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Mammonism is described as the devotion to the pursuit of wealth and worldliness, where wealth is regarded as an evil influence. It is from the Greek "mamonas" or "mammonas" (as in the New Testament), derived from the Aramaic "mamon", meaning wealth or riches.
Chinese mammonism behind poor food quality
When I was a resident correspondent in Beijing several years ago, stewed fish heads were popular at restaurants. These were not sea breams, as they would be in Japan, but farm-cultured freshwater fish such as silver carp. I used to visit a stewed fish restaurant, giving into the temptation of the gelatinlike feel of the area around a fish's eyes.
But one day I read a warning by an expert carried in a newspaper that said: "A large amount of residual agricultural chemicals and toxic substances are contained in the heads of these farm-raised freshwater fish. Your health will be endangered if you continue to eat them." Environmental pollution and cultivation techniques that overuse chemicals seem to be blamed for such contamination. I gradually began to avoid such restaurants as the desire to protect my health overcame the temptation to eat fish heads.
Reports on steamed meat buns made out of minced corrugated cardboard caused a stir recently in Beijing. As I watched a TV report on this, I was dumbfounded, and thought, "Anything is possible [in China]--from fish contaminated with agricultural chemicals to meat buns made of corrugated cardboard." The report, however, turned out to have been faked.
The commotion stirred many thoughts in me.
First, I thought those involved in staging the news report on cardboard meat buns might have believed the report would be a service to viewers. Many people watching might have thought this could be possible.
The widely held belief that Chinese society is full of fakes made it possible for a TV station to report the cardboard buns incident as fact and for the report to be accepted as fact. In this sense, it may be said that social anxiety over food safety was a breeding ground for such a commotion.
It has been said in China through the ages that eating is the most important thing in life. This principle may not have changed even after the country became the People's Republic of China. So why have Chinese ethics over food deteriorated so much?
It is generally said that mammonism is the root cause. Up until the Cultural Revolution that preceded a period of economic reform, it was impossible for fake food to become a social issue, according to a Beijing acquaintance of mine. Undoubtedly, the fake food issue emerged after China opted for reform and open economic policies, and became serious from the 1990s when private enterprise expanded dramatically.
The money-is-everything philosophy can be seen in any country. But the mammonism that the Chinese Communist Party admitted is a social disease is hard to tackle. The excessively rapid growth to which the Chinese economy has been exposed through market forces could be partly blamed for that. But it seems that the problem has much deeper roots in Chinese society.
In China, administrative work, commercial trading and negotiations on social life are settled not based on laws or rules but often through individual orders or instructions by those in power, including government officials. This is what we call the rule of man. This is mostly demonstrated in politics. In such a society, social status, authority or human connections trump concern over irregularities and corruption that have spread throughout society so easily.
On top of that, unlike under the reign of Mao Zedong, there is no ideological pressure. The people pursue material gain as freely as they desire. If someone with money always comes out on top, whether through flouting the law or cheating other people, proper social morality will not flourish.
The Chinese political culture that makes light of human rights and democracy cannot be completely unrelated to this moral deterioration. The Communist Party does not admit freedom of the press and suppresses citizen movements, which often muddies serious social issues and delays solutions.
China faces a host of hard challenges, including food safety, growing environmental pollution and multiple occurrences of riots by farmers, that have the same roots. Given the heightening international distrust of Chinese-produced food, Chinese authorities have launched a measure to strengthen supervision over food producers. But if the root cause of the issue is left unresolved, it is impossible to remove concerns that the new measure will end up being only a makeshift remedy.
In the wake of the faked report on meat buns, Chinese authorities issued a nationwide notification to media emphasizing that "truth is the lifeblood of news reporting." But sensible reporters might have felt awkward about it. This is because Chinese authorities have a bad habit of interfering in media reporting if facts get in their way.
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