What is this 'Matrix', this 'Hegemony' (or ‘dominance without hegemony,’ if you prefer), this 'Totalizing System' of Materialism that I refer to in my previous posts?The phenomenon of Materialism that I have in mind is the resultant of a particular historical development in the West, which is generally referred to as 'Modernity'. Materialism is one of the defining characteristics of this modernity. Materialism is not just an intellectual mode of thought or a cultural discourse - that's just one component of it. It is rather an all-encompassing phenomenon that functions at the (analytically distinct) levels of structure, culture, and individual instincts, intentions, and actions. Hence, my choice of the broad heuristic terms like 'matrix', 'hegemony', and 'totalizing system'.
Shaheed Mutahhari has given four excellent lectures on the causes of materialistic tendencies in the West (here - I, II, III, IV). Mutahhari makes it clear that these materialistic tendencies are a historical development, and certain political and doctrinal factors led to their rise in the West. That is, it is not just an outcome of a theological or philosophical outlook. Rather, it is a product of multiple causes. This specific history also explains the particular beliefs and attitudes in the West regarding the ‘separation of church and the state’, emphasis on secularism, rational thought, individualism, materialism, and capitalism. Together, these elements constitute the particular 'form' of modernity of the 'West', more specifically, America and Western Europe.
Following Mutahhari's sociological argument, I would add that religion had multiple kinds of roles in the development of materialistic tendencies in the West. Whereas modernity emerged in reaction to the suppresion of free thought and rights by Church dogma, certain religious idioms also played a pioneering role in modernity's construction. The German Sociologist, Max Weber, has in his book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" compellingly argued that religion (as an institution, as a belief set, and an emotional force, all sociologically speaking) may have been an active force behind the rise of capitalism in the West.
As he describes, in certain Protestant Sects (particularly, Calvinism) materialistic accomplishments and worldly success were seen as a sign of Divine Favor. The pursuit of the materialistic accomplishments was the 'calling' for each person. And it was this calling that provided the impulse for accumulation of wealth and the efficiency and calculation in business dealings. (You see the same rigorous efficiency and calculation in the Protestant missions around the world which generated massive archives of numbers and descriptions for the regions in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Americas they worked in.) This is of course a very simplified version of Weber's argument. But the point here is that religion, or certain religious understandings, can very well promote materialism in society.
Weber anticipated this development in his description of the “Iron Cage” of the 'disenchanted' future. In this particular book, Weber was mostly concerned about the development of capitalism: how it was shaped by certain religious idioms, and how “the spirit of capitalism” has, in turn, shaped societies and individuals. Weber anticipated an increasingly rationalized (in the Weberian sense) human life in the capitalist society, which he gloomily characterized in terms of an “iron cage” of large-scale, rule-based rational-control. I won’t go into the insightful implications of his argument here, although part of my argument is similar to his: that the force of materialism has become so pervasive today that it is now producing effects similar to that of an “iron cage”.
This is because the religious idioms may have promoted the spirit of materialism, but once materialism became the dominant logic of economics, after the shift from agrarian-feudal to capitalist-market economy, once it became dominant in the cultural discourse and political institutions, it assumed a life of its own, a logic of its own. It became a social force that now shapes the structure, culture, and individual subjectivities, and in turn, gets reproduced in each generation. It has assumed a force so enormous, so pervasive, so encompassing that it has become normal and invisible (see my earlier post, entitled ‘to consume or not to consume).
Hence, I use the German expression ‘Zeitgeist’ to describe it as the ‘spirit’ of our age, which is in a way close to, but not exactly in, the Hegelian sense of alive and active “World Spirit”. I intentionally want to use such a broad conceptual formulation of materialism here. Because, as I argued in an earlier post ('to consume or not to consume'), focusing on particular aspects of materialism, like consumerism, would not help with either understanding or solving the problems resulting from materialism today. Because materialism is so enormous and so pervasive that addressing its particular facets without addressing its deeper linkages to structures, cultures, and human nature would be like attempting to cure the symptoms without addressing the roots. To address that deeper linkages require that we look at materialism in its full enormity, and the solution would require a substantial qualitative transformation into how we engage in our social relations and how we build our societies.
However, it is both beyond the scope of this space and my abilities at the moment to even attempt to do this task. My focus therefore is limited to the sociology of materialism, trying to look at how materialism is affecting our lives and social relations. The questions I examine are: Who are the individuals and institutional actors here, what are their interests and agendas, who is benefitting from its spread, how are people on the receiving end engaging (accomodating or resisting) the increasingly globalized materialism in their lives, coming through capital, media, education, politics and policies?
