Freedom and Consumerism

One of the new blogs at National Review Online is the (at first blush, anyway) very un-National Review "Crunchy Cons" blog, inspired by Rod Dreher's new book of the same name.  The posts in recent days have included some fascinating and provocative critiques -- denunciations, really -- of consumerism, and of its elevation to civil-religion status in the United States.  In a similar vein is this piece from Sunday's New York Times, "Is Freedom Just Another Word for Many Things to Buy?":

In today's America, everyone from President Bush to advertising executives to liberal activists appears to agree that freedom is about having choices and that having more choices means having more freedom. Choice, even in mundane matters, embodies the larger ideal of the individual as arbiter not just of what tastes or feels good but also of what is good. . . .

But this "wisdom" is suspect for two reasons. First, most Americans do not think that freedom is about exercising more and more choice. And second, even for those who do equate freedom with choice, having more choice does not seem to make them feel freer. Instead, Americans are increasingly bewildered — not liberated — by the sheer volume of choices they must make in a day. . . .

. . . While the upper and middle classes define freedom as choice, working-class Americans emphasize freedom from instability. These perspectives echo the distinction between freedom to and freedom from made by Franklin Roosevelt and by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin half a century ago. For all our red-versus-blue rancor, most Americans agree that ours is a free country. But what freedom is, and where it should be nurtured and where constrained, are hotly contested issues.