#I guess part of what I’m getting here is that virtuous austerity and frugality and criticism

[elodieunderglass]

Hey looking at the notes there’s a lot more “oh, I’ve been beating myself up over my materialistic impulses, maybe it’s … okay …? to own shoes?” responses than I like to see in you guys, whom I like! Boring long rant under the cut (sorry guys it’s what tumblr is for I guess)

Let’s get it out of the way first; a lot of it is about money, and most people on tumblr have none. There. Done. Moving on.

if you’re a person at the stage of lifestyle where you’re considering whether you deserve things like “a mattress that doesn’t disable you”, you, a material being in the material world, are officially given permission to exist, you, yes, you! you … a material creature with material needs that are at least as valid as a zoo animal or pet. Are we clear on the difference between existing in material space vs. being materialistic? One is a physical condition imposed by having a body; the other is the idea that money and possessions matter more than anything else.

That isn’t being politically bourgeois. Even Marx allows for people to have toothbrushes and “private sufficiency.” Even Catholics own mattresses. Plenty of flawed, problematic, broke humans purchase mattresses every day; witness the continued existence of mattress shops.

Please bear in mind that the little voices criticising you on this are not just your parents; they’re often weird little social media fleas. They’re quite specific to certain social media biomes and definitely not universal. If you post (idk) an expensive pet horse or a fancy coffee machine on some circles of instagram you’ll likely get responses about how nice it is!! but if you imply on some circles of tumblr that you get caffeine in any way except for miserably spooning instant coffee granules into your mouth on the floor of a public bathroom while berating yourself for your carbon footprint, you’ll be reminded that “it must be nice to have MONEY! SOME of us would be grateful for instant coffee and self-hatred in a public bathroom!” Which does, indeed, as intended, make you feel bad. Now ask: What else does it do? What will you mend with that thread?

Please be aware that these fleas are restricted to specific highly sheltered biomes; and most people on Earth, including the truly poor and impoverished ones, would prefer you to pull yourself together and just drink your coffee from a mug. Okay? Because a) it is not doing much meaningfully to improve the material conditions of the people who have less money than you, b) it’s a bit insulting tbh to people who have less money than you that the best activism you can do is “feeling wretched on their behalf”, c) it’s not a great use of your imagination and resources, d) you are taking an interpretation of political economic theory very personally, and worse, you are allowing this influence on your actual living life from people who haven’t even read Marx; e) it’s a very immature view of the world that “suffering is activism, somehow” so in addition to being ill-read, your fleas are naive, if not malicious; f) there is no level of self-abnegation you can drop to that will please the fleas, and no reward for going lower. It isn’t like speedrunning a game or something, where you get the appreciation of an audience if you finally clip through the floor. The fleas will just say, “while you’re at it, it’s awfully bourgeois of you to have a floor. Star-nosed moles don’t have any.” Okay! These are absurd conversations to have, actually! You do not have to do a whole circus to appease fleas. Performing a pantomime of your empty wallet and sad clownface, to solicit the forgiveness of an audience who apparently hate you so much that they wish you were under the floor, is a foolish use of time.

(If you find yourself engaging in flea behaviour, “yeah Greer/Elodie it would be NICE to have a couch but SOME people have only three traumas in a shopping bag!” That’s pretty normal, and doesn’t make you a bad person! I do it myself. I have never had any bloody money at all, and I get mad about it often. One immediate problem with doing this, though, is that someone will instantly tell you that they would be grateful to even have a shopping bag. The conversation does not move forward; and inevitably, if/when you get your own couch equivalent, and express a little pride in it (look how far you’ve come from just having three traumas in a shopping bag!) it will happen to you too (must be nice to totally lose sight of people who don’t even have shopping bags!) and it will be very unclear how anyone’s soul progressed from the discourse. Oppression Olympics, being circular, has no winners and no prizes.)

Next please consider that in the general context of the planet, it’s considered reasonably respectable to have a material existence, and there is a vast gulf between “having a decent couch” and “owning a megayacht,” this gulf being literal orders of magnitude of difference in resource and justice. I, politically, feel the good Earth has resource for many people to own a piece of respectable furniture, even if the good Earth does not have resource for billionaires. Surely the world we are seeking to build is something like the William Morris vision, of everyone surrounded by comfort and beauty and art; small plain humble handmade things, but made well, for everyone. Surely that’s preferential to everyone gnawing coffee grounds on the floor together. Surely the healed world we’re aiming at has room for decent couches for everybody who needs one, right? The equity we’re aiming for is everyone having access to a dignified life, often this including a couch - not having everybody on the floor.

