From greed to gratitude, and everything in between
A few years ago, I came across a book titled “Nextopia,” written by Swedish marketing expert Micael Dahlen. The book’s premise is that we live in what he refers to as an expectation society, where we constantly strive for the next big job, the next big thing, the next date, etc. Dahlen proclaims:
“We strive for Nextopia, which promises our greatest pleasures and adventures are always ahead of us. With all the opportunities we have to get the things we want, where we want them, and when we want them, it is hard to stay satisfied. We tend to be less satisfied with what we have and expect more from what we will have in the future!”
He argues that while Nextopia implies we are only ever satisfied with what we have for brief moments, it is a godsend for humanity because it holds the promise of happiness and contentment in the future. In his own words, “We will have a hard time staying happy, but we have more opportunities to become happy and satisfied.”
Let me see if I got that right!
I keep being stunned by the logical incoherence and psychological and anthropological shortsightedness behind the statements describing Nextopia.
So, “we cannot stay happy now, but we have more opportunities to become happy in the future”? What does that even mean? See a corpulent Catch-22 waiting to jump out of the closet, anyone? Also, is the general idea here that we will achieve this alleged happiness by letting our monkey-grabbing hoarder desires go on a rampage? And while we are at it, we can get anything, anytime, anywhere, can we? Are we talking about the same world in which the poorest half of its population owns just 2% of the global wealth, while the wealthiest 10% own 76% of it? Sorry, Micael, I am not terribly sure about that claim!
But the hardest pill to swallow for me is probably the phrase about the “next date”! Call me old-fashioned, but most people still go on a date hoping to find a partner, a life companion, hopefully, a soulmate, someone to have and to hold, someone to raise a family with. Not in Nextopia, though! There, it seems one goes out on a date and finds a partner, who may very well be one’s soulmate, but then, since relationships are not commodities and take effort to develop and maintain, and our focus should be on low-maintenance short-term pleasures rather than long-term happiness, we should move on to the next date for something “bigger and better”! Blessing? You tell me!
So, what is Nextopia exactly?
Dahlen ends the promotion of his theory on attaining happiness without delving further into even a cursory examination of the psychological consequences of the short-term pleasure-seeking lifestyle for the human spirit and the anthropological implications thereof for society. I don’t think I’ve ever been so infuriated reading a book as when I read Nextopia. I kept thinking I might have stumbled upon a new OCD subtype! Some mongrel bred from Hoarding, Gear Acquisition Syndrome, and Shopping Addiction! But then I thought this one was simpler than that. What if it was an attempt to camouflage good old-fashioned Greed, package it as a new developmental platform for humanity, and call it a boon to society? How is that? For starters, Nextopia’s description impeccably matches that of Greed, the universal definition of which is: “An uncontrolled craving for an increase in the acquisition or use of material gain or social value, at all cost.”
And make no mistake; Greed is no godsend! By its very nature, Greed encompasses anxiety and tremendously addictive aspects that seriously harm the happiness and mental well-being of those caught in its claws. With every new acquisition, the rush and the so-called satisfaction a greed victim experiences grow more fleeting and briefer than the previous, in much the same way a heroin addict experiences less pleasure from his hits over time. Why? Because, like every other addiction, Greed is fueled by the neurotransmitter dopamine! And dopamine’s prime directive is more. The satisfaction quest dopamine beguiles its victims into is elusive, so they can chase it all their lives and still cannot grasp it. In fact, the idea of satisfaction is just that. An illusory notion that has nothing to do with genuine satisfaction. It is merely pursuit, propelled by dopamine, which by its very nature fosters continuous dissatisfaction. From dopamine’s perspective, having things is lackluster. Getting them is simply the only thing that matters. After one gets the next big thing, one’s immediate goal will be to find another. Therefore, we wallow in the desire, the focus, and the thrill of finding the next big thing, a job, a date, and whatever else that should catch our fancy rather than enjoying the object of the desire.
Dopamine has no paradigm for good and no definitive goal! The dopaminergic pathways in the brain can be stimulated only by the possibility of obtaining whatever appears glittery and new, never mind how perfect things are at the moment. The dopamine maxim is More.
Societal impacts
Some of you might remember Gordon Gekko, a character who was a corporate raider in the 1987 film Wall Street, played by Michael Douglas. Gekko gave a notorious speech at Teldar Paper’s stockholder meeting (the company is the fictional target of a hostile takeover by Gekko). During his speech, Gekko stated:
“I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all its forms; Greed for life, money, love, and knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.”
