The Love Economy

A reminder to everyone that this Friday is Buy Nothing Day.

From Adbusters.org:

Since its launch in the Pacific Northwest eleven years ago, Buy Nothing Day has grown into a worldwide celebration of consumer awareness and simple living. Observed on the day after US Thanksgiving – America's busiest shopping day of the year – the campaign has sparked debate, radio talk shows, TV news items and newspaper headlines around the world.

This isn't about political extremism, what I interpret BND as is a day of awareness of how much we consume and a cue to ponder what the impact is on the rest of the world. Ultimately delaying your purchases 24hrs isn't gonna make a whole world of difference, and that's not the point. The idea is to find alternatives like these at buynothingchristmas.org for those celebrating that faith. And don't worry about effecting the economy, that bullshit you hear from CNN economists about spending more in the name of patriotism is based on economics like GDP which is vastly flawed.

Well I'll be a monkey on acid.

Hey, even Wired is covering BND today!

On Wishlists

I'll just say it outright: pointing your Amazon.com wishlist out ot people in your journal is fucking tacky. Would you spew out a list of things you want in casual conversation to these people? Seriously if anybody possibly reading this just handed me a list of things they want I'd tell them to take a fuckin' hike. But because we can hide behind our computers it's somehow OK?

Get this, culture on the internet is still developing. Now colour me a conservative but some shit is just NOT ok.

I dunno about others but if I'm going to buy somebody a gift it's a personal thing. Maybe it was the way I was raised but a good gift is not giving somebody simply what they want. It's more symbolic than that, the best gifts express your relationship to a person. Now in respect to the Christian tradition one might recall a certain Little Drummer Boy who had but a song to play for a certain son of god? That's right, to any practicing Chrisitian I would argue that use of a wishlist would be ignoring and even failing the kind of lessons we teach to MOTHERFUCKING CHILDREN.

Let's also not forget that it's t's cold, hyper-consumerist and generally selfish marketing ploy! Wishlists are useful for customers to track purchases they'd like to make for themselves in the future. But merely checking things off another person's list really lacks any detectable levels of genuine sentiment. Reminds me of one too many Rohl Dalh or J.K.Rawlings characters. Again, lessons that are taught to children.

That's why I don't like it. But I'm pretty sure the individuals in question really have little conscience in these matters.

So I'm thinking of possible legitimate uses but really none are coming to mind. Wedding registries are also pretty tacky mostly because of my stance as being unsupported by the institution that is marriage. I can imagine guide lines for helping newly weds out.. but that's a bit of a non-sequiter. I think what this comes down to is financial status and people's attitudes, specifically mine, are towards spending money. Personally I've seen a pretty large gamut of financial standings in my time. From living in a single professional parent home growing up to having friends with two Ph.D parents and others on social assistance. But what's universal is that beyond social status the concept of dignity is something everyone should have. Without getting on a conservative rant it certainly is a rare trait these days. Fact is that I'd say the majority of north americans are pretty fucking greedy. Again, regardless of their socio-economic status.

Ahhh, so there it is. Distilled to perfect clarity: Greed is bad. See why I love journaling? I get to live in my own little autistic universe of rationalization.