A Culture of Greed

“If there is no God all things are permissible.” – Dostoyevsky

“You cannot serve God and Mammon” Luke 16:13

The complex social, economic, and political factors that have led to these outbursts of violent looting and arson boil down to a single cause: a culture of greed, the inevitable result of a secular society.

[I started a new blog and was resolved to write regularly. Suddenly, I was rudely interrupted by riot on my doorstep. There have been many commentators on the symptoms and cures of this and will be many more. However, my exploration of the passions, of vices and of virtues is not irrelevant here.]

 

The looting and arson in Tottenham, Wood Green and Enfield had nothing at all to do with protest or poverty. It had everything to do with a materialistic culture based on sheer greed.  A culture that glorifies money, power and violence.

Other social commentators are waking up to the moral decay in our society where “An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.”

I am usually the last person to agree with Mr. Cameron, but when he said “Society is not just broken, it’s sick”,  he was right.  In speaking of morality, the Orthodox Church, does not equate it with right and wrong, but uses the language of medicine. It talks about the vices, the passions, as sickness. These sicknesses need to be cured. What we have witnessed in London in the past few days is symptomatic of one of the eight vices referred to in the Evagrian tradition. This is the vice of avarice or as we would recognise it today – greed.  

What is Greed?

Greed is about getting things.  Greed is a excessive love or desire for money and material things and an unbalanced desire for even more. Greed doesn’t really care about enjoying the possessions acquired. A greedy person values things more than they value people or relationships.  Greed revels in the temporary and rejects the eternal.  Greed is the desire to own more than I need, out of  fear of idolatry. Greed is a disease of the heart. .

Yet nowadays,  far from being a vice, greed is often considered a virtue.

There are three kinds of avarice. The first does not permit renunciants to be deprived of their wealth and property. The second persuades us by a still greater covetousness to take back What we have dispersed and distributed to the poor. The third demands that we long for and acquire what in fact we did not possess before. St. John Cassian

Why is greed spiritually unhealthy?

One of the things Jesus warns about most often is greed. There are many reasons why greed is spiritually unhealthy:

• Greed shows a mistrust in God. It is the ultimate expression of a godless society that had no space for God. Even for those who say they believe God exists greed  expresses doubt that God will provide all that you need. It is disbelieving Jesus when He promises that God will provide everything you need (Luke 12:22-31) “The birds of the air that sow not nor do they reap, nor gather into barns, and the lilies of the field that labour not, neither do they spin.” (Matt. 7:24-34). Instead, they rely on themselves alone. “Behold the man that made not God his helper: But trusted in the abundance of his riches and prevailed in his vanity.” (Ps. 60:9)

‘A mole burrowing in the earth is blind and cannot see the stars; and he who does not trust God in temporal things will not trust Him in eternal things’ – St Cosmas  the Aetolian .

• Greed is the height of  self-love and selfishness. Greed ruins marriages, destroys friendships, and divides families all in the selfish pursuit of gratifying one’s self. Greed is the opposite of charity, generosity and love. Greed disregards all others and puts falsely high importance on the self: it is a form of self-worship. The  greedy have no qualms about depriving others of what they need. In London this week we saw how callous the looters were. This stems from arrogance and pride. These greedy people  consider themselves so important they do not mind harming and trampling all over others to get what they desire.

For the more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love for others. St. Basil

• Greed promotes crime. More crimes have been committed due to greed than any other vice. Greed drives people to steal, lie, betray others and even kill in order to acquire more more money and worldly possessions. Greed makes us stamp upon fairness and  justice when we want what rightfully belongs to another, to the point of doing anything to get it, even when we don’t need it. In doing this greed does not just feed our wants, it also tramples upon others needs.

Avarice in the 21st Century: Consumerism

Do we possess our possessions, or are we possessed by them?

We live in an increasingly materialistic culture, this is manifested in he rise of  consumer culture. It could be argued that consumerism, the social and economic creed that encourages us to aspire to even more than that share, regardless of the consequences, is just avarice and greed writ large.

