Darrin McMahon writes:
Benjamin R. Barber, a professor at the University of Maryland, argues in his recent "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole" that modern capitalism drives grown-ups "to retrieve the childish things the Bible told us to put away, and to enter the new world of electronic toys, games, and gadgets that constitute a modern digital playground for adults." Indulging our desire for gadgets, Barber warns, makes adults selfish, sad and infantile.
Barber is just the latest in a venerable line of worrywarts. . . .
Political economist Adam Smith was wiser about such things than today's scolds and killjoys. A man of deep classical learning, he knew perfectly well that "frivolous objects" could never secure our happiness, which was above all a matter of the soul. . . . But he also knew that our longing for what he called "baubles" and "gewgaws," like our longing for power or riches, was a productive force that tapped deep into the wellsprings of human nature. It was natural, he thought, to aspire to such things, and natural for us to imagine that having them would bring us happiness and ease.
That belief, Smith fully acknowledged, was a "deception." He understood that humans innately overestimate the amount of pleasure that gewgaws and iPhones would bring. And yet he thought that the impulse to acquire them was precisely the force that "rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind," prompting us to build cities, invent and improve the arts and sciences, and change the "whole face of the globe." The key to all human progress, Smith knew, was the pursuit of happiness.
So pursue away. Of course, the iPhone won't make you truly happy -- at least not for long. But don't let that keep you from enjoying it. People were meant to play, and there is tremendous power in such pursuits. Smith probably would have chuckled indulgently at the iPhone lineups at AT&T. He may even have picked one up for himself.
McMahon argues that our "natural" desires for "frivolous objects" lead to "deception" and yet are "productive" and, by implication, good. Hence, he urges us to indulge in that self-deception. Are you inclined to follow that advice?