I’m going to blame our dear friends for talking us into the Italy/Greece cruise vacation. That’s not entirely fair—we were easily persuaded—but like Chad Pierce, I feel guilty about going on a vacation while the world burns. Still, after reading and teaching classical and Renaissance literature all my life, I did want to see Italy and Greece just once in my life, and this was my chance.
Ron and I had a wonderful time with our friends, saw incredible sights, visited world-class museums. I would say the cruise itself, however, was… OK. If you love cruises, no judgment from me. But it’s not my thing. Lovely as our sedate Holland America ship was, I started to feel like a caged animal on it. And something else bothered me, too, and it took me a while to figure out what it was.
One of our ports of call was Kotor, Montenegro. Before the ship glided into the fjord-like Bay of Kotor, I was not entirely sure what Montenegro even was. Is it a region? A country? It’s in Europe, I guess? Yes, it’s a country. With a “rich history,” of course—the bland claim about all the ports we visited.
In Kotor, three of us decided to hike the “Ladder of Kotor,” a zig-zagging, “challenging” hike up the mountain overlooking the bay, 70-some switchbacks with an elevation gain of 3000 feet. You can imagine three late-middle-age puffers trudging steadily up the rocky trail. As we sweated along, I felt a quiet little joy. It wasn’t just the views. What was going on? I realized: I am most comfortable in life walking uphill with a pack on my back. I’m speaking metaphorically. But literally is great, too.
Contrast hiking uphill, then, with life on the ship, where all the guests on board had paid good money to do nothing but consume. Yes, I’m talking about the food (and the drinks—eesh!). But also, the whole experience is an exercise in choosing your preferences and then consuming them. We consume food, entertainment, experiences, we do nothing for ourselves. You lie by the pool and a friendly waiter comes by to offer you drinks. You “dine out” at your choice of dining spots on the ship, where you can choose from a three-course menu with rich desserts at every meal. You have nothing to do all day but consume the entertaining options provided for you, from trivia (we cleaned up!) to dance shows to watercolor classes to gambling (we did none of that). In the ports, you choose from a menu of tourist experiences, which you then merely consume, carried along in coaches and herded like sheep by a hired tour guide. These places have a “rich history” all right, which you will hear two or three things about. These towns are people’s homes, of course. Yet as you’re strolling around, it seems as if the “locals” are there to provide “quaint” experiences and pretty views for you.
I suppose normal people consider this the ideal vacation: you do not work, you produce nothing. You just see stuff and eat and “enjoy.” Cruising is consuming distilled to its essence. Why couldn’t I get into the spirit of that? Relax, you dummy!
I tried, and sometimes succeeded, but I was haunted. While trudging up that mountain (it was a long hike—I had many thoughts), I kept thinking about one of my doctoral students’ thesis projects. In partnership with a congregation, Betsy managed to grow heirloom wheat and bake it into bread for communion. The idea was to challenge the fact that the very elements we use for the sacraments have become mass-produced consumer products, whether it’s bakery bread or those little wafers. Did you know that 80% of the communion wafers “consumed” in the US Catholic “market” are made by one company, a company that boasts their wafers remain “untouched by human hands”? How ironic, when the liturgy calls for the priest to raise the elements and say “the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands.” What would it be like, Betsy wondered, if when we raise the elements for communion, the elements were indeed the work of human hands, and those human hands were… our own?
Thanks to Betsy’s thesis, I’ve wondered more about how agribusiness and a consumer economy truncate our agency as producers. We become passive and, in a way, helpless. This helplessness, which we usually think of as ease or convenience, has become more distasteful and worrisome to me. I’m not ready to become a homesteader, but I do worry. We are becoming merely homo phagon—humans who consume, from the Greek phagein, to devour. We are all mouth.
When we arrived home from our vacation, a new book was waiting for me: sociologist Christian Smith’s Why Religion Went Obsolete. Hoo boy, this book is a page-turner. (I’m tempted to say I devoured it, but never mind.) Smith’s thesis is that in America, traditional religion (which he defines carefully) is now obsolete (which he also defines carefully) not because of some secular conspiracy or the evils of university professors, but because of huge cultural shifts that have nothing to do with religion. Well, also because of religion’s failures, mostly scandals. But economic shifts, the digital revolution, a loss of trust in institutions, the rise of “expressive individualism,” and more, have formed Americans in post-Boomer generations to imagine themselves and the world differently from previous generations, creating profound “cultural mismatch” with traditional religious forms.
