Mercenary culture
Here’s something to chew on from Marilynne Robinson’s essay on “Darwinism.” If we have debunked religion and philosophy, how do we determine value in our culture?
We try now to establish value in economic terms, lacking better, and this has no doubt contributed to the bluntly mercenary character of contemporary culture. But economic value is extraordinarily slippery. Buying cheap and selling dear is the essence of profit making. The consumer is forever investing in ephemera, cars or watches that are made into symbols of prosperity, and are therefore desirable because they are expensive. So people spend a great deal of money for the advantages of being perceived to have spent a great deal of money. These advantages are diminished continuously by the change of styles either toward or away from the thing they have bought, which make it either commonplace or passé.
Clearly true. And I think an interesting follow-up line of questions would be this: how do people who don’t have a “great deal of money” to spend assert or demonstrate their value? Is it possible for those without discretionary income to live according to this mercenary value system?