And thank God I don't work at walmart right now, jesus fucking christ.

+1 Thucy

(Though as I finally have a job now thanks to a slight rebound, and will likely get a chance to get some hours and chas in as a result of Black Friday...well, I, actually, am almost thankful for it, from that perspective, at least.)

Not nearly as ironic as Labor Day, IMHO. You know, the day we celebrate labor by taking the day off.

Why is giving thanks meant to have anything to do with not consuming? Why is giving thanks for your good fortune imply that you shouldn't take advantage if it.

Also, since you mention the term, what exactly do you mean by "need". What does someone "need"?

@Alderian Labor Day refers to the word "Labor" as in "Unions"(collective plural noun). So on Labor day you don't work, almost like a strike.

Labor Day: And each year, more and more of us non-union Americans take the day off to give thanks that the unions existed to establish reasonable working conditions, even if we think they are now as unreasonable and predatory as the businesses they contest.

Oh yeah - and dittos to Ghost. I give thanks on Thanksgiving that Thuc is not in charge of deciding what I do and don't need to have. And presume that he is still playing vinyl records, riding a horse, and making calls on his cordless phone, because lord knows that IPODS, horseless carriages, and Iphones are shit he doesn't need.

Labor Day was established as a break for all laborers (i.e. non-management). So when a manager takes it off, he is just celebrating his workers.

As far as Black Friday goes, we may be buying massive amounts of non-necessities but we are usually buyinmg them as gifts for our loved ones, not ourselves, so we are in effect giving back as an additional form of thanks.

Not that I'm going to the mall today. No way in Hell.

lol yo chill out.... i'm not pontificating here.

i'm just saying it makes sense that after you sit around and think what you're thankful for, you ought to have some sense of.... contentment. that does not seem to be the case though.

its a perennial american disease, materialism, and it is on display on this day, black friday, when people get trampled to death for Furbies and satellite radios.

But whatever.

As to what I mean by "shit you don't need" :

I'm not talking about "if you dont need it just to survive, you don't need it"

I'm talking about: "If you already have one TV, you dont need another. If you have a perfectly good phone now, you don't need to buy a new one till it breaks. If you already have 100 DVDs, you dont need a dozen more. If you already have 3 pairs of formal shoes, you don't need a fourth. Etc."

I'm talking about being content with what we already have. I for one have told my parents I don't want anything for Christmas. I'd just as soon watch those department stores crash and burn and lay people off and all that terrible shit if it meant that the American people were no longer so materialist, so lazy, so shallow and so selfish.

Don't misread me: go ahead and celebrate xmas, go ahead and buy your kin gifts. Just try not to get caught up, as many of us do, in thinking we "need" those things. Many of them are not actually needed... We are all blessed already, there is little more we need, by any definition of the word.

Ah, I never knew the history of Labor day. I don't recall it being covered in school, but it has been a long time and history was never my strong suit. I always assumed it was in celebration of the end of Summer and the labor involved in bringing in the Summer harvests and such.

So with double digit unemployment you want the stores to go bankrupt and take all those stockers and sales clerks and leave them unemployed with even less prospects than many who are already on unemployment. Most of them rent apartments and live paycheck to paycheck but lets just dump them so they wind up unemployed with no place to live and going to the homeless shelters, free stores, and soup kitchens so you can feel good that the department stores are no more. Oh, and let's do this at Christmas as well.

Nice, Thucy. F'ing nice.

What I don't like is that the supposed solution to get the economy back on its feet is for consumers to spend themselves into even more debt. We aren't supposed to save money because that'll kill the economy even more.

It just doesn't seem right. I don't like the consumerism our economy is based on. I am certainly no economic expert but it seems like it would give you short term benefits in trade for long term pain.

Let me spell it out for you:

I'm saying that a content unemployed person is way better off than a materialistic billionaire. Not everything can be measured by an economist. It's not for my benefit...

The reason being unemployed sucks so bad is because it means you can't buy all the stuff that your pals are buying, so you feel like shit, because that's what we feed on these days, is new objects to buy. That's what the whole structure is built around.

So when I said "IF IT MEANT that the American people were no longer so materialist, so lazy, so shallow and so selfish" I meant it. Without that, the unemployment of those people would be a veritable disaster. But IF IT MEANT they had a better outlook on life, indeed if our whole culture had a better outlook on life (and a couple nasty corporations had folded) then yes we would be better off.

hell we might even go back to making things instead of just buying them.

keep in mind that I KNOW this cannot and will not happen. which is why in the REAL WOLRD i never actually hope that the corporation go bankrupt because that is indeed a disaster. as much as Enron deserved to fold, it was still a huge blow to the local economy where I live, especially among us materialists.

