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Materialism takes toll on psyche, society
By Ni Tao |
September 11, 2010, Saturday
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RECENTLY I saw a film adapted from French novelist Guy de Maupassant's classic work "The Necklace."
The story tells of the miserable life of Mathilde Loisel, a young, pretty woman married to a dull government clerk. Not a day goes by without her lamenting her lack of glittering jewelry and elegant attire. Her frustration grows whenever she sees her friend Jeanne Forestier wearing the latest fashions and fine jewels.
Mathilde finally gets to experience the pomp and glamour she aspires to. The couple is invited to a ball where they can hobnob with dignitaries, and for this occasion Mathilde borrows a diamond necklace from Jeanne, which was later found to be lost.
The couple decides to replace the lost necklace with a similar one that costs 36,000 francs.
For the next 10 years the couple suffers extreme economic hardship, and by the time they repay all their debts, Mathilde is quite a common commoner. With disheveled hair, rough hands and a stout figure, she's no longer the gorgeous lady that men lined up to dance with.
One day she runs into Jeanne, who can barely recognize the old lady in ragged clothes in front of her. Mathilde tells Jeanne about her suffering but is smug that her old friend didn't detect that the necklace was different. Her remaining vanity, however, is crushed when she learns that the necklace she borrowed was itself a fake worth no more than 500 francs.
Though it was written more than a century ago, I find "The Necklace" to be highly relevant, in that what Maupassant decried -- pervasive materialism in the 19th century France -- permeates modern China, only to a higher degree.
Despite the fact that "The Necklace" is required reading in many Chinese high schools, it hasn't prevented many young people from becoming enslaved by materialism. Not that reading a book would change their attitude.
In "The High Price of Materialism," author Tim Kasser argues that materialism not only has a negative impact on a healthy national psyche, but also leads to an impoverished quality of life, poor mental health and bad personal relationships.
Until fairly recently, the term bang da kuan, which refers to young women depending on wealthy men for an extravagant lifestyle, carried a stigma that checked most young women's blatant materialism.
This stigma has now been lifted, as evidenced by TV programs that romanticize bang da kuan as modern versions of the Cinderella Story, with rich sugar daddies replacing Prince Charming.
Former Deputy Minister of Education Wu Qidi once lamented that many female students are deluded into believing that they can find a rich and gallant prince.
The misguided notion that a good marriage renders hard work meaningless has been touted as a gateway to material comforts, she said.
Nowhere has this mass brainwashing campaign been waged more feverishly than in China, where a spiritual void is filled by nothing but money. A typical example is the immensely popular matchmaking shows, some so materialistic and vulgar that the state broadcast watchdog had to step in to stem the spread of their poisonous ideas.
The apotheosis of this crass materialist culture was reached when one participant in the show "If You Are the One" said she would rather weep in a rich guy's BMW than smile on a poor guy's bicycle.
She could not be more "correct" about the appeal a BMW driver holds for some confused female minds. It's no longer a secret that driving a BMW or Mercedes is all it takes to flaunt one's wealth and then "rent" a lover from local universities.
While the general coarsening of public discourse is widely blamed for a surge in "material girls," other factors are also at play, notably education.
Some parents with materialistic values tend to inculcate financial insecurity and dissatisfaction in their children, Kasser observes.
In China, this inculcation is driven more by the "face" factor. Tied to their mothers' apron strings, some marriageable women see home ownership as the defining quality they seek in potential mates, for lack of it can cause them to lose face before friends who manage to marry into a higher class.
This often wrecks relationships and contributes to the phenomenon of so-called "leftover girls" in their late 20s or 30s.
Kasser argues with perspicacity that materialism is insidious because it promises freedom while making real freedom impossible.
To appreciate real freedom, we ought to start to wean ourselves off an unhealthy addiction to more material goods.
And it helps to read Maupassant, whose warning about the high price of materialism resonates to this day.
The story tells of the miserable life of Mathilde Loisel, a young, pretty woman married to a dull government clerk. Not a day goes by without her lamenting her lack of glittering jewelry and elegant attire. Her frustration grows whenever she sees her friend Jeanne Forestier wearing the latest fashions and fine jewels.
Mathilde finally gets to experience the pomp and glamour she aspires to. The couple is invited to a ball where they can hobnob with dignitaries, and for this occasion Mathilde borrows a diamond necklace from Jeanne, which was later found to be lost.
The couple decides to replace the lost necklace with a similar one that costs 36,000 francs.
For the next 10 years the couple suffers extreme economic hardship, and by the time they repay all their debts, Mathilde is quite a common commoner. With disheveled hair, rough hands and a stout figure, she's no longer the gorgeous lady that men lined up to dance with.
One day she runs into Jeanne, who can barely recognize the old lady in ragged clothes in front of her. Mathilde tells Jeanne about her suffering but is smug that her old friend didn't detect that the necklace was different. Her remaining vanity, however, is crushed when she learns that the necklace she borrowed was itself a fake worth no more than 500 francs.
Though it was written more than a century ago, I find "The Necklace" to be highly relevant, in that what Maupassant decried -- pervasive materialism in the 19th century France -- permeates modern China, only to a higher degree.
Despite the fact that "The Necklace" is required reading in many Chinese high schools, it hasn't prevented many young people from becoming enslaved by materialism. Not that reading a book would change their attitude.
In "The High Price of Materialism," author Tim Kasser argues that materialism not only has a negative impact on a healthy national psyche, but also leads to an impoverished quality of life, poor mental health and bad personal relationships.
Until fairly recently, the term bang da kuan, which refers to young women depending on wealthy men for an extravagant lifestyle, carried a stigma that checked most young women's blatant materialism.
This stigma has now been lifted, as evidenced by TV programs that romanticize bang da kuan as modern versions of the Cinderella Story, with rich sugar daddies replacing Prince Charming.
Former Deputy Minister of Education Wu Qidi once lamented that many female students are deluded into believing that they can find a rich and gallant prince.
The misguided notion that a good marriage renders hard work meaningless has been touted as a gateway to material comforts, she said.
Nowhere has this mass brainwashing campaign been waged more feverishly than in China, where a spiritual void is filled by nothing but money. A typical example is the immensely popular matchmaking shows, some so materialistic and vulgar that the state broadcast watchdog had to step in to stem the spread of their poisonous ideas.
The apotheosis of this crass materialist culture was reached when one participant in the show "If You Are the One" said she would rather weep in a rich guy's BMW than smile on a poor guy's bicycle.
She could not be more "correct" about the appeal a BMW driver holds for some confused female minds. It's no longer a secret that driving a BMW or Mercedes is all it takes to flaunt one's wealth and then "rent" a lover from local universities.
While the general coarsening of public discourse is widely blamed for a surge in "material girls," other factors are also at play, notably education.
Some parents with materialistic values tend to inculcate financial insecurity and dissatisfaction in their children, Kasser observes.
In China, this inculcation is driven more by the "face" factor. Tied to their mothers' apron strings, some marriageable women see home ownership as the defining quality they seek in potential mates, for lack of it can cause them to lose face before friends who manage to marry into a higher class.
This often wrecks relationships and contributes to the phenomenon of so-called "leftover girls" in their late 20s or 30s.
Kasser argues with perspicacity that materialism is insidious because it promises freedom while making real freedom impossible.
To appreciate real freedom, we ought to start to wean ourselves off an unhealthy addiction to more material goods.
And it helps to read Maupassant, whose warning about the high price of materialism resonates to this day.
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