Next, I have noticed that while the actually wealthy can do whatever the hell they like, ordinary accessible people are only forgiven for having ✨luxuries✨if we can write a grant proposal justifying them. People like us may own a gaming console; disabled people are allowed the use of cleaning agencies; people are allowed to own cars if they need them to live. Nobody can reasonably criticise the purchase of a $5,000 prosthetic leg or a £2,000 vet bill to save a pet’s life - they’re aware that they sound malicious and deranged if they do this - but they certainly feel comfortable criticising strangers on the internet for an expensive mattress that allows people to sleep without pain; expensive shoes that allow someone to walk; a mobility aid that helps someone go just a little further; a decent couch; a pet of their own, even if they aren’t wealthy; a child, even though kids are expensive; elective healthcare; a steady table and a room of one’s own -

. Do you see here how it becomes quite problematic, assigning “luxury” status to things that are to be used every day, and deciding who gets to have them, based on whether the person is easy to punch? Reflections to be had, here, on what is luxury, who is allowed to have it; why is nobody like you allowed to have what you don’t have? By what parasocial means do we decide who is allowed to have what? why do people have more energy to criticise people-like-them for finally getting a good couch, but never have any energy to say a single word about Taylor Swift’s frivolous private jet usage? What I’m driving at is how it’s usually people in the same general income bracket (the Poors) criticising each other. Who does this help? If it truly helps for (personal finance/consideration for others/mindfulness/spending habits/the environment/you to feel better) then why is this necessary and effective weapon so rarely aimed at the powerful? Commentaries on materialism are usually quite clear that they are specifically criticising materialism, excessiveness, wastefulness, consumption. How does that get transmuted in our heads to “us personally not deserving usable forks”? Much energy is wasted here, gnawing our paws bare and savaging our poor siblings, while the hand that withholds our food never gets bitten.

On that note: people, fleas and inner critics will allow the purchase of expensive hiking boots for someone who can explain that they hike a lot. I submit the ultimate solution. Purchase expensive hiking boots because you need them to walk across the top part of Spain. This is the assignment I have given you. The trails are safe, accessible, and punctuated with regular snacks; the fellowship diverse and incomparable; the pilgrim hostels can be as cheap as $7 a night; wine is $3 a glass; you can eat communal meals with fellow pilgrims, or save even more by cooking up porridge oats. I am talking about the Camino de Santiago, the famous Way, the great Christian pilgrimage, which even today convicted people in Spain may walk to receive a pardon. It doesn’t matter your faith or lack thereof; if you quest in “an attitude of search” and stamp your pilgrim passport showing you have done the minimum miles, finishing in the great glowing city of Santiago, you will receive the campostela that counts as official absolution. That’s it, the official pardon, the written intercession with God. A pilgrim by the nature of pilgrimage has sought absolution and received it. That’s what pilgrimages are! Yes, even you.

And nobody denies the importance of good hiking boots on the Way. Pilgrimages are supposed to challenge - the Camino is a spiritual hike, and with perfect serendipity and geography it nourishes you with beauty and physical exertion in the great Pyrenees mountains before throwing you brutally to confront your own soul as you march the empty plains of Spain with your own self for company - but the point is, you do them on purpose, and at the end of it, you’re forgiven. While you are doing it, you cost just a bit more money to exist than the medieval pilgrims, and burn hardly any carbon at all.

Materialism is defined as “a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.” When you are battling your fleas of materialism, are you doing it to clear room for your spiritual life? What are you putting in your empty austere inner life? It just feels like if you’re being anti-materialistic for the (very good reason) of focusing on Higher Values, then equal processing time should be spent on the More Important Values, right?

I just thought if we were being Catholic, we might as well get the benefits as well as the suffering. You know? We should also claim the way of pilgrimage, the great journey of attention and intention, at the end of which your slate is summarily wiped clean by God Themselves. You get a certificate with Latin on it, to show everyone. You get a good grade in Pilgrimage. Why not focus on that theological concept for a change: the Way of absolution. A big homework you can do. A literal modern quest with your own forgiven self at the end of it. There’s the spiritual reverse of the materialism-battling coin. If you’re going to torment yourself with spiritual guilt, just go whole hog and work for the spiritual absolution too.

I'm turning 30 this month, and for some reason have become suddenly interested in material possessions. like what if,,,,,,,,my couch was nice. what if my sheets were nice. is this what happens to you??