I'm surprised materialism is now so entrenched in our culture that you don't even acknowledge that it's a bad thing.

"I'm talking about: "If you already have one TV, you dont need another. If you have a perfectly good phone now, you don't need to buy a new one till it breaks. If you already have 100 DVDs, you dont need a dozen more. If you already have 3 pairs of formal shoes, you don't need a fourth. Etc.""

In the loft I have a black and white television, a spare mobile phone which I replaced with a blackberry, a serviceable computer which can perfectly well be used to write emails and browse the internet but is fairly slow and cannot run some more up to date programs which are easier to use... have I extended beyond what I "need" in some sense?

You can't talk about what people need without qualification. I need food, water and shelter *to survive*. I need clothes, toiletries, a shower, a bed *to be comfortable*. I need paper and a pen *to study*.

There is no answer to the question of "what do I need?", only answers to the questions, "what do I need to have/do/be X?"

"I'm surprised materialism is now so entrenched in our culture that you don't even acknowledge that it's a bad thing."

I'll say it now in no uncertain terms: God bless materialism.

Materialism is what allows me to live comfortably, without having to inconvenience myself more than walking 500 yards to get everything I want. That's what allows me to pursue what interests me, rather than being forced to do something more immediately beneficial. Materialism is not only entrenched in our culture, but its what makes our civilisation the most peaceful, the most comfortable, the safest, the healthiest ever. Materialism is the desire for more, better in material, and material is all we can understand has humans. Materialism is wanting the very best we can get, and it is the driving force behind progress.

The only way you can hate materialism is to hate the idea that everyone is constantly getting incrementally better off by moving on to better things, and the only way you can hate that is by being a sadist.

"So when I said "IF IT MEANT that the American people were no longer so materialist, so lazy, so shallow and so selfish" I meant it. Without that, the unemployment of those people would be a veritable disaster. But IF IT MEANT they had a better outlook on life, indeed if our whole culture had a better outlook on life (and a couple nasty corporations had folded) then yes we would be better off.

hell we might even go back to making things instead of just buying them."

Totally false. The selfish outlook on life is the only thing Americans have left. The problem is that what is in your self-interest is to consume and borrow, and that is a result of government policy, not how people think.

@Thucy: Why do you think materialism a bad thing?

I don't see it as a negative; if anything, it is a mindset that encourages innovation, higher standards of living and, in times like these, it can help create jobs and stimulate production.

No, you misunderstand. I don't hate improvement or convenience.

What I hate is when that's all that matter to people, is accruing more and more objects. THAT's materialism. You seem to think materialism means creating and using conveniences. I would disagree. Maybe it would be clearer if I said it's *consumerism* that I hate and that we could all do without. Many people care more about themselves and their property than they care for their fellow men. Every year there's another disgusting story about it. This year it was the guy who cut in line and threatened the people he cut. What. The. Fuck.

We get so damned cushy in our industrialized countries that we forget that maybe it would better to give that $15 to a charity than to spend it on the new Arcade Fire album. Which increases happiness more? Your personal enjoyment of some music, or the chance of a child to see another day of life?

The reason we don't feel very bad about not giving everything we can to charity etc is because of selfish materialism (or consumerism, whichever you like). That's why I hate it, it has perverted our dignity and values and culture in general.

Although slavery in name has been forbidden it persists in spirit all over the world, even right here at home. I'm not just talking about shit like pimps and prostitutes. I'm also talking about overworked interns, or bosses holding the threat of being laid off over their employees head, knowing there are no other jobs for them.

There was a time when the direction of our collective psyche was not so grim, but the time seems to have past. We'll see how things look in 50 years.

But no. God does not bless materialism and never will if he exists. In fact, most people's idea of God is diametrically opposed to most people's idea of materialism.

Maybe one day we will live in a society where the most important thing is everyone's dignity, not everyone's wage or square footage.

"The problem is that what is in your self-interest is to consume and borrow, and that is a result of government policy, not how people think."

That is flat wrong. What we have seen is a change in culture, politics is only an effect, not a cause, of the underlying culture.

However I really don't feel like arguing about this anymore... it only gets me more depressed. Enjoy your items and objects.

