Our identity as consumers has become—though not our only—identity. We are not primarily warriors or workers or prayer, but consumers, and we define who we are and who we aspire to be through consumption…. There is no benevolent and sovereign subject who becomes self-contradictory in a capitalist society; rather the human subject as such is self-contradictory, both altruistic and selfish, aware and unaware, rational and irrational. Freud connects consumerism with narcissism directly in his discussion of how parents shower their children with gifts as a way to satisfy their own narcissistic desires, while simultaneously thinking of themselves as altruistic…. Narcissism and idolatry are two sides of the same coin, and they lead to diminution of the self. True freedom is found in service to the Creator of that material world; a healthy engagement with the material world requires humility. (W. T. Cavanaugh, The Uses of Idolatry, 2024, 289, 327, 329

Narcissism is defined as “agentic, egocentric, self-aggrandizing, dominant, and manipulative orientation” that is accompanied by a lack of regard for others. Narcissism has a very high correlation with conspicuous consumption in an effort to boost social status and self-esteem. Narcissists are focused on the symbolic, rather than the functional, importance of commodities, and the symbolism of the products they purchase is often used to compensate for fragile egos and fluctuating self-esteem. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 326)

Consumer culture is focused on the self and its own desires…. The covetousness that Paul (Rom 7:7) condemns without mentioning any particular object of desire is now the central virtue of our political economy: the need for desire is to move restlessly from one object to another in order to keep the wheels of production moving. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 325)

For many, consumer culture has invested products and brands with aspiration toward the transcendence of the mundane and the material; that the material has been animated and personalized, as were the gods of old; and that material goods and brands have become a focus of devotion for many people, whether they recognize it or not. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 309)

Who are the players in capitalism? (1) The captains of industry whose constant search for shareholder value drives ecological degradation; (2) the relatively affluent consumers whose lifestyle demands the continued exploitation of natural resources; (3) the billions whose level of consumption barely rise above subsistence; and (4) the workers whose labour constitutes another resource to be exploited…. It is things, not people, that have been put at the center. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 324-5)

As with biblical idolatry, human beings are both dominated by their own creations and culpable for their own subjection…. Augustine says, idolatry is essentially being entrapped in the self, from which one must be liberated by a love that comes from without…. Idolatry involves the personification of commodities and capital while also involving the instrumentalization of human beings. Material things are empowered while human beings are disempowered and made subject to their own creations. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 317)

Brands/Images: consumer culture is a form of excarnation, an attempt to transcend the material by making material goods vehicles for the highest human aspirations. Product is a symbol—collective hallucinations. A worldview. An opiate of nonreligious masses. Cult experience. Corporations are meaning engines. Branding is corporate transcendence. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 299)

Consumer behaviour can be seen as religious experience. Secularization of religion is accompanied by sacralization of the secular. For the individual sacred consumption can provide meaning, stability, and even joy and ecstasy, as well as connections with other people. Or just another opiate for the masses. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 292)

The two great alternatives are either love of God or love of self, love of temporal things that pass away or love of eternal things that last. It is a contest between worship of, or rebellion against, the one true God (City of God versus City of Man). Romans wanted to stay alive and be remembered forever through glory of conquest—seeking a kind of immortality. They had an inability to deal with the reality of time/the temporal limitations we all face: where all things move towards non-existence and death. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 165)

The soul is conformed to that which it contemplates. We are changed by the things we know through an intellectual sympathy…. Love actually conforms the lover ontologically to what is beloved…. The pedagogy moves from the beauty of material images to the beauty of the human soul to the source of all beauty, which is God. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 188)

Those who make gods become less than earthly raw materials by trying to fashion themselves into gods, while those who allow earthly materials to be signs of God who made them become assimilated to the divine life…. Human-made images mire humans in creation; God-made images elevate humans to participation in the Creator. For Augustine, sacramental signs  are not mere products of human creation but participate in the Incarnation, in which God takes on material creation. The most important God-made images of God, however, are human beings themselves. When they live as they are called to live in charity, they reflect God rather than see their own reflection in the images they create. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 189)

For Augustine, the worship of other gods is a manifestation of a broader turning away from God and toward creation. Creation can be read iconically as a window to the divine, but it can also be read as a mirror that narcissistically reflects our own wants and pleasures and fears back to us. The ethical consequences of such idolatry can be dire, including violence against the other for being other, and neglect of the needs of the other for falling beyond the purview of our own desires. Healing idolatry necessitates overcoming the dichotomy of self and other and participating in the circulation of love that includes oneself, one’s neighbour, and God. (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 189)