Watch Out! It’s Affluenza Season!

A sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation (Blacksburg, VA), November 20, 2005, by the Reverend Christine Brownlie.

Are you prepared for the flu epidemic that’s growing rapidly throughout the planet? No, I’m not talking about the deadly Asian bird flu or whatever strain of flu the public health officials have identified as the big threat to public health this season. I’m talking about a more insidious strain known as “Affluenza.” This flu attacks young and old alike. The symptoms are not the usual physical aches or nagging cough. This flu causes significant financial pains for individuals, families, and nations. It can damage your self-esteem, your relationships, and your family’s future. The effect on our planet is devastating.

This threat to our individual, national, or planetary well-being does not come from a foreign enemy like Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, or North Korea. It comes from the producers, sellers and the marketers of goods and services that we need, and want — or think we want. It is spread by advertisers, banks, and other lending organizations that encourage us to take on more and more debt. You can catch Affluenza any time of year, but we’re now coming into the season when this dangerous bug is most likely to bite: the month before Christmas

It seems painfully ironic that the celebration of the birth of a man who led a very simple life — who warned of the spiritual dangers of amassing material goods — has morphed into a season of shopping, shopping, shopping. We’re at a point when our nation’s economy depends on big-spending Christmas shoppers to keep things humming along at a decent rate of growth. This annual boost in retail revenue is so important that we get reports on the amount of money spent on holiday shopping that every day from Thanksgiving to New Years. If the rate of spending is lower than in the previous year, the anxious note of economic doom is sounded. The implication seems to be that it’s our patriot duty to make a beeline for the mall to buy a few more gifts.

It’s hard to avoid contacting this disease of the pocketbook and, more importantly, the soul. Advertisers know how to speak directly to our insecurities and our longing to be accepted. There’s an ad running on TV right now that claims it’s not our clothes or our car that tells the world you are. It’s your watch! So if you want everyone to know just how fabulous you are, you’d better get yourself to the jewelry store and replace the boring old timepiece you’re wearing. And never mind the price. Your MasterCard or VISA will solve that problem!

The idea that our possessions define us isn’t something that was dreamed up by the boomer generation. Human beings seem to have an inbred sense of status and a love for things. Most people didn’t own a lot of stuff because the house they lived in was fairly small. Children shared bedrooms — even beds. Rooms did double and triple duty. One sign of the impact of Affluenza in American is the startling increase in the size of the average home. New homes two to three times the size of homes that were built fifty years ago. In that time, homes have gone from no garage to double and even triple garages. One can argue that it makes sense to protect our expensive vehicles with all the fancy features. The truth is that many families use these garages to store all of the stuff that they can’t cram into the closets, attic, or basement. The cars still sit in the driveway.

This malady affects all ages. Children are just as susceptible as adults. Last week I caught the show “20-20” on my lowly 27 inch TV. One segment of the program reported on the impact of band names on the choices children made when shopping. It featured an interview with a group of young girls — my guess is that they were 7 to 10 years old. They were shown several outfits by different manufacturers and asked which ones they liked before the brands were revealed to them. Once they were told the brands of the outfits,, their preferences changed. They all agreed that designer label clothes were very important. One girl said that it was surprising how something as small as clothes of a certain brand could have such a big effect on her confidence. As a survivor of many battles several years ago over which brands of sneakers and jeans were acceptable to my sons, I know that brand status isn’t something new. And while I’m glad to live in a community where dress for success isn’t a big deal, I wonder if I would pay more attention to brand and fashion magazines if I lived in a community where the expectations and the social milieu were different.

My most serious brush with Affluenza came about when I subscribed to satellite TV for a year and watched some of the shows on the Home and Garden channel and the Food Network. I might not spend my money on the latest styles in clothing or shoes, but I do go for kitchen gadgets and stuff for my home. About six months after I added these channels, I realized that I was spending quite a bit of money on household items that I really didn’t need. If Rachael Ray got excited about a new gadget, I’d check it out and maybe take it home. I might watch some home makeover show and start to imagine how I might “update” my living room with some elegant new furniture and decorative pieces.

