I went and saw "Confessions of a Shopaholic" this weekend. As romantic comedies go, it was a cute little feel-good film. Comical and clean with a quirky-but-lovable heroine and a beautiful, flawless (in terms of both character and physique) boy for her to fall for. The dialogue is cliche but not sickeningly so, and all the loose ends are neatly tied by the end of the movie. There are even a few morsels of truth scattered throughout the script, so I really don't have any reason to complain.
But I'm going to anyway.
Not about the movie, actually. It was a decent movie. It's what the movie reveals about our culture that I'm taking issue with.
Let's just take for instance, the title. "Confessions of a Shopaholic."; obviously, it's a story about people who are addicted to shopping. Addicted to shopping. Yes.
I know that this is a legitimate addiction. I mean, I don't think it's been classified in the DSM-IV yet, but I know that it is something that people really struggle with. I can relate to that feeling that somehow, when you are blue, all you need is a little iTunes spree, or a new pair of shoes (the shoes get me almost every time) or even just a new piece of...tupperware...and somehow you will forget your troubles - because you have something - anything - new and shiny and in colorful packaging to take home. (Of course, it's never as attractive once in my cluttered cupboard or closet as it was on that neatly stacked store shelf.)
Whether or not you would consider yourself a full-fledged shopaholic, or just occasionally guilty of consumption-for-the-sake-of-a-seratonin-boost, most of us Americans have an issue - to some degree - with unneccesary spending.
It's humorous when you are watching the movie (which I paid nearly $10 to see, I might add) and not-so-humorous if you are one of the average American households with over $9,800 in credit card debt. But its simply absurd when you take a step back and view it from a global perspective.
Globally, we live in a world where nearly 30,000 children die daily from malnutrition. The poorest 10% of the worlds population account for just 0.5% and the wealthiest 10% account for 59% of all consumption. (www.globalissues.org)
However, nationally, we live in a world where, for many of us, our biggest issues stem from spending more than we have to buy things we don't need. We've even labeled our compulsive tendencies to acquire piles of crap with victim-mentality terminology and formed support groups to talk us through our addiction and walk us through the purging of those piles of crap.
Economically, this living-above-our-means has finally sent us into a national financial tailspin. The solution? Let's spend more money we don't have to create jobs producing more things we don't need so we can make more money and start all over consuming these things...and on and on and on.
It's embarrassing.
It's not just our issue of obscene spending habits that is disconcerting. As a nation, we are depressed and lonely and empty. Our young men are killing themselves (The Rosebud Indian Reservation has the highest per-capita suicide rate in the world). Our young women are starving themselves (75% of American women have eating issues of some kind). And our socially approved genocide wipes out over 1.6 million unborn babies, by choice of their mothers, annually.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East, young men are ordered - by their own governments - to kill their friends and brothers. In Mauritania, young girls worry about having enough to eat, not about eating too much. And in Sierra Leone, 26% of children do not live past their fifth birthday.
Like I said, from that perspective, things get kind of embarrassing.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am not trying to make light of our country's social problems. They are very real and very devastating. I am also not trying to induce hopelessness or anti-patriotism. I just want us (me) to have a better perspective. I want to better understand that the answers to our problems and emptiness (whether they are impulsive purchases, or distorted body images, or making next months car payment - all things I worry about) are not going to come from a new president, a new bail out plan, a new diet, or a new set of tupperware. Nor will these things save children's lives in Sierra Leone.
The only thing that will solve any of these issues is recognizing the redeeming love and sufficiency of Our Maker for all of humanity, and consequently turning our gaze outside of ourselves to relieve, if even in the tiniest way, the suffering of those whose problems we can with the resources we have.
