A commonly stated mindset many people are trying to adopt is to spend money on “experiences not materials”. This is to combat the pervasive materialism in our culture and move people to desire things that have more substance. While I believe this is a good attempt at combating materialism in society, I feel it does not fix the problem. It all comes down to the premise, “pay for experiences not materials”. It turns experiences into something to be consumed and thought of in the same likeness as a material good. 

Materials are inherently finite. While some materials are so plentiful they feel infinite, they are still by the laws of physics finite. Due to this and the desire of humans to have said material goods, economics and culture arise. However, due to the industrialization of nations and the rise of capitalism for many a material good means more. The materials you have define your class, your culture, your status, etc. Sadly, this leads to people believing their value is in materials. In many cases society backed this up. In society, you are judged and characterized by what materials you own and people want to represent themselves in the best way. The desire and acquisition of materials run this world, however for many it has turned toxic.

Due to this toxic turn many have tried to find ways to curb our hyper-consumerism. Materialism has shown to be superficial, vain, and shows some moral failing. So people look to the one thing that can make people grow and learn, experiences. The logic goes if we focus more on experiences than materials, we will become better people. Contrary to the sentiment of this writing so far, I agree. Focusing more on experiences is a great and important action that leads to growth. However, this logic becomes corrupted when you bring in consumerism and capitalism. A problem arises not when you seek experiences but when you “pay” for experiences. 

Unlike material goods, experiences are infinite. They are merely just sensory information that we perceive and recall in forming decisions and beliefs. It is a quite inexhaustible resource. So how does one pay for something that is practically infinite? Well if we go by simple economics, we know if something has high demand and low supply, it is priced high. If something has low demand and high supply, then it has lower price. Putting a price to an experience forms a hierarchy of experiences. Experiences that cost more are obviously heavily desired and very few have this experience, while experiences that are inexpensive are probably not desired and are rather plentiful. So people value a trip to Bali or travelling the world as a higher experience than taking a walk in your local park. As you see, the materialism hasn’t been combated but rather extended to experiences. Social media and other broadcasting mediums have not helped this. People will display experiences in the same vein as materials to indicate wealth, luxury, and status. A Hermes bag will say you have wealth, a luxury experience in Dubai now says the same thing. 

One should seek new experiences because that is essential for growth and learning. We should be careful why and how we do this. Paying for experiences doesn’t mean you are combating materialism and superficial consumerism, it just means you are extending materialism to experiences. If you seek experiences, don’t put a price to it. Value it by how much it matters to you and how much you want to do it. You don’t even have to broadcast you are experiencing it. Experiences exist only for you to learn and grow from them. You can only combat materialism by valuing what you already have and deriving value and satisfaction in your life from the non-material. You don’t combat materialism by turning the non-material into a material.