This brazen veneration of unhinged Greed reverberates from the vantage point of free-market economists, who view it not only as an inescapable aspect of human nature but ultimately as an attractive one. Furthermore, while Micael Dahlin might be packaging and selling Greed under a different label, assiduously avoiding using the word altogether, his message is precisely the same: “Greed is a good thing. It is a blessing!”
One cannot deny the presence of some appeal to the ubiquitous modern economic theory, however oversimplistic, suggesting Greed motivates competition, and competition is vital for growth in a functioning market, making a case for personal gains as an enabler for people to contribute to the greater good. This proposition suggests that the latter is a direct result of and cannot exist without the former. Some economists have even claimed that the world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. This idea emanates from the Homo Economus doctrine in neoclassical theories.
While acknowledging that man seeks to maximize his utility and corporations of man their profit, with a proclivity for narrow self-interest, Homo economicus, notwithstanding, is a model for human behavior that attributes to humans the infinite capacity to make perfectly rational decisions. Albeit, behavioral economists have reservations about the homo economicus doctrine’s premise. Studies on financial behaviors have proven that humans have a strong propensity for irrational decision-making and that particular behavior bears greater significance for economic modeling.
In addition, homo economicus benefits and supports society only to the degree he maximizes his utility and profit. For this reason, the belief that Greed helps markets thrive is more of a predisposed reflection of the alleged rationality and capabilities of Homo sapiens, intending to justify our self-seeking motivations, and is by no means a prescription for society’s economic success.
Greed can also embolden ethically questionable behaviors. It often involves manipulation, deception, exploitation, and self-approbation. And, while Greed’s victims are driven towards an incessant craving to acquire more, at the same time, they grow increasingly invidious of others who have what they do not. They are also less prone to being constrained by moral boundaries and perceive others as mere instruments in achieving their ambitions. It is the repudiation of the rights of others in the acquisition of possessions that distinguishes Greed from other acquisitive conditions. With that repudiation ensues an emotional desensitization to the needs and rights of others, a desacralization of them, if you will. A sense of entitlement and a supercilious and unjustified feeling of superiority. A belief that one has a right to a disproportionate share and a sense of supremacy over those who have less.
We can get anything we want, where we want it, and when we want it! Really?
That is quite a claim considering the latest World Inequality Report, which shows that while the wealthiest 10% of the world population presently takes home 52% of the income, the poorest half earns merely around 8%. That is the half that lives on less than US$6.85 per person per day, according to the World Bank. As we speak, almost four billion people are struggling to feed their families. So, do I take the liberty to dismiss this reckless assertion summarily? You bet!
The remainder of the world’s population, the middle-income class, are actually the ones the likes of Dahlen are targeting to sell the we-can-get-what-we-want-where-and-when-we-want-it proposition.
It sounds like a digression, but any serious examination of the middle-income class and consumerism must include Henry Ford. He was a controversial figure in his own right, with a paranoid antisemitic trait that tainted his reputation and colored his legacy. However, he was also a farmer boy, capitalist, industrialist, consumerist, politician, and labor market reformer. Some of you might remember the five-day, 40-hour workweek and Five Dollar workday, all of which were his brainchildren. So, it should be no surprise that he was nicknamed The People’s Tycoon. One of the most noteworthy aspects of Ford’s legacy is the ambivalent relationship that Ford eventually started developing with the forces of material abundance, which his eponymous revolutionary manufacturing system, Fordism, had given free rein. These forces, in turn, defined the nature of the modern capitalist economy and induced the masses to adopt new social, cultural, and economic outlooks for buying goods as the instrument to achieve satisfaction and “happiness.” Ford found this transformation unsettling and ultimately dangerous. He had strong misgivings about the excesses of the modern consumer society. He believed long-standing cherished values of hard work and self-discipline were threatened by careless self-indulgence in materialism. Ford expressed concern that: “purchasing consumer goods, if pursued irresponsibly, could be socially calamitous.” That’s right: socially calamitous!
So, over seven decades later, where are we headed?
Over the past seven decades, dopamine-fueled materialism has driven us toward ever-increasing consumption rates. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, many social theorists are drawing conclusions about the pervasive harmful effects of greed-driven materialism on individuals, relationships, and society that are virtually identical to those Ford had feared. But there were things even Ford and skeptics like him had yet to anticipate.