We even see the extent of this with the psychologists using the term ‘pleonexia’ (an ancient Greek word meaning ‘greediness’)  to diagnose a pathological greed that can contribute to a host of ills, including stress, burnout, gambling addictions, compulsive shopping, ‘affluenza’ and loss of moral grounding. The clinical psychologist Madeline Levine speaks of  “a shift away from values of community, spirituality, and integrity, and toward competition, materialism and disconnection.”

We live in a culture of instant gratification, where we are encouraged to own the most recent iPod or iPad, the next smartphone, the latest designer clothing, and if we can’t get this legitimately or through credit, our morally bankrupt society now has kids talking of ‘aggressive shopping’. 

We go after and desire certain goods to boost our self esteem. When investigating which new laptop to buy several Apple Mac owners have just advised me not to get one. I asked “Why? Most Mac owners are enthusiastic?”

“Well, we would have said get an Mac a few years ago, but now you can get much better value with a PC”

“So, why do people still buy Macs?”

“Well, the thing about a Mac is it makes you feel good about yourself”

Greed is dangerous because when we are in its grip we believe that the things we own are really ours and that we have control over them and, therefore, control over our lives.

We are no longer defined by our relationships but by our possessions. Who we are is defined by what we own.

What’s the cure?

There are two main ways of overcoming greed:

• Generosity and gratitude
•  Asceticism

Having an attitude of gratitude and giving.

Someone who truly believes that everything belongs to God, not just our possessions, but our very selves, is free to give generously and does so without worry and anxiety.

How much stuff do you really need? If you can limit the number of things you own and are grateful and appreciative of what you already then you are well on your way to conquering greed.

Ask yourself – “What if I woke up today with only the things I thanked God for yesterday?”

You go a step further when you  are generous with both your time and possessions.On a practical level, one remedy for greed could be  to give money away every week. This should not be from what is left over, but the first thing we . You could take it further and fast from consumerism -maybe once a month or during the main fast seasons of the Church, avoid from going to the shopping mall, or shopping online, avoid adverts and things that encourage this ‘want more’ mentality.

Next time you go to buy something – stop yourself and question -do I really need this?

Finding an antidote in asceticism

‘Blessed is he who is not attached to anything transitory or corruptible. Blessed is the intellect that transcends all sensible objects and ceaselessly delights in divine beauty. If you make provision for the desires of the flesh (cf. Rom. 13:14) and bear a grudge against your neighbour on account of something transitory, you worship the creature instead of the Creator’. – St Maximus the Confessor, First Century on Love, 18-20.

The Orthodox Tradition of  prayer, fasting, repentance and alms-giving are powerful antidotes to greed . If we pray and humble ourselves and ask for God’s help we can overcome any passions. Prayer makes us mindful of God and strengthens us. Fasting teaches us self-denial, self-control and gives us a spirit of sacrifice. Alms-giving encourages generosity and putting others first.  Overall, our passions are overcome through daily repentance.

Should we tear down our barns? (Luke 12:18)

What we tear down and what we build up tells us a lot about what we truly value and the state of ours soul.

You can tear down your greed , you can tear down your consumer lifestyle and build up a new barn filled with alms-giving, help for others or generosity; or you can tear down your barn and build one that is bigger, better and even more comfortable than the first at the expense of everyone else around you/ 

The choice is yours? 

Do you want to be defined by what you own or who you love?

Further Reading

Quotes from the Fathers on Avarice

On Avarice – St. John of Kronstadt

The Hidden Devastation of Greed – Fr. George Morelli

Books

Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain and How we can Fix It – Philip Blond

Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay– John Lancaster

On Social Justice (Popular Patristics Series) – St. Basil the Great

Evagrius of Pontus (Cistercian Studies Series) Talking Back – A monastic handbook for combatting Demons

Defeating Sin: Overcoming Our Passions and Changing Forever – Fr. Joseph Huneycutt