Materialism: attention to or emphasis on material objects, needs or considerations, with a disinterest in or rejection of spiritual values.
The acquisition of material has been equated with happiness in this country. This is true today, and it was true during the 1920's, the setting of F.
Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. That the majority of Americans believe that wealth and happiness are the same is a result of our market
economy that encourages consumption and conditions us to think that we need material possessions to be happy. According to Andrew Bard
Schmookler, 'Wealth and human fulfillment have become equated in the predominant ideology of liberal society, even though the great spiritual
teachers of humanity have all taught otherwise.' (17)
What happened to Gatsby's generation? The 20's was an age of a consumption ethic that was needed to provide markets for the new
commodities that streamed from the production lines (Cowley, 53).
![[New York Bank Note Co. notice] (LOC)](/uploads/17/171683/new-york-bank-note-co-notice-loc.jpg)
[New York Bank Note Co. notice] (LOC)
The grave of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzger...
The cover of the first edition of The Great Gatsby...The same problem exists today ... our materialistic attitudes are a result of
the freemarket economy in this country. Consumers are taught that they need to have all these things that the businesses are trying to sell.
It's true that this desire for things is what drives our economy. The free market has given us great blessings, but it has in some ways also put us
on the wrong path -- the path to a selfish, unhappy society. Michael Lerner, who worked as a psychotherapist to middle-income Americans
notes that
'The problem is that the deprivation of meaning is a social problem, rooted in part in the dynamics of the competitive marketplace, in part in the
materialism and selfishness that receive social sanction. . . many Americans
hunger for a different kind of society -- one based on principles of caring,
ethical and spiritual sensitivity . .