And look up the "Church of Stop Shopping" if you have the time they have a funny and unique take on all this madness.

Also, saying "The reason being unemployed sucks so bad is because it means you can't buy all the stuff that your pals are buying, so you feel like shit, because that's what we feed on these days, is new objects to buy" is incredibly ridiculous. the reason being unemployed sucks so bad is because you are unable to provide for your family, unable to make mortgage/rent payments, unable to clothe your children, unable to save for retirement, etc.

also, i take offense at you calling americans selfish, lazy and shallow. one, thats an incredibly large generalization. two, its an incredibly inaccurate generalization. americans still produce enough to have one of the highest gdps per capita in the world, and i imagine americans also lead the world in research and patents and inventions and stuff. and americans provide over 20 billion in foreign aid a year. how is that for shallow, lazy and selfish?

If i may, i have a question... why do you care so much Thucy? if people want to go out and blow hundreds of dollars, thats there choice... if people want to spend money on everything, can't stop them. if people like you and I want to donate that money to a charity, we can do that... noone gives us crap for donating money to charity, why give people crap for buying things they may or may not need/want... Society today is built on materialism, and it couldnt run without it, doesnt mean everyone has to live on it. saying that "American's" are materialistic is stereotypical. im an American, An American Teen at that, and can say Teens are more materialistic than any one else, and im not materialistic. i like my stuff, and i do buy things i dont necessarily need, but that doesnt make me materialistic... you should definatly think carefully about how you phrase things...

I'm going to leave you with this from the Bible, Christian or not (and indeed I am not), it's a good word. Matthew 19:

"Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

satisfied unemployed? Anyone who is satisfied without a job is a welfare junkie and I have zero respect for them. And for someone who had a job and has suddenly become dependent on the kindness of strangers, most have enough pride they'd rather die. It's about pride in making their own way, not about consumerism.

But I wouldn't expect the liberal perpetual college student to realize that most people lose their pride in themselves whenthey collect a handout.

i geeve what jesus says. weird thing to throw in there. also i disagree with our man JC on this point. being rich is more or less irrelevant to your moral worth. having green doesnt make you in some way a worse person than someone who is broke. in fact, American (yes, those selfish, lazy and shallow people!) history is full of rich businessmen turned incredible philanthropists-- from carnegie and rockefeller to gates and buffett.

Yea, and actually, I think more Americans actually donate more to charity and spend money on others than they do on themselves. I know people, myself included, who have no Job(believe me im trying to get one, but its kinda difficult right now) and very little money, will still donate money. They donate money everytime they go somewhere and theres a charity there, even if its only a dollar... Americans are anything but selfish and shallow(some sure, and lazy your pretty close on for most), we are very generous and caring.

CAN WE PLEASE NOT MAKE THIS POLITICAL BECAUSE IT IS NOT

FUCK YOU

Check it out, I wrote this, on the same topic, this time last year:

"Thanksgiving just passed, about a week ago now. As everyone knows, in America at least, as soon as Thanksgiving is over, the Christmas season begins. Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holidays, everyone's favorite time of year.

Right?

Well, not for me. I've always thought it a bit odd that the day we say is for "thanksgiving" falls within 24 hours of Black Friday, which is nothing more than the exact opposite of giving thanks. It is when we all scratch our heads and ask ourselves, "What do I want for Christmas?"

So less than a day after you just finished your family ritual of going around the table and describing what you're thankful for, you turn around and tell your family and friends what you want, but don't have. What has this season become? I wonder, was it always this way? I suspect not. Perhaps, whether he meant his words or not, we should all take a lesson from T.I., who said:

"Stop looking at what you ain't got and start being thankful for what you do got."

Nothing is more heartwarming and satisfying than giving gifts to those
you love. But when the gift giving is annually scheduled, it becomes decidedly less meaningful. Rather, it is the spontaneity of genuine gift-giving that is truly meaningful. When it comes to expressing your love for others through giving gifts, it is the lack of obligation to give the gift that makes it special. At Christmastime, there is a HUGE obligation to give gifts. Even the stingiest, most miserly people feel compelled to get assorted trinkets for those closest to them, whether they be the last minute Christmas Eve Wal-Mart shoppers or among the inane masses of sale-hunting Black Friday shoppers.

