One for the horror file - Harvest of too much

[Toolboxnj]

I read this in class on Tuesday and got sick to my stomach. It's an opinion column in my university newspaper. Here's the first page; you'll just have to enter your e-mail address to get the rest.

Harvest of too much

Disclaimer: I am just as good a consumer whore as the next shopper (I just spent $100 on a pair of winter boots). Just sharing a small, personal eye-opener.

Something always seems a little off to me, starting Thanksgiving through to New Year's Day. It was only until recent years I started to figure out what that nagging feeling is. This year, I almost forgot, and it took an ingenious political science professor to remind me what I really need for the holiday season is not cheer but shame.

He declared to the class he hated the holiday season. Already I could hear the groans as students anticipated another one of his lengthy and sometimes tediously detailed stories. "I find the Christmas season as one of the most oppressive times of the year," he said. "It reveals the appalling contradictions of a capitalist economy." Then he went on to the dreaded story, telling of reading the "neediest cases" section of The New York Times - where families or individuals in the most dire need are profiled - and then going on to read the adjoining section that was about $2,500 Christmas gadgets.

"What happened to old fashioned social conscience?" he asked the dozing lecture hall.

While there is nothing wrong with getting a sweater from grandma or treating yourself to a new pair of boots - hey, we all do it - I have to pause and look at how it's gone to extremes, as my professor helped me notice.

The sometimes disturbing contradictions in holiday papers represent on a larger scale the world. In a Star-Ledger column, a psychology professor likened shopping to foraging. "It's the thrill of the hunt," said secretary Diana Palmer, 58. "My heart starts to beat, and I get excited. ... My eyes glaze over."

Please tell me this is a little disturbing. Americans are foraging for luxuries, while much of the world is foraging - and not always finding - the food they need to survive. I thought foraging meant looking for food to be able to survive. To much of the world, and some less-fortunate Americans, it still does. Finding articles in the paper about ladies discussing the "thrill of the hunt" when they "forage" for the latest luxury is starting to sound a bit crass in light of the bigger picture.

Thinking of writing a responce, but I worry it'll sound too much like Peikoff.

[stephen_speicher]

I read this in class on Tuesday and got sick to my stomach.  It's an opinion column in my university newspaper.

Well, at least we can be grateful that this garbage is in the opinion column rather than in the news! I only read the part you quoted, which was more than enough, and with academics like this it is a wonder that some students are not more messed up then they are. You have my sympathies, and I hope that you do not have to take political science with this pathetic excuse for a teacher.

[jlew]

I agree, Mr. Speicher. The "ingenious political science professor" was the first thing I locked onto, too.

The rest of the article is pretty horrible as well. How is it that every college newspaper columnist in the country sounds exactly the same? When I lived in Pittsburgh, I'd pick up the Pitt student paper just to check out what was happening. The writing was atrocious. Sentences clanging together as if they didn't even belong in the same story, let alone paragraph. Down here in Savannah its just as bad. The movie reviews are what kill me. "This movie was funny. I laughed when I saw it." Spare me the tight prose, Hemingway!

Anyway, back to the business at hand...

Miss Mengisen's advice to get back to the original spirit of Christmas is telling. What is the original spirit? "Shame, or conviction maybe." Like, this would be, like, you know, funny, if like, you know, it wasn't so, like, sad. You know?

Her inclusion of Buy Nothing Day is also telling. (Those of you unfamiliar with this should check out the Adbusters thread. Right now I can't recall which heading its under.)

And if I hear one more sociology nut (who I rank up there with astrology nuts) tell me about how the the top one percent has more wealth than the bottom ninety-five percent I'm going to vomit DayGlo! Why Bill Gates and the Jesus freak who walks up and down the streets of Savannah with a placard in his hand should make the same amount of money is beyond me. How that would make society "better", I'd love to know.

Now, I must agree with her on one point. (But not for the reason she or her "ingenious political science professor" would like me to.) There are people out there with serious problems when it comes to shopping. Those who would rack up monumental credit card debt so Granny can have that combination nail gun/bidet she's always dreamed of are to be pitied in a way. But putting the kibosh on the whole Christmas shopping (or any-day-of-the-year shopping for that matter) experience isn't going to solve things one little bit. Those people, to whom dropping a couple Benjamins at Wal-Mart at the crack of dawn ain't no big thang, are without any sense of responsibility to an hour from now, let alone to tomorrow. They will eat their acorns before the first big snow of the winter no matter what. Nailing the doors shut at Target ain't gonna do the trick, Miss Mengisan and Mr. IPSP.

This all comes down to one thing - which, as all of you here at this forum should know by now, is the most important thing. It comes down to the choice of thinking or not thinking. People who shop until their credit ratings drop are not thinking. People who stampede other people so their child can have a piece of anatomically incorrect plastic (which, more than likely, will be thrown into the bottom of their closet after a month or so of play) are not thinking. This isn't about too much stuff. Its how we view and relate to all that stuff. The feelings of self-esteem, self-respect, and self-love must be present in an individual before they go out and buy themselves a pair of $100 boots. I must feel that I am making those boots worthy of me - not the other way around. I cannot expect these boots to magically affix me with greatness as soon as I pull them on - no matter how comfy they are nor how well they go with those $150 pants I just bought.

Miss Mengisan ought to ask her "ingenious political science professor" what would happen to those bottom feeding 95% if everyone stopped buying material goods. Who depends on the purchase of those goods more - the top or the bottom?

[McGroarty]

You know you're on the wrong track when Pravda runs with your story idea.

[gadfly]

You know you're on the wrong track when Pravda runs with your story idea.

They also apparently found a Martian boy living in Russia. They had better watch it; for a collectivist rag, it's getting pretty close to The National Enquirer, king of capitalist checkout lines across the U.S.