Most of us live our ordinary lives with some sense of guilt over the Stuff that we have around our house. We don’t want to be consumeristic and materialistic. We don’t want to be owned by our Stuff. We are aware of poverty, in our own communities and far away. We don’t like the look of the miscellany that clutters every horizontal surface. We find those sleek, empty, minimalist spaces attractive, maybe because they’re in vogue these days. Most of us generally believe we have too much Stuff, but the reasons for that belief are part moral, part social, part aesthetic, so we don’t really know how to deal with it, and it just kind of lingers uncomfortably.
A certain kind of minimalism is more of a status symbol for the wealthy. If you have enough time and money, you can afford to have fewer items of higher quality, and it’s very easy to get rid of things if you know you can just buy another one should the need arise. When I see images of minimalist decor, it strikes me as welcoming only to certain kinds of people — definitely not children, for example.
Photo by Sidekix Media on Unsplash
But I want to look at clutter from a Christian/Catholic perspective, or at least a perspective that is better grounded in realistic ideas of what our Things actually are, why we have them, and what we ought to do with them. I’m not going to solve this problem entirely, but I have some ideas that may be helpful.
I read a chapter of a book by John Finnis, the title of which I could not tell you because I don’t know, which goes into some of St. Thomas Aquinas’s thoughts on material goods. What I found most valuable was his division of material goods not into two categories (e.g. needs and wants) but into three:
(a) resources one needs for the very survival of oneself and one’s dependents, (b) resources one needs in order to fulfil one’s responsibilities for the support and education of one’s relatives and household, for maintaining one’s business or profession or other vocation, for launching one’s children in such ways of life, for paying one’s debts, and other such genuine responsibilities, and (c) resources which are left over after one has made reasonable provision for both type (a) “absolute necessity” and type (b) “relative necessity” (Finnis, 191).
I’ve boiled that down to:
Things that you need to survive (and provide for the survival of your dependents).
Things that you need to fulfill your obligations, but that you don’t need to survive.
Things that you just plain don’t need.
Category 1 things are the basics: food, water, clothing, shelter. Category 2 things include, probably, your computer, your smartphone, your car, etc. If you ask, “Do I actually need this thing?” and you’re struggling to come up with a clear answer, then it’s probably a category 2 thing. If you don’t know why you have something, it’s probably a category 3 thing.
Here’s Finnis’s summary of Thomas’s idea of what you ought to do with your Things.
Aquinas’s theorem is twofold: (1) everything one has is ‘held as common (or in common)’ in the sense that it is morally available, as a matter of right and justice, to anyone who needs it to survive; (2) one’s superflua [i.e. category 3 things] are all ‘held as common,’ in the sense that one has a duty of justice to dispose of them for the benefit of the poor (Finnis, 191).
In other words, if someone is lacking in category 1 things, then they have a right even to your category 2 things. And if you have category 3 things, then they belong to the poor in justice, not in charity, which is to say, those things actually belong to the poor, not to you. If you donate these things, then you don’t get credit for being generous; you’re just giving people what already belongs to them. If you keep these things, you’re actually kind of stealing.
Whether Thomas is correct on this is a question I’ll leave to those with more expertise than I have, though it seems like not a bad rule to live by. (I think it’s a very interesting question how things might be different now compared to Thomas’s era, the 1200s. These days, we have much more global awareness, and we know about people in other countries lacking category 1 things and it’s kind of overwhelming. I could strip my life down to only category 1 things, giving all my category 3 and even 2 things to the poor and global poverty would still be overwhelming. And maybe I can make a bigger difference by keeping my category 2 things and raising children to be generous and/or having a professional or volunteer position that has a greater impact. Mother Teresa took the former route. So there’s lots of interesting questions here. Also, later in the chapter, Finnis discusses different ways the category 3 resources can be disposed of for the poor, including by paying taxes and hiring someone for a job and paying them.)
Setting all that aside, I have found it helpful to look at my clutter through the lens of these three categories. There’s something about the existence of category 2 that makes it really obvious to me which things I just plain don’t need (category 3), and it’s usually fairly easy to ditch the category 3 things (or not buy them in the first place).
Aside: When I was a kid, I used to beg my mom to buy whatever things caught my fancy at the store, in the way that children do. She would ask me, “Where are we going to put it?” That question echoes in my mind now when I’m shopping, and it’s saved me a lot of money and clutter. Most of the time, if you don’t know where you’re going to put a thing once you bring it home, it’s probably a category 3 thing, and you’re better off just not buying it.
I’ve been thinking about the categories and where different things would fit as I’ve been going through my things and packing up boxes for he thrift store and pregnancy help center (and, frankly, the trash).
