Unconscious Consumption
- Posted by: NancyFrench , JoelHolland
- on December 12, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Shopping at Wal-Mart isn’t about making the world a better place, because that isn’t what shopping is for.
Because we’re raising little capitalists, my husband and I pay our children nominal fees to make their beds, wash their plates, and hopefully one day do our taxes. Every Saturday night, we gather at the kitchen table for “payday” and drop coins earned from daily chores into different jars labeled “God,” “Save,” and “Spend.” The first ten percent goes into the God jar, which is noisily emptied onto the collection plate at church on Sunday mornings. The Save jar is placed back on the windowsill for the day they can afford, say, a PlayStation 2 game (though by that time, NASCAR 2007 will seem as outdated as Pong). But the glorious Spend jar is transported under chubby arms to the gleaming aisles of Wal-Mart, where the children try desperately to figure out if sales tax will place those plastic dinosaurs out of their financial grasp.
My liberal friends hate Wal-Mart, feeling it has done less for its 1.3 million workers than, say, a rash of repetitive-stress injuries. When one friend heard I went to its Philadelphia location, she immediately said, “Don’t go there again.” And when I revealed that my husband’s first job was as a gun salesman at a Wal-Mart in Kentucky, our friendship barely withstood the blow.
In fact, Wal-Mart has become a political Rorschach test. Democrats run as “Wal-Mart Foes” criticizing what they perceive to be inadequate health care and low wages. (Wages that are lower than unionized labor’s, but competitive enough to draw 25,000 job applicants for 325 openings at a new Chicago store.) Meanwhile, working-class whites turned off by Democrats’ cultural secularism have been dubbed “Sam’s Club Republicans”—after Wal-Mart’s cheaper and even bigger box store. The ubiquitous retail giant vividly showcases the wildly disparate spending philosophies of Red and Blue Americans.
For example, my children make about $6 per week, which leaves less than $3 to spend after the money is split among all the jars. And, frankly, that’s just not enough to Make a Statement. You see, Blue Staters don’t just want to buy a product, they want their product to Mean Something, whether it’s African tribal art, a high-energy protein bar, or scented candles. Every product is manufactured, packaged, and marketed to feed the desire for significance.
| Quote: |
| Liberals believe evangelicals lack moral gravitas because we don’t attach our beliefs to our purchases like an overpriced service plan. |
Urban Outfitters, for example, reveals eclectic style; Williams-Sonoma illustrates a sophisticated domesticity, and IKEA (admittedly affordable, but 300 miles from my house) demonstrates the urban need for maximizing space. Everthing related to these stores exude hipness—their décor, products, and even shopping bags emit a certain je ne sais quoi which simply does not accompany translucent Wal-Mart bags with yellow happy faces on the front. Blue State shopping, you see, is more than just acquiring items. It Makes a Statement, it Reflects Personal Style, it Helps Save the Planet.
Had I taken my kids and their Spend jars to a Nature boutique, the store’s intercoms might have been playing a relaxing Sounds of the Sea CD. A toy shark would be packaged in recycled paper (with a discussion of the threat of off-shore fishing practices on the back) and the cashier wearing a hemp necklace could have advised us where to get a half-caf soy latte on our way out the door. The toy would have cost $8.
Wal-Mart, far from hipness, exudes only cheapness. Its products —no longer nessecarily American made—have traveled great distances to ensure that Bob in Peoria can afford a good belt to wear to work. The fluorescent lights kill any ambience a store the size of Delaware might have achieved, and purchases mean nothing beyond the item’s function. My son found his shark in a box next to the whoopee cushions, and it only cost $1.50. I bought a bowl to hold enough popcorn for the family, and the cashier certainly did not advise adding fruit to make a Stunning Centerpiece.
And that’s the thing about Wal-Mart shoppers. We don’t want tips on how to live or entertain or save the sharks. We just want a popcorn bowl, the largest flat screen television we can afford, and a new Xbox 360. Oh, and we’ll need laundry detergent and paper towels, too. Our shopping is nothing but the sheer accumulation of stuff—the cheaper the better.
Those aisles of inexpensive merchandise make eating, exercising, and even wiping your butt more affordable—increasing the standard of living for millions of working class Americans.
This sometimes causes liberal secularists to feel smug. A popular bumper sticker sums up the sentiment nicely: the religious right is neither. One of the reasons liberals believe evangelicals lack moral gravitas is because we don’t attach our beliefs to our purchases like an overpriced service plan. Liberal secularists view themselves, after all, as changing the world one $6 organically grown free trade latte at a time. But, do they have the “save the world” market cornered? A closer examination of charitable giving and volunteering shows a shockingly telling discrepancy between the religious and the non-religious.
According to Syracuse University’s study, “Religious Faith and Charitable Giving,” people who attend religious services regularly are 38 percent more likely to identify themselves as conservatives. They are also 25 percent more likely to donate money than those who don’t (91 percent to 66 percent)—and this isn’t just giving in the collection plate: the religious are more generous with nonreligious causes as well. They are also 23 percent more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent).
To put it bluntly, religious conservatives don’t out-spend their secular liberal counterparts, they out-give them—donating a significantly higher percentage of their income to African AIDS victims, babies afflicted by inner-city poverty, and children enslaved by the global sex trade. In other words, they don’t view consumer goods as a method of showcasing benevolence.
They have a whole different jar for that.
GOOD JAR All of GOOD’s subscription money goes to charity. It also “Makes A Statement,” if you’re into that.
DISCUSSION: 32 Comments
Nancy, great story. It crystalizes how I feel and also why “blue states” will never “GET” the “red states”. It is the whole other jar mystery.
I loved your book too!
