Bridges to the Future News
October 24, 2007
Political theorist tells DU audience happiness is not for sale
Benjamin Barber says American consumers pursue materialism, thinking they might achieve happiness. Instead, he says, their choices have unintended consequences.
Political theorist Benjamin Barber says Americans pursue material objects rather than happiness.
Barber told a crowd of nearly 600 on Oct. 23 that the U.S. Declaration of Independence provides the right to pursue happiness, but Americans have forgotten how to pursue it.
The author of 17 books and professor of civil society at the University of Maryland spoke at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts as part of the University of Denver’s sixth year of the Bridges to the Future lecture series. (Watch video of Barber's lecture.) The series this academic year focuses on “The Pursuit of Happiness.”
Barber said American consumers are pursuing materialism, thinking they might achieve happiness. Instead, he said, their choices have unintended consequences that negatively affect them and the world.
“The way you spend your dollar will have an impact on the future you never dreamed of,” he said.
Barber gave the example that he likes to drive big cars, but his purchase can affect everything from the environment to the war in Iraq. The only way to eventually have happiness, he says, is to take back citizenship by limiting the endless cycle of consumption. He blames the marketing world for creating needs we don’t really have, like the iPhone.
“We don’t know what it is, let alone need it, until marketers persuade us that it’s something we have to have,” he said.
The Bridges to the Future series will continue Jan. 15, 2008, with Sarah Susanka, who authored The Not So Big Life (Random House, 2007) and is an architect. The events are free and open to the public, but reservations are required and can be made at www.du.edu/bridges.
