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Abstract
The article analyzes the culture of consumerism as an expression of practical materialism based on the documents of the Catholic Church. At the beginning, the historical process of the development of this culture is shown. The change in the dominant cultural narrative of Western societies in the 20th century is demonstrated based on the research of Zygmund Bauman. The culture of consumerism has brought with it a change in the understanding of time: the former linear perception of time has turned into a point-based one, when a person began to perceive one’s life only here and now, regardless of the past and not worrying about the future. The understanding of freedom has changed, because a modern person feels free only when realizing his ability to buy. This has affected the ecology of our planet, because such a lifestyle: “bought, consumed, thrown away” leads to overproduction, and therefore to a significant accumulation of waste that pollutes the environment. Consumerism has changed the interpretation of poverty, because now a person is considered poor not if he has nothing to eat or wear, but if he cannot constantly buy new and new things. Finally, the culture of consumerism has changed the concept of happiness, and therefore has changed the life orientations of the person oneself. The second part of the article shows how the Catholic Church interprets the cultural changes of the 20th century. Since the Second Vatican Council, a gap between the faith and the science has become noticeable. The loss of the feeling of the presence of God leads to the materialistic closure of a person that affects social relations. John Paul II stated the onset of practical materialism, when a person closing oneself in the spaces of the visible world unsuccessfully tries to find happiness in consumerist activities. The “death of God” predicted by Nietzsche led to the “death of person”, since the eschatological goal of a person, who was placed on the same level as material things, was lost.
References
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