When Susanna Berger stepped off the plane and into America, with one green suitcase, fourteen body-piercings, and a scared countenance, I had no idea how to pinpoint her. Susanna stayed with my family for one year as a foreign exchange student from a small German village of 600 people. For the first few weeks after her arrival, because of the language barrier between us, the only clues I had to understand who Susanna was were her possessions. She wore punk clothing, had a nose ring and a tattoo, and listened to Pink, the rock star with explicit lyrics, so at first I judged that she would be a rebellious, tough sort of girl. I quickly realized that this was not true and that Susanna was not rebellious, but very shy. There were many things about her that surprised me. Although she loved the horror movie, Saw 4, she also loved Disney’s The Lion King. Although she always went to wild parties in Germany, she also enjoyed sitting and playing strategy games for hours on end with my mother. I just couldn’t figure this girl out! It turned out to be much more difficult than I had predicted to understand our new family member. Susanna turned out to be much more than her possessions, of which she had few when she came to America. Her belongings were simple, owning one pair of shoes, a couple of books, and a couple of pairs of clothing. I had only the possessions in her one green suitcase to judge her by, which furthermore were possessions from a completely different culture than America and were not familiar to me. Because Susanna owned fewer possessions when she arrived in America, her image was freed from being chained to them, and it was easier for me to realize that there was more to her than what she had bought.
In a period where a consumer culture flourishes like never before, marketers tell us continually, “You are what you buy.” Is this true? Do our possessions define us? To answer this question, we must first ask three other questions that will give us insight into the topic. First off, what do our possessions say about us? Can you tell a person by what he buys? Or, perhaps possessions are just a piece of the puzzle. This leads to the next question; what is it that we desire? In any realm of life, if you want to understand a person or a culture, always ask what they desire, because our desires are a significant part of who we are. And finally, if we are not solely what we buy, what else forms our identity? With these questions, we begin to answer the looming question, are you what you buy?
So much information is revealed by the things we buy. In a moment we project a menagerie of different signals and symbols to the people around us. In many cases, however, it isn’t who we are that we present, but who we want to be viewed as. For example, a normal middle-class woman will often be seen wearing a pair of scuffed oxfords and an old comfy sweater, yet carrying a Coach purse. Just because this woman owns a Coach purse does not automatically make her a fashionable, wealthy, chic woman. Perhaps she would like to be viewed as this kind of woman, and the image she projects will be just that—a woman who wants to be associated with wealth and fashion. Another possibility is that the woman is simply fond of Coach purses; however, I would suggest that there is hardly ever a situation where we are solely fond of an object for its utility. I observed this when Susanna lived with us. She brought with her a diary covered in promiscuous photos and a Playboy wallet. These two items gave an air of rebellious sexuality like her tattoo and piercings. However Susanna’s personality was never remotely rebellious while she lived with us. She wore little makeup and wasn’t overly concerned with her appearance. When she described her life in Germany, she told us that she was very shy and didn’t talk very much. Not only were the diary and wallet symbols of sexuality and rebelliousness, but more specifically, Playboy is based in American Culture, and America is very popular in German fashion, so the wallet was a way to identify with American sexuality and also with money, since carrying money is the purpose of a wallet. The possessions were a way for her to express an image of herself which she wished was true. We use possessions as a language to express who we are, or more appropriately, to express who we want to be.
To further understand our culture and ourselves, it is vital to understand what we desire. Understanding what our possessions say about us exposes a lot of important information, but to discover what we want from our possessions goes to the heart of the subject. In Signs of Life, Laurence Shames maintains that possessions are about control. Humans, especially in this day and age, love to believe that they are in control of their lives. We delude ourselves into thinking this with our climate-controlled cars, our climate-controlled houses, our retirement plans, and our schedules penciled in by the hour. We also desire to create an image for ourselves—a very controlled image—of course. By creating an image for ourselves with our possessions, we attain another important desire: a feeling of security. My mother is a relatively frugal woman; nevertheless she owns her own computer, regardless of the fact that we have another laptop and a desk top in our house. Although she could share the other two computers with our family, she chooses to have her own laptop that only she uses, so that she can use it at a moment’s notice, without anyone else in the family competing with her over it. By eliminating competition, she gains control over the time she can use her computer. We in American hate to share. In contrast however, my brother and I share a cell phone. It’s a rare occurrence to see a teenage girl and boy sharing a cell phone. It’s very practical for us to share a phone because it is cost efficient and it makes it easy for my parents to get a hold of us; however most people would think it odd because a cell phone is a status symbol for teenagers and many teenagers wouldn’t dream of having to share one. For me, my cell phone is primarily an object for utility.
In his essay, "The More Factor," Shames also suggests that people today want to be viewed as safe, yet new. Just like the woman with the Coach purse, people often try to project an image that is not quite true to them. We attempt to be rebels, without doing anything rebellious. Clearly, our possessions attest to our insatiable desires for control, safety, and yet wealth and the new.
If it is true that our society is significantly defined by and engrossed in its possessions, then are we what we buy? Can our identity be fundamentally broken down to our possessions? For example, a young man in his prime owns a red sports car, an i-Phone, and a comfortable apartment. He is a wealthy, fashionable, young man with a taste for excitement and flashiness. Is this all he is? That’s it? This seems like a pathetic identity. What about this man’s beliefs, values, and dreams? These must come into play; they are a crucial part of a person’s being. Our belongings may reveal something about us to others, but they are not the thing that makes up our identity. Primarily, the thing that makes up a person or culture’s identity is its beliefs about God, other humans, and what is important in life.
After one year with Susanna, my view of her had absolutely changed. Taken out of her normal surroundings, Susanna presented an image of herself primarily by her preferences and dislikes and her reactions to new things and new situations. I learned that she was a social person, loving to sit up with my family, talking for hours on end. I learned that she was a sensitive person, crying the first time she attended an American church. I learned that she was a hard working person, helping out with house hold chores every day. The year she lived with us, Susanna changed a lot, and her purchases reflected these changes. When she arrived she was very particular about the clothing she bought, preferring the colors black, purple, and blue. By the end of the year she was open to shopping at new stores and liked wearing brighter colors like green, yellow, and brown. Because she knew that her trip to America was temporary, Susanna purchased a few special, expensive items, including an i-Pod and an elegant prom dress to wear to her graduation. When Susanna first arrived, she most certainly would have bought a black prom dress, but later in the year she chose to buy a bright blue dress which was feminine and matched her eyes. This shows that she learned to embrace a different side of herself, which was positive, girly, and proud of what she looked like. Susanna’s favorite thing to spend money on was Caribou coffee. Unlike America, Germany does not have a Starbucks, Caribou, or Dunn Bros. on every corner, so the idea of specialized dessert coffee, which has become a symbol of intellect and fashion in the USA, was a new and exciting one to Susanna. I learned much about Susanna by what she bought, but more importantly, I learned that she was so much more than what she bought.
Most importantly, after asking the questions, “What do our possessions say about us?”, “What do we desire? and “What else defines us?”, the resounding answer is that we are much more than what we buy. For example, the U.S. A. defined itself long ago, not by what it possessed—the new frontier—but by saying that it was “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Surely, who we are is made up by many different things, including, but not at all limited to, what we love, what we hate, what we feel about God, what we feel about our fellow human-beings, what our parents taught us, what our name is, what kind of ice cream we like, and yes, what we buy.
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