{"id":39074,"date":"2024-10-24T09:24:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T16:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=39074"},"modified":"2024-10-24T09:24:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T16:24:03","slug":"the-commodification-of-our-souls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-commodification-of-our-souls\/","title":{"rendered":"The Commodification of our Souls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, by Wendell Berry. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,<\/em><\/p>\n

vacation with pay. Want more<\/em><\/p>\n

of everything ready-made. Be afraid<\/em><\/p>\n

to know your neighbours and to die.<\/em><\/p>\n

And you will have a window in your head.<\/em><\/p>\n

Not even your future will be a mystery<\/em><\/p>\n

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card<\/em><\/p>\n

and shut away in a little drawer.<\/em><\/p>\n

When they want you to buy something<\/em><\/p>\n

they will call you. When they want you<\/em><\/p>\n

to die for profit they will let you know.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, friends, every day do something<\/em><\/p>\n

that won\u2019t compute. Love the Lord.<\/em><\/p>\n

Love the world. Work for nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Take all that you have and be poor.<\/em><\/p>\n

Love someone who does not deserve it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Denounce the government and embrace<\/em><\/p>\n

the flag. Hope to live in that free<\/em><\/p>\n

republic for which it stands.<\/em><\/p>\n

Give your approval to all you cannot<\/em><\/p>\n

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man<\/em><\/p>\n

has not encountered he has not destroyed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ask the questions that have no answers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.<\/em><\/p>\n

Say that your main crop is the forest<\/em><\/p>\n

that you did not plant,<\/em><\/p>\n

that you will not live to harvest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Say that the leaves are harvested<\/em><\/p>\n

when they have rotted into the mold.<\/em><\/p>\n

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.<\/em><\/p>\n

Put your faith in the two inches of humus<\/em><\/p>\n

that will build under the trees<\/em><\/p>\n

every thousand years.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to carrion \u2014 put your ear<\/em><\/p>\n

close, and hear the faint chattering<\/em><\/p>\n

of the songs that are to come.<\/em><\/p>\n

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.<\/em><\/p>\n

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful<\/em><\/p>\n

though you have considered all the facts.<\/em><\/p>\n

So long as women do not go cheap<\/em><\/p>\n

for power, please women more than men.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy<\/em><\/p>\n

a woman satisfied to bear a child?<\/em><\/p>\n

Will this disturb the sleep<\/em><\/p>\n

of a woman near to giving birth?<\/em><\/p>\n

Go with your love to the fields.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head<\/em><\/p>\n

in her lap. Swear allegiance<\/em><\/p>\n

to what is nighest your thoughts.<\/em><\/p>\n

As soon as the generals and the politicos<\/em><\/p>\n

can predict the motions of your mind,<\/em><\/p>\n

lose it. Leave it as a sign<\/em><\/p>\n

to mark the false trail, the way<\/em><\/p>\n

you didn\u2019t go. Be like the fox<\/em><\/p>\n

who makes more tracks than necessary,<\/em><\/p>\n

some in the wrong direction.<\/em><\/p>\n

Practice resurrection.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Well, its finally time to write this post. I knew that in doing this doctoral program I would be stretched in my thinking and challenged to learn new things. I did not expect it would be in economics. I\u2019ll freely admit that I\u2019ve struggled with the reading this week and the \u2018brain pain\u2019 that has ensued of learning new terms and thinking differently about the world and its systems. Polanyi\u2019s work seems from another time and another world. And yet, so much of what he articulates in his book is playing out today that it warrants reflection.<\/p>\n

Where I\u2019d like to focus my post is on the \u201ccommodification of souls\u201d and how economic drivers and consumeristic society have reduced human beings to mere contributors to the SRM instead of human beings, complex, unpredictable and loved by God for who they are and not what they contribute to a broken economic system.<\/p>\n

Polanyi is an Austrio-Hungarian economist who began his work The Great Transformation<\/em> in between World War I and World War II. He observed major movements in the history and development of nation states and the way that developing economic policies, particularly the SRM, were harming humans and their relationships. Dr. Clark states that, \u201cCentral to Polanyi\u2019s thesis is the assertion that society and social relationships are vital to humans, and that the SRM is problematic to that, owing to how the SRM is disembedded from social constraints.\u201d[1]<\/a> Polanyi\u2019s theories have seemed to prove true as people\u2019s lives have become dictated to the ebbs and flows of economic systems in a global world.<\/p>\n

American voters were asked In a Pew Research Center poll from September of 2024 the most important issue to them in the upcoming Presidential election. While there are important issues around immigration and reproductive rights in America, \u201ceight-in-ten registered voters (81%) say the economy will be very important to their vote in the 2024 presidential election.\u201d[2]<\/a> Economic forces drive most of the policy decisions, and often the personal decisions, of many people in our current world.<\/p>\n

But are people happier in this particular system than they were before the SRM? Research suggests they are not. While there are many social and political factors impacting happiness, Annie Leonard in her work on, \u201cThe Story of Stuff\u201d states that, “Our” national happiness peaked in the 1950s, the same time this consumption mania exploded.\u201d[3]<\/a> Her assertion is that the onset of consumerism and the intrinsic felt need for many in the west to buy and consume products and materials has created a harmful cycle of production, consumption and waste that is commodifying humans made in the image of God. Leonard says, \u201c”We have more stuff but less time for the things that really make us happy.”[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

So what are the things that truly make us happy? How can we \u201cdisembed\u201d ourselves from the SRM and harmless cycle of consumption and waste that is commodifying our souls and harming the planet entrusted to our care? Here the work of Wendell Berry proves timely and helpful. Wendell Berry is an agrarian poet and prophet pointing towards a better way in the wake of the harmful patterns of SRM and consumerism. His poetry and essays remind us of the Great Economy of God\u2019s Kingdom that is underneath and around all human made economies and efforts to control and subdue our environments. In one of his greatest works \u201cManifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front<\/em>\u201d, Berry speaks about the power of the unpredictable behaviors of a human soul that has disconnected from the predictable patterns of consumption and behavior and has instead reconnected with the rhythms and wild beauty of the Creation of the Creator. Berry invites us to \u201cPractice Resurrection\u201d and embrace the death of ourselves and incessant need to control our environments and instead practice the resurrection of our hope in a better world that is being made in the midst of this dying one.<\/p>\n

Knowing that the SRM is the water in which we swim has helped me better understand the hope that following Jesus in a consumer society. Listening to prophets like Berry and Leonard remind us that there is something more than we\u2019re being offered on a daily basis. More is not better, richer is not happier, consumption does not equal meaning. John Kavanaugh in his book, Following Christ in Consumer Culture <\/em>reminds us, \u201c\u201cLife is slow and subtle. Love takes time to show and grow. In life, little acts count. In fact, that is what a life is all about, a long parade of moments deceptively inconsequential.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Disembedding ourselves from the SRM and practicing resurrection as Christians means moving slower through our day so that we have eyes to see the people around us in the image of God. It means carrying more about the social issues plaguing our country than the economy. It means critiquing and analyzing the why behind what I buy and consume and the who this pattern of consumption impacts. May we \u201cPractice Resurrection\u201d in a world that desperately needs new life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Clark, 26<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Issues and the 2024 election | Pew Research Center<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> [The Story of Stuff] (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9GorqroigqM&t=21s)<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> [The Story of Stuff](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9GorqroigqM&t=21s)<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Kavanaugh, John. Following Christ in a Consumer Society<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, by Wendell Berry. Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbours and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3317],"class_list":["post-39074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03-polanyi-clark","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39075,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39074\/revisions\/39075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}