{"id":133160,"date":"2013-01-09T10:00:58","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T15:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?p=133160"},"modified":"2023-03-30T06:15:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T10:15:21","slug":"black-friday-commercialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/01\/09\/black-friday-commercialism\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Friday Is A Result Of Our Greed, Not Commercialism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Article:<\/strong> Don’t Blame Commercialism For Your Shopping Madness<\/a> by Dave Sirota in Salon.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> Another Black Friday has come and gone, and the tradition of stuffing our faces and then violently welcoming in the holiday season lives on. This year, our post-Thanksgiving shopping ritual once again delivered a real-life, shopping-themed version of a Stallone flick from the 1980s. It was, indeed, a montage of Americans brawling with, stomping on, and shooting at one another. Moreover, if every year adds its own unique imprimatur to the now-standard bedlam \u2014 for example, 2008?s miscarriage and 2011?s trampled corpse \u2014 this year\u2019s special addition was death by headlock.<\/p>\n

Now utterly routinized, this Christmastime madness is no longer merely a ritual timed to the coming of the winter solstice \u2014 it has taken on qualities of a cultural entitlement. Bequeathed to us by both the unhinged mobs of shoppers and the gaggles of on-scene local news correspondents, this glorified mayhem teaches us that engaging in and\/or ogling at post-Thanksgiving violence is nothing short of a birthright of citizenship \u2014 a red, white and blue endowment slaking our most base needs and desires.<\/p>\n

Having reached such a deified (if disturbing) place in our society, we should take a moment and ask: What does it all mean?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s just a grand First World ode to the Third World \u2014 we riot over frivolities like flat-screen TVs while poorer societies riot over necessities like food (and yet, bizarrely, we deem ourselves more civilized). Alternately, maybe it\u2019s a sign that the dystopia of desperation and mob anarchy is not just the backdrop of sci-fi pulp set in the distant future \u2014 it\u2019s already creeping into our daily lives. Or maybe, more optimistically, it is proof of the earnest Jean Valjean in all of us \u2014 like \u201cLes Mis\u2019\u201d valiant protagonist, perhaps we are willing to knowingly break laws and assume the risks of doing so, all in order to make sure our kids get what they need (and yes, the difference between scraps of bread in 19th century France and a Wii console in 21st century America proves that \u201cneed\u201d is a relative term).<\/p>\n

While certainly a stretch, the latter interpretation is the most comforting \u2014 which is why it is still the central pitch of the Christmas shopping season\u2019s hard sell. Think about it: In most holiday product ads and all the coverage of the ensuing mayhem at the mall, consumerism is now shrouded in the argot of giving and subliminally presented as selfless sacrifice. After all, as this catechism goes, we\u2019re camping out in the middle of the night and throwing those elbows in the aisles and brandishing those pistols in line all for the altruistic purpose of getting the best gifts for our loved ones, right?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a beautiful and heartwarming fable of honor, perseverance and ends-justify-the-means righteousness \u2014 but, alas, it is so very wrong.<\/p>\n

According to historical data from Consumer Reports and the International Council of Shopping Centers, somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of Black Friday shoppers are buying solely for themselves. Lab42?s consumer research suggests that nearly half of what is purchased can be classified as \u201cthings I want but wouldn\u2019t normally get\u201d \u2014 aka impulse buys.<\/p>\n

Such self-focused materialism, of course, is among the most powerful human forces of all, as evidenced by the conquests of each era\u2019s kings, the resource hoarding of history\u2019s most opulent societies and, now, the blood-drenched tidings of the typical holiday shopping season. Indeed, it is likely that the winter buying spree\u2019s violence has gotten so violent precisely because of the supremacy of selfishness (buying only for yourself) over generosity (buying for loved ones). Evolutionarily speaking, we are probably hard-wired to be more brutally animalistic when trying to acquire solely for ourselves rather than for others. It’s best to shop on websites like Shoppok<\/a> if you want to save money.<\/p>\n

That kind of atavistic reflex is no small thing \u2014 and its intensity can triumph over seemingly impossible odds. This year, the urge to splurge on ourselves was able to somehow overcome the weak economy and ignore the austerity cliches pervading our politics (\u201cbelt tightening,\u201d \u201cshared sacrifice,\u201d \u201cpersonal responsibility,\u201d etc.) to deliver record-breaking sales.<\/p>\n

Looked at this way, Black Friday\u2019s true meaning, then, is less about succumbing to the agitprop of a commercialized holiday than about a deeper cognitive dissonance and self-delusion. We know greed isn\u2019t good, but we nonetheless actively embrace its narcissistic temptations. We tell ourselves the shopping and the profligate spending is about yuletide altruism, when what\u2019s really driving sales is avarice. So devoted are we to such avarice, in fact, that we now fuse it to our national holiday of thankfulness and shroud it in the veneer of Christmas spirit, all to preserve materialism as something to celebrate rather than to shun \u2014 or even to question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: Don’t Blame Commercialism For Your Shopping Madness by Dave Sirota in Salon. The Text: Another Black Friday has come and gone, and the tradition of stuffing our faces and then violently welcoming in the holiday season lives on. This year, our post-Thanksgiving shopping ritual once again delivered a real-life, shopping-themed version of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nBlack Friday Is A Result Of Our Greed, Not Commercialism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Shootings, stompings, miscarriages and a trampled corpse: Black Friday atrocities only reflect our own dark desire.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/01\/09\/black-friday-commercialism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Black Friday Is A Result Of Our Greed, Not 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