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Are You Materialistic?
than adequately feed, clothe, and house himself. For
the first time ever in the history of man, everyone has
more without anyone having less. Here is how John
Wesley put it:
Make all you can
Save all you can
Give all you can
Do all the good you can
In all the ways you can
With all the souls you can
In every place you can
At all times you can
With all the zeal you can
As long as you ever can.
Contrary to our country's critics -- past and present,
young and old, foreign and domestic -- the people of
the United States may very well be the least
materialistic in the civilized world. This bears some
explanation. The word
''materialistic"
describes people
who are too much concerned with earthly goals and
indifferent to the idealistic side of life.
It
suggests
money-grubbing and selfishness. .
In demonstrating that this need not necessarily be
true of the American people, let's first consider the
effect of material possessions on a person's materialistic
outlook. Every normal person instinctively tries to
improve his condition by acquiring physical things,
whether they
be
housing, transportation, tools, or other
.possessions.
The fewer his physical possessions, the greater his
need. The greater his need; the greater his concern for
acquiring more. And the greater his concern, the
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