While
the Christmas and New Year season is supposed to be a time for community,
family, love, friendship, and just generally taking it a bit easy for once, in
recent years the week after Christmas has become known for one thing in
particular – shopping. Stores start their sales on the morning of the 26th, and
put on all sorts of offers to entice customers and their money through the
doors. The scenes are similar to the so-called 'Black Friday' in the US – the day
after Thanksgiving, when shoppers have been known to end up in stampedes and
dangerous crushes while trying to grab a bargain.
I'm
sure most of the people reading this blog won't be fighting with their fellow
citizens over a discounted sweater in H&M, but even if we stay aloof from
the mad scramble of the sales, they still provide an excellent opportunity for
us to slow down, pull back, and think about how consumerism affects us
throughout the whole year.
Particularly
in highly developed countries like the US, Canada, and western Europe (but also
increasingly in places like China, Singapore, and eastern Europe) we are
continually bombarded with images and messages encouraging us to buy throwaway
consumer goods. These last for a little while, then they break or go out of
fashion, and we buy more. The world economy is now essentially dependent on
this cycle of commodities.
The
material effects of this system are well known. Around the world, many people
are exploited in the process of manufacturing and selling commodities. We hear
of Chinese workers committing suicide in the Foxconn factories that make Apple
products; trade unionists being killed by paramilitaries in Colombian Coca-Cola
bottling plants; Bangladeshi garment workers being paid a dollar an hour to
stitch sports shoes; even migrants in Europe and North America who are paid
less than minimum wage to work in warehouses or in transporting items around
the continent. It's easy to see the exploitation, and the way in which poor
people are kept down by this.
But
there are also philosophical effects of rampant consumerism, and they affect
even those of us who otherwise benefit from this system. Consumerism encourages
us to value people in terms of the commodities they own, and leads to a
'keeping up with Joneses' mentality – the idea that we need to have more and
more things in order to show our neighbours that we're just as good as they
are. Our neighbours, in turn, buy more and more things to try and demonstrate
their own wealth. And both of us look down on the poorer people in our
community, those who don't have the money to buy as many commodities as we do –
because we believe that buying things shows our superiority, we believe that
those with nothing must be worse people. You don't have a car, a flatscreen tv,
a new washing machine? Then stay over there, with the other poor people –
you're not good enough for us.
This
is terribly damaging for our society, encouraging the increasing division
between rich and poor, worthy and unworthy, winners and losers, at a time when
we should all be working together to make the world a better and fairer place.
And it's also damaging to our own sense of self-esteem – if we judge our worth
by the things we own, we'll always be looking for more and more, and never be
able to rest, take stock of our lives, and be happy. So try to slow down this
week and focus less on the instant pleasures of shopping and more on gentle and
relaxed time spent with friends, family, and community – I promise you, it will
be better than consumerism for your mind, body, and soul.
shop til you drop, black friday, Thanksgiving, h&m, Apple products, new year season, christmas, NRGLab
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