American “materialism” is in actual fact a form of idealism

American “materialism” is in actual fact a form of idealism, which seeks to make commerce and gadgetry a spiritual achievement. It avers that life has somehow become more meaningful because of the perfection of our machines. Such an ideal, however, is an ultimate denial of life, for machines can only implement the prior values that life itself possesses. Therefore, to equate life with mechanical progress is to abstract experience into a kind of intellectual propaganda. Material advantages, elevated to mental symbols, become spiritual objectives, insidiously usurping the genuine values of the blood and soil. Ironically, material objects are no longer regarded by the “materialist” as pristine material objects, but are transformed into philosophical, moral, social, or mental values. Experience becomes entangled in concepts, and man is enslaved by a misguided, machine-oriented idealism. 

All we have gained the machine threatens, so long As it makes bold to exist in the spirit instead of obeying. (Rilke, The Sonnets to Orpheus)

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