The Market Is a Stumbling Block

In eighth grade I submitted a paper entitled "Is it wrong to live in luxury while other human beings suffer?" When I got it back, Mrs. Whitman had written in red on the last page, "Do you really believe this, Peter?" No comments or corrections. No engagement with the argument. Just astonished incredulity.

The purpose of middle school in Newton, Massachusetts is not to teach students to think independently and deeply about moral questions. It is to teach them to conform. The majority has already made up its mind. Yes, it is acceptable to live in luxury, so long as you have the resources to do so. Who was this twelve year old boy who had the audacity to question a matter already settled by the majority?

In college I once tried to speak to one of my classmates about whether it was right for a merchant to decide whom to help and whom to ignore based on who could offer money, rather than who was most in need. The response was a snide and sarcastic "Okay, Peter, whatever."

No one wants to talk about whether we make the right choice when we serve the rich and ignore the poor. It seems to be a violation of decorum even to raise the question. We live in a society founded by commercial men, and devoted in its very core to commerce. The most fundamental premise of commerce is that we serve those who can pay and ignore those who can't.

I recently told a friend I'm going back to school. He was eager to know what new market I'm trying to address. The idea that all disciplined human activity is intended to serve the market is so deeply ingrained in our souls, we have a hard time imagining any other motivation for disciplined thought and action.

When Jesus told his disciples he had to go to Jerusalem to suffer and die, they tried to stop him. “Get behind me, Satan!" Jesus responded, "You are a stumbling block to me; you don't have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (Mt. 16:23) In today's world, the response would be, "OK, Jesus, whatever."

In America, the individual is trained from birth that he is part of the majority, and must think, feel and act like a member of the majority. When an individual expresses an aspiration that isn't an aspiration shared by the majority, people shrug their shoulders and walk away. A lifetime of such shrugs, I'm ashamed to admit, made me doubt myself. I began to doubt whether my aspirations were worth aspiring for, when everyone else was so indifferent to them. I buckled down and worked for the things that everyone else was working for, things like money, popularity and reputation.

Now I feel like I have wasted twenty years of my life striving for things I never really cared about, but only cared about because I wanted to impress others. My God, how cowardly and foolish I have been.

One of the things that gave me the courage to set aside the goals the world chose for me and concentrate instead on goals I chose for myself is my discovery late in life of the New Testament, whose hero defies the expectations of his contemporaries and pursues the path his own conscience (logos) dictates. Even his disciples expect him to respond to "human concerns"—the concerns of the majority—rather than living and dying in the way dictated by his own conscience. I know for many the New Testament is a source of authority rather than a source of inspiration, and they will disagree with the message I take from it. I hope they will forgive me for interpreting it differently.

No, I'm not trying to address a new market. I'm no longer willing to accept that my life should be ruled by the market. The market represents the aspirations of others. And I intend to spend the last third of my life pursuing my own aspirations, with no regard for whether or not others share them.

Is this selfish? No, I don't think so, for several reasons. First, I believe all of us should pursue our own aspirations, not timidly conform to the herd. By pursuing my own aspirations, I set an example that may inspire others to courageously strive for theirs. Second, one of my foremost aspirations is to help others. I just don't happen to think we help people by giving them what they ask for. We help people by showing them the things that they would ask for if they knew about them, but don't.

The defiant pop music of the 1970s expressed lots of nonconformist and individualist themes, but in the hands of marketers its defiant stance became just another commodity. Now anyone who comes out with a nonconformist philosophy is assumed to be just another producer trying to address this market segment. The tragedy is that even those who negate the very idea of the market in their work are absorbed by the market. The only solution I know to this problem is asceticism. By refusing to accept the rewards the market offers, we make it clear we are not offering something for sale in the market. We are offering an alternative to the market.

My friends and family are in a state of alarm. How will Peter feed himself, now that he has abandoned all prospects of an income? Fortunately, the New Testament taught me how to respond. Get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me. You don't have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. The New Testament taught me to take no care for human concerns like what I will wear and what I will eat. All these things pale in comparison to my mission to help others in the unique way I and I alone know how.

Our age has become very shortsighted. We're concerned how our contemporaries will receive our message, who will pay for the opportunity to hear or read it. We have forgotten the attitude of an earlier, far more courageous age, in which we wrote not what our contemporaries wanted to hear, but what we and no one else could contribute to eternity.