Implications
One, we need to analyze materialism not just at the individual level where many times the focus is on controlling our low desires (nafsani khawahishaat). But also on the level of cultural discourse (fikri ghulami) where sometimes people may genuinely believe that their religion allows them to live in a certain way. In the case of the 'Protestant Ethic', the religious idioms actually demanded that the followers accumulate wealth in order to be successful in this world and the hereafter. Religion, thus, as an ideology and as an emotional force, can take the followers in different directions depending on the content of the message. Therefore, it is important to analyze the content of the message too. (Analysis of other pertinent issues, like, unity among ourselves, domestic violence, youth issues, also require this multi-level approach in my opinion. As we work on the individual level (on nafsani khawahishaat), we also need to look at the cultural content of already existing discourse in our communities and the conflicting messages we are getting from outside, and compare both of them to the true teachings of Quran and Ahlulbayt. Similarly we also need to look at the structural arrangements in our communities that determine certain roles and possibilities for individuals).
Two, I also want to emphasize that the three levels, the individual, the cultural, and the structural (various institutions), are all independent, causally speaking, and can influence the other levels to promote materialism. A change in the economic structure, for example, like neo-liberal reforms, can also bring about materialism in a society, even though that society may not have gone through the same historically specific experience of Western Modernity. This is the independent causal force that materialism has developed today. The particular history of the Western Modernity has definite implications on the form of materialism in the West, but it may not translate in exactly same terms in other parts of the world; other societies engage with this materialism (corporatization in the name of globalization) in their own ways, informed by their local histories, politics, and cultures.
Three, related to above, we need to understand that materialism cannot affect one level of the society without affecting others. It is not possible for the neo-liberal reforms to take full effect without changing the local culture and subjectivities of the individuals. The changing consumption behavior in Egypt, Turkey, and more recently in Pakistan after the neo-liberal reforms are the examples. Check out “Today’s Consumption in Egypt” by Mona Abaza for an illustration. Materialism in the name of 'development' or 'modernization' thus comes to a society with a multi-level agenda, as also pointed out by Shaheed Baqir Sadr in “Islam and Schools of Economics”. As a side note, I should note here that Shaheed Sadr did not consider “Islamic Economics” to be a “science” of economics; rather, to him it is a set of “ideals” and “values” involving justice and fair distribution of resources that through institutionalization into economy could help building the desired just and tawheedi society. Materialism, likewise, has its own set of values, including an emphasis on competition and profit making which it spreads wherever it goes.
Four, we also need to understand that any movement aimed at resisting this materialism may very well start from changing an individual self. That is, an effective movement would have to first de-construct the hegemony in the mind of the followers, to get a person out of the ‘matrix’ of materialism. So, granted, the first step is always to reform the individual self. But to induce changes in the larger society, the movement would need to have a plan – a plan for all three inter-connected levels that I describe above. This is the question of "What's next?" after we 'reform the individual self'. I would argue that working collectively to build alternative institutions and movements is a required condition of even making that first step to happen for a large number of people, realistically speaking. We need to work on both individual and collective levels simultaneously.
For examples of collective action, we can take ideas from the movements working for saving forests, clean productions, labor rights, conscious-consuming, fair trade, curtailing influence of corporations, movements promoting ideas of sustainability and equity, green-chemistry, renewable energy, and local living economy. The last one is about developing alternative institutions like Consumers' Coops to resist large corporations, to build markets and products that are environment-friendly and honor fair trade and fair wages.
The utility of building such resources and institutions is many-fold. One, it makes a point that alternatives are possible AND practical. Two, it makes it easier for people, who are chained by the current structures, to make opt-out choices. For example, the development and availability of an Islamic finance system would allow people to not depend/become slave of the mainstream commercial banking system. Three, like-minded people can come together to support each other, in living simple life-style, in upbringing 'saleh' (pious) children in this kind of environment. Remember, it takes a village to raise a child.
To follow this approach is not being materialistic (as some would say 'you are depending on the 'worldly' factors'), rather it is about being REALISTIC (see here and here).
Two Clarifications
One, when I refer to the ‘matrix’ of materialism, as experienced today, I do not specifically mean to refer to Christianity or Judaism, which if you look into, are often very anti-materialistic in their teachings. Materialism is a distinct phenomenon which I refer to with the expression 'zeitgeist' and its has its independent dynamics and force.
Two, as I mentioned earlier that although this materialism emerged in the west as part of the modernity, it is not restricted to the West anymore. It is now exported and experienced (albeit in multiple ways of accomodation and resistance) all throughout the world through Hollywood movies, cable tv, neoliberal reforms, corporatization, etc. So when I look at materialism in these posts, I have both the West and the rest of the world in mind.
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