True Story: What Reality TV Says about Us

by Danielle J. Lindemann

Why do we perceive wealth as good? One might argue that it’s only natural to crave nice things, to want to live in the greatest comfort possible, and to feel the urge to telegraph our success to our neighbors like a peacock fanning its tail. Yet to some extent, these impulses are a particular product of Western capitalism. Tracing the origins of our capitalist system, Max Weber has argued that we can locate its roots in late-1800s Protestantism. At that time, financial success in the present life became seen as a marker that one was destined for greatness in the afterlife as well. Thus germinated the “Protestant ethic,” in which people are inspired to work hard and accumulate money, to demonstrate that they are among the Chosen. This ethic wasn’t the sole catalyst for capitalism, but it did contribute to the “spirit” of capitalism.38 In some Christian megachurches we still see this ideology of wealth both as a goal and as a sign of God’s blessing. And even though most of us today are not working hard to demonstrate our fitness for the afterlife, we’re still fanning out those peacock plumes of money to demonstrate our legitimacy. Under capitalism, to have things becomes a goal in and of itself. The concept of modern-day consumerism, as the sociologist Dalton Conley explains, “refers to more than just buying merchandise; it refers to the belief that happiness and fulfillment can be achieved through the acquisition of material possessions.