Financial Objectification

There is a form of objectification that, while not as personally dehumanizing as something like sexual objectification, is perhaps far more intertwined with American culture at large.  I do not recall seeing it ever get described with the term objectification, but since the term refers to ignoring all but one aspect of a person as if they were an an object to use and dispose of at whim, it is a fitting word in this context.  Financial objectification is the reductionistic stance that erroneously treats the monetary standing or potential of someone as their only or most important feature.  When directed towards others, this idea could lead to the acknowledgement of spirituality, sexuality, friendship, survival, and even deeper philosophy only as a way to extract money for oneself.

For financial objectification to even occur, the nature of everything else is denied or overlooked or mistaken for a branch from the tree of wealth.  Money itself, though, is a social construct.  Sexual objectification is a type of reductionism in how a person regards others that, despite being more degrading, at least takes one aspect of core human existence and exalts it at the expense of all the others.  With financial objectification, a person guilty of this philosophical error confuses something that is literally contrived by cultures and so often misused for selfish gain.  Money is not a part of human consciousness or the human body, and it is not a logical axiom or natural product of the external world; whether a currency is digital/immaterial or physical, it is inescapably a social construct and thus of less centrality, philosophical importance, and moral significance than things without this quality.

Had societies not contrived monetary systems, there would not even be a financial aspect to life, with the closest thing being a person randomly living in a prosperous physical habitat, but only in the non-monetary sense of having happenstance access to natural food or shelter.  Financial objectification is therefore incapable of occurring except in cultures that have developed the social construct called money.  Sexual objectification, or many other forms of reductionistic objectification, in contrast, could be present even if there was no such thing as formal civilization.  Someone must be a slave to cultural norms or social approval in order to come anywhere close to literally ignoring all aspects of a person other than the ways they could generate them more money.

To look to social constructs and mistake them for necessary truths or moral obligations is already asinine, but to actively think that the most important part of a person or their life is a socially constructed aspect is even more irrational.  Money is not foundational to human existence and self-awareness, though it is foundational to specific kinds of interactions between groups of people.  It is logically impossible for the financial side of human life to be the thing that underpins the whole of it.  Those guilty of financial objectification must flee or deny this truth, instead seeking to regard people as only a means to the monetary end of gratuitously or selfishly acquiring wealth.  Everyone who has or seeks money at the expense of all else has stooped to this kind of stupidity despite having or acquiring money not necessarily involving it.