I read an interesting article in the Pamphleteer (the Providence College student paper) about their peaceful protest at St. Vital for Buy Nothing Day. I didn't know about this event, but I can tell you this: I agree with the sentiment.
I was in St. Vital on Friday night. Now I'm not really a mall person at the best of times, but to be in mall on a Friday evening just a few short weeks before Christmas? I'd rather be whipped naked through the streets of Transcona.
After five minutes of browsing in Chapters (which used to sell books), I found my way to a bench to wait out my time. Sitting on that bench, I was saddened at the sights around me: children whining for "more, more, more;" parents spoiling their offspring by giving in to their every whim; parcels, bags and package.
Later, when I got home, I put in "A Charlie Brown Christmas." As Charlie lamented the commercialization of the holiday, I thought back to my time at St. Vital and my inner-Brown sighed: Good grief.
6 comments:
I completely agree with you, I try to avoid shopping at this time of year at all costs. But I've never liked Charlie Brown. Especially his stupid little tree.
Stupid tree? That's very Grinch-y of you, Corrie. Very Grinch-y indeed.
Here's the thing about "Buy Nothing Day" that I don't like. It comes across as trying to be pratical when obviously practically it's idiotic. I have no doubt that the purpose is to raise awareness about how obsessed our society is with consuming but anyone I've ever talked to about it says "well that's dumb because they will just buy something the next day".
It's hard to see the point when there seems to be a different point being thrown in your face; Don't buy anything from Wal-Mart for a day and that'll get 'em!!
Maybe they should make it a new day like... "We Can Help Ween You Off Your Need to Buy" Day
Also, I'm glad you noticed Chapters is trash now too. I went in there with a 20+ book list to choose from for some gifts for Christmas and I only found ONE book. Half the store sells book reading ACCESORIES and the other half sells crappy books by crappy new authors who write about crap.
Ugh.
As someone who participated in the Buy Nothing Day demonstration, I would just like to say that I am not so naive as to think that refraining from spending on one day of the year is going to make any significant difference on a corporate or economic level. Nor is it intended to. Our protest was not intended to "show 'em" -- the day is symbolic. The day merely stands as a call to consider the implications of our spending: "What are we buying and why?" Not "stop buying altogether." The key is to be intentional about our spending, taking social justice and the protection of the planet into consideration. An added bonus is that reduced consumption has personal sanity benefits -- as Mike seems to have affirmed in this post.
Mike, you went to Chapters? That's unfortunate. You know if you want to buy a book you should go to McNally Robinson.
I also agree with the sentiment of Buy Nothing Christmas, but on the other hand, as someone who worked in retail and who was aware that without the Christmas spending frenzy I likely wouldn't have a job, I couldn't help but think it in poor taste for Buy Nothing proponents to be handing out their pamphlets in the store. (Not that you said they did that, just that in my experience, some have.)
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