Summary

Summary of the essay Why we need things
By Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The essay “Why we need things” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, deals with our society’s materialistic needs that we have developed for centuries of consumption. Csikszentmihalyi talks about what objects and artifacts represent to us within our lives.
Objects appear today to be used and consumed more for the psychological need they generate more than for a physical or survival need. Actually, we live in a society where the simple fact of surviving is already a past story, and now we need always more not only to bring us comfort, but moreover to give us an order for our mind to follow. Our mind is very complex and it appears that we really do need objects to rely on in order to regulate our emotions and give our mind something to interact with. Without objects our mind would be lost and always searching for a path to follow, or any kind of orders made by humans. Also, if our mind could not find anything to refer to, we would lose notions of time, identity, memories, etc. The author states that artifacts bring us three important features that are power and status, a time mark that allows us to remember our past, and keep track of our present and future projects, and finally, artifacts are a symbolic representation of our belonging to this society and our relationships with other people within this society. Humans are always searching for a way to show their superiority through better and better technologies and also objects that are dangerous for mankind but also for the whole planet and its ecosystem. The perfect example could be illustrated by all those weapons of destruction that humans have produces for all these centuries. Not only these objects, but also everything we produce deteriorates in part our planet and its natural resources. Therefore we have to find a way to satisfy our needs for objects while caring for our environment and find a balance between these two ideas Regarding to women’s needs, the author notices that globally objects that women need are related to seductiveness, fertility and nurturance. It has been shown that over history, humans have used their discoveries such as bronze, first in order to satisfy their own pride and to show their power than to use them for purely functional purposes. We identify our social status and who we are to what we consume and the objects we own. Csikszentmihalyi states that depending on our generation, sex and age period, the needs and objects that we use as symbols are different. For teenagers, music and visual media are more important because they create a relation with their current concerns, allow them to be active, and regulate their mood. However, for parents, objects such as paintings, sculpture, cars and other valuable objects are important to express power, accomplishment, wealth, etc. For grand-parents, these ideas of power and status get less important compared to their families and past memories. Therefore objects such as photographs or symbolic objects of their past memories are the most cherished ones. So we can see that through time within our life, our needs regarding to objects change giving us a reflection of who we are and what we care for. Objects are also kept in order to remind us of our family and the people we are related to. It appears that these objects gain more importance though the years as we get old. Also, the artifacts we own all over our home represent depending on our age, our ideals in life, personal values, themes such as care, nurturance, ethnic origins, religious identity, etc. Finally Csikszentmihalyi states that people who do not have a lot of belongings, objects, etc. are people who do not have social lives, friends or human relationships. To conclude, the authors notes that on the whole, objects are meant to transform the instability of our conscience into something rigid and ordered. The simple size of our being is not enough to express ourselves and that is why we need artifacts to expand ourselves, show our status, keep track of time, our social life and relationships with the others. The author defends his idea about people without objects being anti-social people, by giving examples of certain community or kind of people who can afford living deprived of belongings and objects. I would say that I found this idea of non being materialistic plausible in our society. I do not think it is impossible to live within a society without a lot of artifacts surrounding us. I think we can have friends and have a normal social life without owning all our past in our home. I guess the author was in this case focusing especially on the American society without really analyzing what was going on all over the world. I have personally met people who have normal social relationships without being materialistic and focusing their attention more on realizing their future projects than buying objects. I do not think that only a few ethnies or communities are able to live a non-materialistic life and I think it would be to fast to generalize about consumerism.