Loving Material Possessions -- The Story of a Consumptive Scarlet Robe

Consider these statistics:

• The average American home size has grown from 1,000 square feet to 2,500 square feet.
• Personal storage generates more than $24 billion in revenue each year.
• Reports indicate we consume twice as many material goods today as we did 50 years ago.
• All while carrying, on average, nearly $15,950 in credit-card debt.

Do our new and seemingly bigger and better possessions really make us happy? In our chase of finery, why do we spend so far beyond our means? Do we find our greatest satisfaction in material possessions?

Have you ever heard of the Diderot Effect?

Allow me to relate the account of its origins.

Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784) was a famous French philosopher who lived nearly his entire life in poverty. In the eighteen century, he wrote an essay entitled, “Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown,” in which he described exactly this phenomenon.

Here is the story related in that essay …

When Diderot was fifty-two years old, his daughter was about to be married, but he could not afford to provide a dowry. Despite his lack of wealth, Diderot’s name was well-known because he was the co-founder and writer of Encyclopédie, one of the most comprehensive encyclopedias of the time.

When Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia, heard of Diderot’s financial troubles, she offered to buy his library from him for £1000 GBP (approximately $50,000 USD). Suddenly, Diderot had money to spare.

Shortly after this lucky sale, Diderot acquired a beautiful, new scarlet robe. It was a seemingly simple purchase, but he immediately began treating his expensive robe with new-found respect.

In doing so, Diderot even realized that his new scarlet robe placed new constraints upon him. If one of his books were covered with dust, he used to wipe it clean with his old dressing gown. But he didn’t want to get his new robe dirty. If ink used to thicken on his pen, his old dressing gown was waiting to wipe it clear. But, again, his new robe seemed too beautiful for this task. Whereas his old robe was marked in these ways, with dust and ink, reflecting a life of “the litterateur, the writer, the man who works,” his new gown gave him “the air of a rich good for nothing. No one knows who I am.”

And something else transpired …

The philosopher soon felt the urge to buy some new things to match the beauty of his robe. The robe was so overwhelmingly impressive that Diderot quickly became aware, by virtue of comparison, how old and relatively shabby the rest of his “old rags” possessions were. He said …

“All is now discordant. No more coordination, no more unity, no more beauty.”

He wanted his home to be as luxurious as he felt while wearing the gown, so Diderot went on a massive spending spree. He decorated his home with beautiful sculptures, expensive paintings, a bronze and gold clock, and an elaborate kitchen table. He replaced his old straw chair with an armchair covered in Moroccan leather and so on. When he was done, it was a complete makeover – inside and out – save one old,worn item of which Diderot wrote …

“All that remains of my original mediocrity is a rug of selvage. I can feel that this pitiful rug doesn’t go well with my newfound luxury. But I swore and I swear, like the peasant transferred from his hut to a palace who keeps his sabots, that Denis the philosopher will never walk upon a masterpiece of la Savonnier. When in the morning, covered in my sumptuous scarlet, I enter my office I lower my gaze and I see my old rug of selvage. It reminds me of my beginnings and pride is stopped at the entryway to my heart.”

A humble and appreciative man? Nowhere near. An irony of obtaining the expensive possessions was eventually revealed. Diderot came to realize that his old furnishings were just as good, if not better, than his new. Diderot wrote:

”I was absolute master of my old dressing gown, but I have become a slave to my new one. Beware of the contamination of sudden wealth. The poor man may take his ease without thinking of appearances, but the rich man is always under a strain.”

So, the purchase of this one dressing gown led to a cascading series of purchases across the rest of his life that did not lead to coordination, unity, and uniform beauty. In the process of his quest, he ran himself right into debt.

These reactive purchases have become known as the “Diderot Effect.” The Diderot Effect states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption which leads you to acquire more new things. As a result, we end up buying things that our previous selves never needed to feel happy or fulfilled.

The term was coined by anthropologist and scholar of consumption patterns Grant McCracken in 1988, and is named after Denis Diderot.

The effect comprises two ideas:

1. The first idea posits that goods purchased by consumers will be cohesive to their sense of identity, and as a result, will be complementary to one another.
2. The second idea states that the introduction of a new possession that is deviant from the consumer's current complementary goods can result in a process of spiraling consumption.

Possessions do not define a person or his/her success. Deep down, we all realize excess and ornamental material possessions also do not really enrich our lives. In truth, as desire takes over our judgment, excess debt chokes our freedom and lifestyle. Intelligent consumers free their lives and resources for more important pursuits than material possessions. Besides, shiny new things fade with time. Unpaid credit card bills don’t.

It's much too late to ask Denis Diderot about all of this, but he left an old expository essay with a timeless moral deserving of our utmost attention. In Diderot's words …

“Let my example teach you a lesson. Poverty has its freedoms; opulence has its obstacles.”