Note: Every church leader and educator should read this book.
To explain the economic factors at play, Smith describes the post-World War II economic boom and the rise of the advertising industry, which he calls the “evangelistic arm of capitalism deployed on apostolic mission”:
In its hugely successful campaign to sell ever-growing quantities of goods, the advertising industry transformed popular culture so that life was understood to be centrally about shopping for, buying, consuming, and discarding mass-manufactured products.
The result is that Americans developed a different anthropology:
More fundamentally, this revolution redefined persons not primarily as citizens or Presbyterians or proud family farmers but as consumers: perpetually hungry creatures out to satiate their appetites through the acquisition of products purchased on the market.
Later he describes the “impasse” between religion and a neoliberal economic worldview, in which we are all “atomistic” individuals jostling in a marketplace to get the goods and services we want. All traditional religions, he writes,
despite their vast theological differences, would agree that the neoliberal view is not only wrong but also delusional. For traditional American religions, humans are divinely dependent and socially interdependent creatures who inhabit a morally significant universe in which they are on a quest to realize, with divine aid, their spiritually and morally higher selves, the aim of which is to enjoy flourishing lives in communities of peace and love that reside under the governing care and judgement of God.
Yep. That about sums it up. Meanwhile, neoliberalism reduces us to “efficient producer, rational exchanger, and desiring consumer.”
So I suppose, on that cruise, I was experiencing a fundamental existential dissonance between homo religiosus and homo phagon. Or something like that.
One lovely evening on the cruise, we were waddling back to our staterooms after dinner, and we passed the professional photographer with her pop-up studio ready to take photos of guests. Why not? We were all dressed up anyway. We hesitated for a moment, though: the fake backdrop she had prepared for the evening depicted—get this—the grand staircase from the Titanic.
“Hey, um, that’s the Titanic,” I observed. “Isn’t that kind of a bad omen?”
“Don’t overthink it,” she replied.
Too late, lady. Too late.
12 Responses
Thanks for these provocative thoughts. Back in the days before online shopping took over, I challenged my students to think of the shopping malls as the temples of our age and the advertising media as the prophets for the religion of consumption. The advertisers try to dispel any notion of contentment with what we have and who we are.
Joel Salatin. Check him out.
One of my memorable communion services was once at Hope Church where they baked the bread for communion during the service using a bunch of bread makers. We could smell it baking in the first part of the service, then ate it for communion, followed by a pizza lunch together afterwards. The world needs a different measure of prosperity than how much we produce & consume. We need to measure our happiness and our health not just our wealth. If 5 people have hundreds of billions, how does that help the millions who have nothing? Also religion should be about all of us together. We need to regain a sense of community, of ubuntu, instead of just being independent individuals.
You’re so right and these are challenging words. Although we had visited Italy and England for extended periods with friends, now, not being quite as adventurous, we have switched to river boats, visiting much of the rest of Europe. Our appreciation of the beauty, history, and cultures of so many places have been nurtured by guides who often will share much about the small intimate worries and joys of their lives. Food is detailed to the region that we are in. Each time we come home we know Americans are not the only people with hopes, dreams, families, history, and fears and that there is beauty everywhere in our world. We aim to walk lightly when in other countries and be mindful that we are consumers, but being respectful and warm to all whom we encounter.
Debra, I have been on four long trips and I agree with you on the cruise and what it does for us. The last trip I was on was to Ethiopia and it was to two schools and other mission opportunities that my son has helped to establish, and this was the best trip of my life. We saw the people and their lives up close and near to our hearts. Two were through Globus tours and they were to England, Scotland and Wales and to Ireland (both northern and southern Ireland). These trips were very good, and they were what I would look for if I went again. The third was a cruise to Alaska and this was the cruise. I had recently buried by husband, after taking care of him for nine years, so I wanted and easy trip but the time we spent on the boat felt all wrong to me. The time off the boat was good but we were treated as indulgent Americans on the cruise boat, and I believe that is what was planned. I really rejected it as you did. There are other ways of traveling.