An average modern Western household has over 300,000 items. If you like surprises, research shows we only regularly use 100 to 200 items out of the whole lot. So, are we satisfied and happy looking at and being encircled daily by the 299.800 items we have acquired that we don’t use? Over the past 10 years, several studies have linked clutter with mental health problems. Research has found that clutter can increase the stress hormone cortisol and induce lower productivity, sleeplessness, procrastination, and depression.
And what happens when we realize we ought to do something about the clutter in our living space to lift ourselves out of depression? We create waste. And households are not alone. Many types of waste are generated, including municipal solid waste, hazardous waste, industrial non-hazardous waste, medical waste, agricultural and animal waste, radioactive waste, construction and demolition scrap, mining waste, oil and gas production waste, and last but not least fossil fuel combustion waste. Industrial waste threatens human health and the environment, and municipal solid waste landfills are the third largest producer of anthropogenic methane emissions. One of the things I learned during my research for this post is that methane is over 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.
What about the effect of the supercharged production plants we have so enthusiastically built worldwide to feed our Greed on the life, resources, and climate of our home, planet Earth? Climate change accelerated by industrial activity is the greatest threat the world has ever faced. Environmental scientists and an entire host of respected scientific bodies around the globe fear devastating consequences, such as the loss of marine, terrestrial, and freshwater ecosystems, more powerful storms, more frequent droughts, and floods. Over half of the greenhouse gases are generated by burning fossil fuels to make cement, steel, plastics, and chemicals. And the demand for these materials is on the rise. Everybody wants more, and as competition intensifies for finite and declining resources worldwide, violent regional and global conflicts escalate in intensity and number.
Any response to these threats must encompass fundamental social transformation. Global production rates and economic growth will have to slow down. We will need to, and can, drive less, fly less, buy less, and consume less; that may help us “produce” less. Essentially, as a species, we must subdue behavior driven by dopamine and Greed, and the age of the neverending Nextopian strive for cheaper, better, faster, and more will have to come to an end. This has never happened in the history of humankind—at least not by our choice. However, as John Cleese’s character, Professor Barnhardt, argued in the 2008 American science fiction, The Day the Earth Stood Still: “Every civilization reaches a crisis point eventually. Well, that’s where we are. You say we’re on the brink of destruction, and you’re right. But it’s only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve.”
Time for that closing statement!
We might not be on the brink just yet. But we’re at a crossroads, pretty close to it. This is the crisis point of our species. And only one thing will save us from our eventual destruction, as the good doctor said: the will to change and the ability to do it. We must find the power to discipline ourselves, achieve a better balance, and overcome our addiction with more. We must appreciate the infinite complexity of our existence and learn to enjoy the things we have. That, my dear friends, is the definition of gratitude.
When we experience gratitude, our brain releases hormones linked with social behavior. One of those is oxytocin, a hormone crucial to bonding. It’s the same hormone mothers release after birth. That’s why gratitude helps humans stay close to each other. So, gratitude can serve as a moral and societal gauge as it provides a reliable reading of the ethical and collective implication and importance of a situation, beckoning the acknowledgment that we’ve all been beneficiaries of other people’s benevolent, selfless deeds to be where we are and that no one is truly self-made. Through this recognition, gratitude commands humility and nurtures a culture of compassionate and selfless acts toward others less fortunate than ourselves.
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
– Epicurus
Gratitude provides a proper grasp of our place in the world by assisting us in remembering the good things we already have and enabling us to focus on them. There is a saying in Danish: “Tomorrow is promised to no one!”. Every day we live, our health, even if relative, the health of our children, the earth, the sun, the rain, the air we breathe, the food on our table, and the love and support of our family, friends, and community are not givens. They are all God-given gifts we are privileged to have bestowed upon us. Gratitude helps us uncover these blessings and realize that they are the true godsends in our lives. As a result, our eyes will be turned away from the things that cultivate the mere thrill of pursuit and discontentment in our hearts.
Scientific studies repeatedly confirm what we know to be true: Grateful people are happier. They routinely report improved mental and physical well-being. They are more optimistic and have a more positive outlook on life. So, we can either let dopaminergic Greed and materialism drive us to misery and our ultimate destruction or start living a more humble life and rejoice in the many gifts life has given us.
As my father used to tell me when I was young: “Our lives can be chicken shit or chicken salad. We’re the ones making the call!”