Addressing Materialism with Students: Levels of Happiness

The Attraction of Materialism

Perhaps one reason that materialism is so attractive to young people is that they tend not to discriminate between levels of goods. In fact, especially in a culture that encourages the sense appetite and discourages the nurture of the intellect and the will, they tend to judge what is good based solely on emotions. They tend to live the hedonist / materialist motto, “If it feels good, do it.” So how do we teach our young people there’s more to life than material goods?

The Solution

First, they need to see the plan. One of my most successful lessons is on the “Levels of Happiness.” This lesson is based on Saint Thomas Aquinas’ treatise on human happiness. It presents the sources of happiness in order from “lowest” to “highest.” The lowest sources of happiness (where materialists make camp and where our children are most attracted) appeal to our physical drives and desires and bring a short-run but emotionally intense sense of satisfaction. The higher in the order a source of happiness is, the more of our human nature it satisfies and the longer it lasts. At each “level of happiness,” we explore why these things bring us happiness, and why each fails to bring perfect happiness. The end of the lesson presents a pretty convincing argument for why God is the only true source of human happiness.

I have seen this lesson open the eyes of many students. Not that they automatically accepted the lesson and changed their lives. Sometimes the eye-opening takes the form of argumentation, sometimes even of admission that it makes sense paired with a refusal to live by it. However, this intellectual awareness is the first step to combating materialism.

One very important point to make in this lesson is that making God your source of happiness does not mean giving up the lower levels of happiness. It means shaping our desires for them so they don’t interfere with our attainment of the truly important goods. However, when our desires are disciplined properly, our enjoyment of all goods is actually increased. We use them according to their purpose, as God intended, and we therefore enjoy them more fully. After all, God is the source and creator of every good thing that brings us happiness. When we are in relationship with Him, He gives us everything that is good as a sign of His love.

Virtues

The related virtues to this lesson are natural temperance and supernatural temperance. Natural temperance is the human virtue of balancing our desires for physical goods & pleasures so that we use material goods according to their purpose. This virtue keeps us healthy physically and spiritually, makes us more human through the use of self-discipline. It also increases our enjoyment of material goods, because using things according to their purpose means gaining the greatest possible good out of them. Supernatural temperance is the virtue of seeing material goods & pleasures from the perspective of having God as our ultimate source of happiness. It inspires us to see all material goods & pleasures as physical signs of God’s love for us.

Integration

If this lesson fits into the curriculum you are teaching already, I think you’ll find it a valuable addition! If it would not fit into your curriculum, finding ways that you can integrate these ideas into what you do teach is also a great way to evangelize our youth, opening up to the message that you are teaching.

One great way to integrate these ideas is to have a poster hanging on the wall of your classroom to which you can refer for “teachable moments.” Whenever you come across a scenario in your curriculum (especially if you are teaching a class in Scripture), simply point out what level of happiness a person is operating out of and what the consequences are.

Another way to integrate this information into existing lessons is to keep an eye out for teachable moments on the virtues. Mention how temperance could have changed the situation you are studying, or how virtue contributed to it.

Do you have more ideas for integrating the levels of happiness ideas into current lessons? Please share them in the forums by clicking on this link or leave comments below!

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