Thank you, Debra, for so intimately sharing your ruminating thoughts about the reductionism of consumerism. To be human is to be a meaning-maker. Thank you ongoingly for your skill at that vital task.
Debra, I agree with you on the cruise. Cruises were created to treat us as pampered individuals. I have been on four long trips. One was to Ethiopia with my son who helps to run two schools and other ministries. You got to meet the very wonderful people and their love of the Lord in reality. I also took two trips a number of years ago to England, Scotland and Wales and the other one was to Ireland. These trips were with Globus and they were excellent. They were educational and you were treated well but not as you were on the cruise. The other trip I went on was after my husband died. I took care of him for nine years so I was looking for an easy trip. This was the cruise to Alaska. Seeing the scenery was excellent on this trip but the treatment on the cruise boat was that of a spoiled and indulgent consumer. I agree with you.
Great meditation. I have preached many sermons against consumerism–it’s an important and easy target, with lots of convicting Bible verses. But I have also found it helpful to meditate on the fact that we are consumers. There’s no getting around it. God built us with a need to consume in order to live. While in the womb we’re consuming and immediately after we’re born. It never stops until we die—wait a minute, even in heaven we will consume. The key question concerns what we’re consuming and what we’re expecting from it. Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34). Come all who are thirsty, come buy and eat, why waste your money on what does not satisfy (Isaiah 55).
Yes to this. Having made trips and friends in impoverished circumstances in western Africa, I feel the dissonance almost daily. Self indulgence in the US has been raised to obscene levels, and I often wonder how different people regard ads in the media. One thing I do in striving for a humble, grateful heart is to thank God before each meal for every person and system that enabled the food to grace my table.
I agree with much of this, Deb. I’ve been on three cruises, lasting 10-15 days each, and can appreciate your perspective and critique. But I’m also troubled by it, and it’s not just the disingenuous use of “If you love cruises, no judgment from me.” It’s the ableist perspective. Our two most recent cruises were also on Holland America Lines—described by our travel agent as appealing to “more mature customers”—and we were surprised by how many passengers used mobility aids (canes, walkers, scooters, etc.). The kind of self-guided hike of the “Ladder of Kodor” you embarked on simply is not an option for many of us who wish we could do more, but simply are not physically able. I appreciate the spirit of Janice Zuidema’s comment in that regard.
There’s much that happens on a cruise that does not interest us, but there was also much that we valued. For example, on our most recent cruise, we learned from 10 lectures by an engaging marine biologist, were wowed by four remarkable performances by a six-person dance troupe, and enjoyed our two dining room servers (one from the Philippines and the other from Indonesia) who waited on us night after night. All of these individuals happily interacted with us and other passengers during their “off” hours. Holland America no doubt encouraged this, but it allowed us to learn more about them personally while also expressing our appreciation for the way they went about their work and the “cost” of being away from home. These felt to us like genuine interactions and not merely transactions.
I support your overall point of breaking out of a consumer approach to living, but even when we do consume, it’s possible to steward those experiences responsibly.
Just reflecting here on Christian Smith’s book on “religion.” Perhaps if we looked to contribute to religion rather than consume it, the church would be in a better place. I am conscious of the language we use: What church do you “go to”? What worship style? Music? Youth programs? Preaching excellence? Convenience? We do tend to want to consume. The church has become a reflection of the surrounding society, and not necessarily its moral example.
Thanks for this thoughtful piece.
Thanks to all for these wise comments. Terry, I appreciate your thoughts about ableism and the kinds of relationships one can build with the staff on these cruise ships. The staff on Holland America are exceptional, I agree. They are far from home and unfailingly kind. I did worry about the inherent colonialism of this Dutch cruise line hiring thousands of crew from Indonesia and the Philippines. Yes, these are good jobs. But we do see the results here of colonialism in these folks serving richer people enjoying luxury. Also, I should note that we went on an Alaska cruise in 2022 and loved it. It helped that the ship was half full after Covid, and that Alaska cruisers did seem to me more interested in the kinds of learning several of you describe. And truly, no judgment on people who like cruises. I do get the appeal! It’s just not for me. I would rather, at this point in my life, travel only for a purpose, as some of you fondly describe.