Shopping for Meaningful Lives: The Religious Motive of Consumerism by Bruce P. Rittenhouse (review)

Are there any theories of consumerism that characterize people’s lives on a global scale? What motivates them to choose a consumerist lifestyle? If possible, how can we overcome this lifestyle that entails destructive consequences? In this new book, Shopping for Meaningful Lives, Bruce Rittenhouse answers these questions by critically appropriating Paul Tillich’s theological insights. He first diagnoses consumerism as “not only a pattern of behavior that characterizes an individual life, but a way in which an individual organizes his or her particular life to seek to give it meaning” (3). It is thus more insidious than the mere acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts because humans are not meant to be mere consuming animals.

In attempting to deconstruct consumerism, Rittenhouse first points out that it has been poorly understood despite its seeming ubiquity. He launches his own investigation to look for possible theories of consumerism, which he then evaluates according to a consistent set of empirical criteria. In chapter 3 he enumerates five main types that describe Western consumerism: “1, greed, i.e., consumers’ intemperate materialistic hedonism; 2, status signaling, i.e., consumers’ desire to communicate superior social status; 3, manipulation of consumer by the producers of economic goods through marketing and advertising; 4, imaginative hedonism, i.e., consumers’ seeking emotional pleasure through the imaginative identities; 5, parental concern, i.e., parents’ desire to maximize their children’s well-being” (47). According to Rittenhouse, these five theories of the motivations for consumerism provide anecdotal support to demonstrate their practical relevance, but they “fall short of demonstrating their theories’ empirical possibility, let alone their empirical superiority over the rival theories” (95).

Rittenhouse’s alternative theory is then developed in chapter 5, after he provides empirical evidence (including economic charts and analyses) for his own critique in chapter 4. His years of experience as a professional economist aptly qualify him to develop his social-scientific argumentation. Rittenhouse’s constructive proposal is hinged upon his critical insight that consumerism’s motivation may best be understood as religious. By religious, he means that it “answers a question posed by the nature of human existence” (132). Consumerism is now newly understood both as existential and as religious matter, and here Rittenhouse critically appropriates Tillich’s ontotheological categories and concepts, such as the three pairs of ontological elements in the self-world structure of being (individuation and participation, dynamics and form, and freedom and destiny). Since consumerism’s motivation is existential and religious, Rittenhouse attempts to resolve the moral and religious failings of consumerism by demonstrating the “correlation between the existential question of meaning and the answer of existential Christian faith” (133).

Rittenhouse concludes his book by calling for existential conversion through the means of grace—that is, “the means of conversion to existential Christian faith and of ongoing conversion within ambiguous existential Christian faith” (175). The strength of this book lies in his discovery that consumerism is a spurious form of religious life that only destroys those who are intoxicated by its lifestyle. Given that consumerism has taken root everywhere affected by ever rising globalization, Rittenhouse’s existential investigation and theological remedy are definitely a welcome voice in the field of Christian ethics. His expertise in social-scientific study and empirical analysis is also a rare strength in this important pursuit. This book is well suited for upper-level college students as well as seminarians and theological school students. It is also a wonderful text for adult Bible study groups in churches and religious communities.