The Soul Does Not Finance Well

We like to imagine ourselves as ethical creatures — principled, responsible, discerning. But in a consumer society, even our ethics get repackaged, shrink-wrapped, and sold back to us as lifestyle choices. Ethical consumption becomes a trend. Virtue becomes a look. And the performance of goodness becomes yet another thing to buy, display, and eventually discard when the algorithm shifts its attention elsewhere.

It’s not that people are insincere. It’s that sincerity itself has been captured by the marketplace.

We buy organic to signal purity.

We buy sustainably sourced to signal responsibility.

We buy minimalist décor to signal enlightenment.

We buy self-help books to signal that we’re “doing the work.”

All of it is true and not true at the same time. Because in a society animated by Material Salvationism — the belief that redemption is found through the correct material choices — ethical behaviour gets flattened into a form of conspicuous spirituality. A performance of virtue rather than its practice.

And then, of course, we put it on credit.

Because the real quiet truth is that most of us can’t actually afford all this moral signalling. We are ethical on layaway. Responsible on installment financing. Enlightened at 19.99% interest.

Buy Now, Be Good Later.

“Buy Now, Pay Later” is just the financial expression of our cultural psyche: an entire population borrowing against a future self that may or may not exist — a self who will be wiser, richer, calmer, more whole, more ethical, more disciplined. A self who will, finally, pay the bill for our aspirational identity.

BNPL has become the financing plan for moral personhood.

Fashion, lifestyle, wellness, spirituality, political identity — all purchased, all financed, all curated into a façade of personhood assembled out of monthly payments.

In a culture where identity is externalized — where who you are is determined by what you display — credit becomes the primary tool of self-construction. And people wonder why Canadians feel spiritually exhausted and financially suffocated at the same time. The exhaustion isn’t separate from the debt. The exhaustion is the debt: the moral overextension of trying to buy a self instead of becoming one.

And here’s the quiet tragedy:

Every payment is a reminder that the self you presented to the world wasn’t actually paid for by the self who wears it.

This is the tyranny of Material Salvationism.

It tells us:

• If you buy the right things, you’re a good person.

• If you signal the right stances, you’re a virtuous person.

• If you follow the right trends, you’re an authentic person.

• And if you fail to maintain that performance — if you fall behind, fall apart, fall off the treadmill — the fault lies entirely within you.

Nevermind that the system demands constant performance.

Nevermind that the costs keep rising.

Nevermind that the identity you're financing was never affordable to begin with.

When we treat ethical behaviour as a consumable identity, debt becomes moral debt. And people internalize that moral debt as shame — shame for not keeping up, for not appearing enlightened, for not being fashionable, for not being solvent. Shame for being human in a society that punishes anything that looks remotely human.

And that’s why debt feels like failure. Not financial failure — moral failure.This is the heart of the system I call Material Salvationism: the belief that virtue, redemption, and personhood are achieved through consumption.

A man buys a blazer he can’t afford because he wants to look competent.

A woman buys skincare on Afterpay because she wants to look composed.

A student buys a phone on installment because he wants to look connected.

Everyone is putting their identity on credit because the world demands the performance of a self they haven’t had time to grow into yet.

Consumer ethics, ethical consumerism, conscious capitalism — whatever name it hides under — all function as the same thing: a marketplace for moral narrative. A curated persona rented, not owned.

And no amount of financing will ever make a façade feel like a person.

The solution, if there is one, isn’t austerity or shame. It’s honesty — the thing our economy depends on avoiding. It’s the quiet but radical act of saying:

“I don’t need to perform goodness.

I don’t need to finance virtue.

I don’t need to buy the self I’m trying to become.”

Because the truth is simple:

Identity does not go on sale.

Ethics do not get cleared out at end-of-season discounts.

And the soul does not finance well.

Some things you can only pay for with your life, not your credit.