The point is, no one is spared the experience of Christmas shopping. When the meaning for the gift-giver is stripped away, all that is left is the meaning for the receiver. Namely, all they care about are the actual gifts they receive. Small wonder, then, that the Christmas season has become little more than a giant exchange, everyone buying gifts for others, for two principal reasons: One, because there is tremendous social pressure to do so, from commercials, from friends, from the culture itself. And two, because they know that if they do not give gifts themselves, they will not receive gifts. This is the Miser Principle. If you gain a reputation as a miser or a Grinch who hates Christmas and gives no gifts, you shall receive none. As such, everyone gives something or other.

The Christmas culture is so coercive, in fact, that those who would normally have no compelling reason to celebrate a holiday commemorating the birth of Christ end up celebrating the holiday as well, sapped of meaning though it may be. Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, even your odd Jew and Muslim, will be seen, if not with a Christmas tree in their home, at least giving their children gifts around the same time as Christmas. Those that do not must laboriously explain to their children why their family does not exchange Christmas gifts whereas seemingly every other family does.

It is impossible to live in America during these times and not learn the tune of at least one or two Christmas carols. Every year, these tired tunes are dragged out and recycled through an endless parade of "new variations" and "revivals" or "modern interpretations," the biggest irony here being that many of these latter-day Christmas carols have themselves entered the repertoire of "unmissable" and "indispensable" holiday fare.

A brief foray into Twitter's inevitable trending topic this time of year, "Christmas," reveals something poignant about people's thoughts on the holiday. From the first one hundred tweets we have those related to:

Gifts/shopping: 26%
Sales/merchandise: 26%
Songs: 12%
Tradition* - positive comments: 11%
Tradition* - negative comments: 11%
General - positive comments: 3%
General - negative comments: 7%
Travel: 2%
Religious: 1%
Charity work: 1%

*Tradition here meaning traditional Christmas activities
such as: decoration, trees, cookies, lights, and so on.

As you can see, very telling. Fully half of the users were talking about something related to a gift or were talking about prices of items or sales at stores. A fair portion referenced a song, whether in a positive or negative light, and nearly a quarter mentioned a Christmas tradition. Of those who did, half cast a negative light on this tradition and the other half a positive light. There were the general tweets about Christmas, of which three percent were positive (such as, simply, "Merry Christmas!"), and of which seven percent were negative or cynical. Two people mentioned travel plans as a result of Christmas, and one lone person mentioned the religious aspect of Christmas, Christ's birth. No wonder churches perpetually lament the death of Christmas as a religious holiday and its birth as a secular one. And lastly, one paltry person, bless them, was talking about some Christmas charity work they were doing.

What does that say about us? In this holiday season, are we as a society characterized by giving thanks, as we do in November, or asking for more, as we do in December? Remember, I conducted this survey on December 2nd, fully 23 days away from Christmas but only 6 away from Thanksgiving.

This is not to say I hate Christmas. Of course many who may read this will think I am a Grinch. In fact, I find it rather troubling that some of the most beloved Christmas stories center around a general distaste for those who eschew the holiday, as if the masses are indoctrinated to love Christmas and hate those who do not. In my view, Christmas' primary purpose today is to provide a manmade excuse to be cheery in a season when there is no natural reason to be cheery. It is an attempt to stave off the paralyzing depression that comes with the brutal winter season, and all its maladies.

And in that regard, it has worked admirably. There is no telling what winter life in the Northern Hemisphere would be like without Christmas, our mainstay during that time. So no, I do not hate Christmas, but I do, like many others before me have, lament its ridiculous commercialization, but not just that. I also lament that it is so obligatory, so well-loved that it appears to be a cultural sin not to at least pretend to love it as well. I reject the notion that this is right on the grounds of principle."

Draug I am not talking about being satisfied with *being unemployed* I am talking about being satisfied with *what you have.*

Meaning that it is better to be satisfied with what you have, no matter what it is you actually have, than it is to want more, no matter what is you actually want. This is irrespective of your employment, which is why I said better to be satisfied and unemployed than discontented and a billionaire.

Many who live in abject poverty are happy, even not knowing they are poor. (This IS NOT me saying it's okay for them to be poor, but it is me saying that you don't need anything to be happy).

Anyway.... I've gotten riled up enough.

It's not my intent to offend or alienate anyone so I'll back off now. Apologies.

If you refrain from ad hominem personal attacks I'll keep my nose out of this thread and you can sing the praises of stuff all you want.

