy what they want. Even though Twitchell claims over 95% of debt is payed off, that still leaves some that isn’t.  Unpaid debt as a result of materialism leads to not only not having enough to pay for what they have, but it also leads to things such as bankruptcy. For those who do have enough to money to keep up with being materialistic, they can develop a habit of being greedy. While this may not be a problem finically, it can still be a problem in other ways. Being greedy leads to bad habits, such as being wasteful. Materialism isn’t something that stands alone, from my experience and seeing what has gone on around me, materialism leads to things such as jealousy and lust.

After seeing both what Twitchell thinks of materialism and what most others thinks of it, I see myself favoring the side against materialism.  I made my decision based on the social effects, which I can see on both sides. Yet, I think preventing the negative consequences is more important, then enjoying the positive. I feel this way because the positive of materialism to seem to be a bit of stretch from what I have experienced, also I don’t think the positives apply to people as greatly as the negatives do.