“Death creates an economy that makes life precious. One of the ways of naming that preciousness is friendship.”
Stanley Hauerwas

CPX sent Brian Rosner to the ‘Happiness Conference’ in Sydney. Here is the second of his reflections on the conference.

Greed as a Religion

Brian Rosner

  'There are many people who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only a few are not enslaved to things.’
Abraham Joshua Heschel 		 

Doubts about Western materialism

One thing every speaker at the happiness conference agreed on was that 'money can’t buy happiness.' Some just repeated the clichés. Others offered more detailed explanations. The first 10% of your income purchases 90% of your happiness.  Habituation, the act of becoming accustomed to something through prolonged exposure, means that that new computer or sofa or car or holiday house supplies ever-diminishing pleasure. Even lottery winners eventually return to their previous default level of happiness.  

In recent years a number of academics and social commentators have in fact questioned the rampant materialism of the Western world. They argue that if people are trying to get rich in order to be happy, it isn’t working. Elizabeth Farrelly wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that 'Western happiness has declined precisely in tandem with the rise of affluence.'  Similarly, Ross Gittins claims that there is actually 'evidence that those who strive most for wealth tend to live with lower wellbeing.'

Read more