Review: Affluenza - Cure Please

Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, Second Edition by John De Graff, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor (Berrett-Koehler: 2005).

Let's begin with the end.  The very end.  "When your time comes and your whole life flashes before you, will it hold your interest?  How much of the story will be about moments of clarity and grace, kindness and caring?  Will the main character - you - appear as large and noble as life itself, or as tiny and absurd as a cartoon figure, darting frantically among mountains of stuff?  It's up to you, and indeed, it's up to all of us!"

When you read those last words on page 247 of this convicting book, you will feel like you've finished a life's journey.  And you will have wished it was not your own, though for too many of us the stories and scenes will seem familiar.  Affluenza helps readers diagnose the symptoms, understand the causes, and finally find the cures for the disease of over consumption.  This book is sobering to read in the way that a doctor's pronouncement of a chronic disease subdues.  The news could be more troubling, even so the feeling of relief is tempered by the realization that the rest of life will need to be different.

It would be hard to ignore the wake-up call found in Affluenza urging people to check their wasteful (physically and spiritually intemperate) consumption.  I can only imagine that a person who blows off this book is a person who is numb.  Since consumerism acts on us like an anesthetic to genuine life, I bet that people can read this book without being moved by its admonitions.  Too bad.  And not me.

My short reviews that get published on my blog are not the place to develop subtle arguments.  So let me just throw out a few things to consider.

I have no idea what the spiritual life of De Graff, Wann, and Naylor looks like.  Perhaps they are Christians, or maybe not.  By some of their comments, I suspect they are not conservative evangelical Christians.  And this, from my perspective as anevangelical , is troubling.  Disturbing because we do not often hear conservative evangelicals sounding so intelligent and spiritually mature.  I've heard countless sermons and testimonies that start the question, "When your time comes and your whole life flashes before you..."  But none have ever finished, "...will it hold your interest?"  Evangelicals tend to be concerned about the way God will react to the story of our lives, as if at the end of all things His view and our view will appear any different.  The authors of Affluenza have it right. A life worth looking back on is a life that holds the interest of the person who lived it, as well as the appreciation of others. Consumerism in no way - absolutely no possible way - prepares a person to reflect on a life well lived.

This book is a resource.  The style of writing is such that it is a quick read, mixing anecdotes, facts, and satire.  Don't let the tone fool you.  This appears to be a well constructed and researched book.  The end notes and bibliography are worth exploring.  And the suggested cures appeal to those who want to do something right now.

I'll finish up with one more quote, this from page 115, "The American race-car lifestyle is fast approaching burnout because it requires long, stressful workweeks that eat up chunks of life, natural resources, and health.  It programs us to substitute consumption for both citizenship and companionship.  And it tries to meetnonmaterial needs with material goods, a losing strategy."

Read this book.