Black Friday is even more insidious than that. Generosity follows from gratitude...if you're thankful for what you have, you're naturally going to share it. Black Friday, and Christmas as a whole, is the result of a lot of smart people who turn people's generosity away from helping people in need, to giving them stuff they don't need. People drop hundreds at the mall, and put a couple dollars in the bucket so that others can eat...it makes more sense to do it the other way around. And we would, if it weren't for the people who put a lot of effort into distracting us from the real needs of the people around us so that we would give them our money instead.

Those same people who put a couple dollars in the bucket commonly give significantly more to the food banks directly. They may do it with a check directly to the organization or through their church or some other way, but don't think that the only donations they make are through the Salvation Army buckets. You are just seeing the tip of the iceberg for many if not most of them.

"CAN WE PLEASE NOT MAKE THIS POLITICAL BECAUSE IT IS NOT

FUCK YOU"

How in the love of Mike is it not political?

He's just ticked because I said "liberal perpetual college student" and I hit the nail right on the head. I'm sorry in advance but those of us out of school 25 years now have a different view of how the world works and what some of the ideological (and at times naive) concepts would result in and they arenKt as pretty as the (well documented to be) liberal professors stuff in our young adults heads. It's great that you want to change the world (you being all the politically active students at unis around the world), but be careful what you wish for because the genie granting those wishes is an evil son of a bitch just waiting to show you the flaws in them.

@Draug: I looked up some numbers...estimates are that in the US, charitable contributions *for the year* totaled about $230 billion, and that holiday spending was about $440 billion. So people spend twice as much on Christmas as they do on charitable donations (and that's for every non-profit--art, education, whatever). So even on the largest scale, I'll stand by my point.

But how many people give to the cahrities is my point. If 1 in3 give to a charity then the charity givers give more to charity then their loved ones. This does not counter my argument at all because my argument was only about those who give to charity where as you holiday spending is everyone, not just charitable donors' holiday spending. So I stand by my statement.

note about labor day: it was instituted as a (successful) attempt to hijack the concept of a day to celebrate the worker from the communists and labor proponents in the world who had already proclaimed the first of May to be International Worker's Day (80 countries officially recognize it). The rest of the world still celebrates International Worker's Day and it is typically a day of organized protests rather than a day of rest. Ironically, though the US is practically the only western nation that doesn't recognize it, the day marks an event that occurred in the US, the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, when Chicago police fired on workers during a general strike for the eight hour workday, killing several demonstrators. The US was very active territory for Communists and Anarchists alike in the late 19th and early 20th century but they were openly hunted and harassed and finally succumbed, victims of massive and orchestrated propaganda campaigns from govt and corporations and the media monopolies, kangaroo courts, and revisionist history.

I agree with you, Thucy, materialism is a plague that must be stopped or will devour us all, and while I'm not a Christian, it strikes me as a grotesque perversion of that religion's observances.

Whatever. It's political. And since you brought it up again, here I am again. I am not liberal, and I am not a perpetual college student.

Liberals rarely lament consumerism, it is more often the traditionalists and the old who are most concerned with it.

The reason this is not political is because I couldn't really give a rat's ass about what the government is or isn't doing about this *cultural* problem.

As I said this is cultural, and if it's ever going to change it's going to be a cultural change, not a political one.

So that's why it's not political. I am not... at all... interested in having a political discussion about this because it really is not related to my political feelings at all.

and, mcbry, I agree that while I'm not a Christian, I can understand why so many of them balk at what Christmas is in the west.

@Draug: what's the point of the statement you're standing by? My point is that people who want to be generous should be focusing on giving to people with real needs, not buying presents. Some people have figured that out already (my wife's family, for example). But not nearly enough.

@Thucy and mcbry- William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a profound thinker, used to say over and over, “Christianity is the most materialistic religion in the world.” He was right. Christians believe more about matter, believe more positively about matter, and do more with matter than do the devotees of any other religious system.
Christians acknowledge that God made the world of matter, the world of things. “All things bright and beautiful…The Lord God made them all”
Christianity is thoroughly materialistic – by God’s appointment.

that's an interesting thought, butterhead, but we're talking about two different concepts. The "materialism" we're talking about is probably more precisely "consumerism". You're using it in a philosophical/theological sense regarding the relative importance of matter in the Christian universe.

Yal brought up religion and Christianity. I'm just explaining the christian view of Materialism.

again i think you misunderstand. i'm not talking about materialism as a philosophical thing, which is that there is matter.

what im talking about is consumerism, which is certainly not what the archbishop was talking about