First, I’ve been unable to put every item into exactly one category, so I don’t think of this as a strict catalogue system. I would put food in category 1 and birthday celebrations in category 2, so if you have a fancy dinner to celebrate a birthday, the plate is in both categories (with possibly some category 3, but, you know, that line is kind of fuzzy). Some people have jobs that require them to wear $1,000 suits, and for them, those suits would be in categories 1/2 (category 1 because clothing is necessary; category 2 because you can survive but not fulfill your obligations if you wear cheap clothes), whereas for other people, spending $1,000 on a suit is superfluous, so for them the suit would be in categories 1/3. So you have to have some flexibility in how you think about your things.
Another thing — speaking of those $1,000 suits — is that you shouldn’t judge other people for their belongings. If you’re looking at someone else’s stuff and judging them for keeping what you deem category 3 things, first, it’s possible that in their life it really is a category 2 thing, even if for you it would definitely be a category 3 thing, and second, you really ought to mind your own business.
It’s also important to remember that you’re human — you’re not just a collection of physical needs — and you have obligations to other humans. Therefore, I would put beauty and personal development in category 2. I would include paint and art for your walls, flowers for the garden, seasonings for your food, pretty dishes, nice-looking clothing, haircuts, jewelry, good books, age-appropriate toys for kids, lessons for valuable skills, tuition, your grandma’s pearls that you plan to give to your daughter, etc.
If you’re a Christian, love is an obligation, and you can express courtesy and love in the way you dress, the way you present your food, and so on. For example, do you need a fancy dress for this occasion? Well, you do need to communicate that you respect the host, the guests, the event, and yourself, and, depending on the occasion and the circumstances, it’s possible that the best way to communicate that is to attend wearing a fancy dress. Or to attend dressed ready to sweat and paint, if it’s a different kind of event. Or to respectfully decline. When cleaning out your closet, you can ask, “What kinds of things can I expect that I’ll do? How would I dress to show respect for everyone?” I would put in category 2 the clothes you need to dress respectfully for the things you expect to do. Then when you get dressed for the occasion, try to think more about being respectful than about how wonderful you are — you usually can’t go wrong thinking more about others and less about yourself.
Similarly, I would argue that it’s respectful to your family and any guests to have a nice-looking home; it’s a kindness to your neighbors to have a tidy lawn and even a beautiful garden. Your guests probably don’t need a snack for their survival, but offering a plate of cookies and coffee, or a beer and tortilla chips, expresses friendship, and that’s a good thing. I would put all of these things in category 2.
It’s disrespectful to over- or under-dress for an occasion, or to dress or act in a way that says “I’m just absolutely amazing” or “Look how much I don’t care.” This is why category 2 is so helpful. We can see ourselves, and others, as full human beings who exchange love and friendship, who desire what is good, true, and beautiful — not as purely physical creatures that can eat the same food every day like my dog does. And we can avoid a kind of scrupulosity, neglecting our actual obligations to others.
Does your grandkid need another blanket? No. But your grandkids do need to be secure in the knowledge that they’re surrounded by love. Love as an abstraction has never really been a thing for Christians; we express and exchange love through the physical, through words and actions and objects. You don’t necessarily have an obligation to knit a blanket for your grandkids, but you do have an obligation to love them. Knitting a blanket for them can be a great way to strengthen those bonds of love, and if you’re so inclined, then do it.
All this being said, the line between category 2 and category 3 things is not totally clear, so it’s definitely possible to hang on to some category 3 things while convincing ourselves that they’re really category 2 things. And I think this is important to consider, because there isn’t really a lot in the gospel about the value of a comfortable life, whereas there’s plenty about the importance of giving to the poor and not being attached to material things.
It seems to me that the best approach here, after you’ve gotten rid of all your obviously category 3 things, would not be to focus on the categorization of the things but the orientation of our hearts. We can build the mental habit of thinking about others before we think about ourselves. That includes obligations at work, at home, among our friends; it includes obligations to do the job we’re paid to do, to follow through on our promises, to raise our kids well, and also obligations to love and foster relationships of love. If our hearts are more oriented toward love of others and respect for their dignity, then we’re going to be less attached to things that don’t serve those purposes. We’ll buy/keep dishes and cookware out of respect for the people who will use them or benefit from them, instead of out of a desire to show off our money or interior decorating skills, or an unrealistic idea of our cooking skills. This is a better motivation to begin with, and that better motive may drive us to different choices. We’re less likely to have dishes that we never use, more likely to be able to cook and bake in a way that makes sense and expresses respect, dignity, and love for everyone who eats our food.
What are your thoughts on these principles? If you’ve attempted decluttering, what difficulties have you run into? What advice do you have for others? Considering the image above, what kinds of things about your ordinary life make that kind of home unrealistic?
A better way to de-clutter
We're still decluttering after 43 years of marriage. These categories are helpful. This is also a good way to think about time. As a young mother, it would have been irresponsible of me to spend the afternoon reading for pleasure. As a retiree, it's a way to spend a quiet afternoon (after working all morning) with my husband.