My point in this little confessional is that very few of us are immune to the wiles of the media. And even if we try to avoid the relentless ads on TV, or take pains to hide the Toys R Us toy catalog that shows up in the Sunday paper right after Thanksgiving, we can’t entirely escape the consequences of Affluenza.

One of the saddest Christmases I can remember came about when one of my sons, who’d been very pleased to get everything on his list, went off to visit a friend that Christmas afternoon. He was outraged when returned home. His buddy had received gifts that were so much more exciting — and much more expensive. His modest gifts paled in comparison and he felt cheated! Why couldn’t he have a TV with a Nintendo in his room? His pleasure in his own gifts evaporated, and the day turned dismal as his unhappiness hung over him.

It wasn’t until he made friends with a boy whose family was really struggling financially that he was able to gain some balance in his expectations and frustration. He learned to appreciate what he had because his new friend was so grateful for the things my boy took for granted. I knew he had come to a turning point in his life when, three or four years after his disappointing Christmas, he wondered out loud if his friend’s parents bought him so much stuff because they felt guilty about being so busy and unavailable to their children.

To me, this is the most tragic cost of over-consumption. While I’m deeply worried about the impact our materialistic life style will have on the planet ± especially as other countries take up our American shopping habits — I worry more about the cost to families, communities and the social fabric of our nation.
This worry is grounded in my own experience. When I was 15 years old, my father, who was the spender in my family, decided that we would move out of our very comfortable but modest home in St. Paul into a large, fancy house in a very up-scale suburb of Minneapolis. Despite strong resistance from my mother, my sisters, and me, he bought the house of his dreams and we relocated.. While my sisters and I certainly benefited from the excellent school system this community could afford, our family slowly and painfully came apart under the strain of the financial burden of that house.

This is not a unique story! Today many American are in debt so deep they don’t know how — or if — they’ll ever get out. Nonetheless, the credit card companies, the banks, and the merchants continue to encourage us to take on more debt. Just yesterday, I heard an ad on the radio from Sun Trust Bank that suggested taking out a home equity line to buy a big-screen TV. That same morning I read a story in The Roanoke Times about the large up-scale department stores that offer special deals to newly married couples so that they can acquire the “unfulfilled” items on their gift registry list. As one marketer noted, if the young couple doesn’t purchase these items soon after the wedding, other needs will distract them. Oh yes, I thought, like the need to pay for that dream wedding that cost tens of thousands of dollars and the student loans and the car payments. I can’t imagine facing the stresses that are a normal part of the first years of marriage with the added burden of indebtedness that so many young couple carry.

All this debt consumes more than our income, it eats up our time. We all know Americans are working longer hours than ever. This means that, that we have less time for our families and friends, and our friends and families have less time for us. We have less time to support community activities and the causes we care about, and less time for recreation. If we’re not working at our job, we’re busy taking care of the yard, the car, the house — and the boat.

If you are worried about the effect of Affluenza on your family, then I’d encourage you to take some time this week and think about how your family celebrates the winter holidays. Is this a happy time that you share and enjoy, or an endless list of things to buy that leaves you weary and broke? Is it a time for reconnecting with family, friends, and your own special traditions? Or are you racing around, trying to create that fantasy of the Best Christmas Ever?

You don’t have to be like Scrooge or the Grinch and proclaim that Christmas is a fraud as you fight off the Affluenza bug. You might find courage in the words of Bill McKibbon, the author of Hundred Dollar Holiday, the Case for a More Joyful Christmas:

"The point is not to stop giving; the point is to give things that matter."

He claims that time, attention, memories, and joy are the things that matter to most people.

Affluenza can be cured. We can take control of our lives, our money, and discover what makes us truly happy. I’m certain that by extricating ourselves from the grip of this nasty bug, we’ll rediscover a sense of energy, contentment, and balance that will be the greatest gift we’ve ever given and the best gift we’ve ever received.

May it be so.

UUC Home Page

Reverend Brownlie Home Page