I will say this, I have cause to read this article twice. And I think I will. Which – is that not the point of a site like this? To cause one to reevaluate?
A sourced version of the following can be found here.
Dear Nancy,
Having read your article, two words immediately came to mind. Thank you. As an unabashed progressive writing an unabashed conservative about such a provocative article, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have thought that my initial reaction. Indeed it was. So again, thank you. Thank you for saying more in 900-plus words about the morally bankrupt conservative ideology than an army of progressives could say in a lifetime, for re-affirming the mission of so many forward-thinking people and for reminding me why I’m a progressive.
“One of the reasons liberals believe evangelicals lack moral gravitas is because we don’t attach our beliefs to our purchases like an overpriced service plan,” you write. Quite the contrary. You and many others lack moral gravitas because your beliefs don’t extend beyond the church walls. What good are your beliefs if you so willingly abandon them in the name of mindless consumerism or, in your words, “the sheer accumulation of stuff”? Yes, Wal-Mart offers aisle after aisle of inexpensive merchandise. And yes, millions of Americans – myself included – shop or have shopped there. More often than not, economics or geography play a large role in determining where one’s next purchase will take place. That said, I fault those, like you, whose consumer behavior exhibits a spiteful neglect of reality, and whose attitudes prove that it’s far easier to be against something than for anything.
Your column is less a criticism of so-called liberal smugness than an ode to purposeful negligence. You write that Wal-Mart increases the standard of living “for millions of working class Americans,” yet you neglect the inconvenient truth that your retail paradise does far more harm than good. Consider that far too many Wal-Mart associates live below the poverty line, earning nowhere near enough to support a family. Nearly 800,000 of Wal-Mart’s approximately 1.39 million American employees aren’t covered by the company’s restrictive, costly health care plan. A report found that in counties where Wal-Mart has had a retail presence for at least 30 years, the average store reduced per-person earnings by 5 percent. Wal-Mart’s workers in China, a nation from which the consumer giant purchased $18 billion in goods in 2004, filed a lawsuit last year “claiming that they were not paid the legal minimum wage, not permitted to take holidays off and were forced to work overtime. They said their employer had withheld the first three months of all workers’ pay, almost making them indentured servants because the company refused to pay the money if they quit.” Wal-Mart faced the largest-ever class action lawsuit for gender discrimination, was hit with the largest-ever immigration-related fine for its use of undocumented workers and has been forced to settle child labor charges. “[I]nadequate health care and low wages” are not the liberal perception. They are the reality.
It saddens me that yours is the counter-argument most frequently essayed against progressives. It exemplifies lazy thinking, but more importantly it mocks the gravity of real issues. Real, serious issues like consumer behavior and its effects, the declining standard of living and the abuse of the environment require serious discussion, not a discussion shrouded in dishonest stereotypes. If the last six years have taught us anything, it’s that divisive rhetoric and tilting at straw men are no way to solve our problems. What does shopping at Urban Outfitters, Williams-Sonoma and IKEA have to do with being a liberal? Were those the first three stores that came to mind when you were trying to broad-brush progressives as elitist, latte-drinking, hybrid-driving, tree-hugging limousine liberals? Your ad hominems, like your examples of our typical purchases – African tribal art, high-energy protein bars and scented candles – are ridiculous and trite.
You criticize liberals for seeking “to feed the desire for significance,” for feeling smug, for viewing “consumer goods as a method of showcasing benevolence.” But what you’re saying points to a confusion between conscious consumerism and personal style. Sure, you can find certain products at both Wal-Mart and places like Urban Outfitters, Williams-Sonoma and IKEA. Many people, however, make the choice to buy those products at the latter outlets. Why? Personal style. This is not to be confused with purposely choosing to make moral choices while shopping. These – buying compact fluorescent bulbs to limit the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, for instance – can be made everywhere. Even Wal-Mart. But let’s assume for the purposes of argument that you’re right, and those smug liberals do indeed shop to, as you say, “Save the Planet”. What’s worse? Being smug while trying to make the world a better place, or being smug while despoiling the world around you in the name of cheap goods?
Also, can we please put to rest the concept of “Blue Staters” and “Red Staters”? Besides, how would you characterize me, a lifelong Ohioan? Was I a Red Stater when Ohio trended Republican? Am I only now a Blue Stater because Buckeye State voters put Democrats back in power? It’s not that I don’t know why you use these terms; I do. It’s that these terms are, for you, mere shorthand for two opposite belief systems. One is a philosophy that champions crass consumerism, that brands those mindful of the consequences of their behavior as smug elitists and that considers “I gave at the church” the totality of one’s obligation to others, a notion Jesus scoffed at when he told a wealthy man that, “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.” The other is a philosophy that realizes that everything we do (including what we buy and where we buy it) has an effect on the world at large, that doing good – no matter the reason – is a welcome prospect and that the responsibility to leave the world a better place than you found it has no restrictions. The latter doesn’t make one a Blue Stater any more than the former makes one a Red Stater. It’s about caring. Either you do or you don’t.
It doesn’t surprise me, either, to find a disconnect in your thinking between faith-based concern for others and a concern for others showcased in the check-out line. If you do, indeed, donate to causes like the “African AIDS victims” and “children enslaved by the global sex trade” you mention, how does it make you feel – as a self-confessed conservative and someone who must, in some way, support the current administration – to see your giving repeatedly undercut by the very candidates, initiatives and philosophies you support at the ballot box? Your money may go to “African AIDS victims”, but the administration you support is counterbalancing your generosity in some very tangible, very tragic ways. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the Bush-supported “ABC” programs – for “Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms” – are hurting Uganda’s once-successful battle against HIV/AIDS. According to the report, “The Less They Know, the Better: Abstinence-Only HIV/AIDS Programs in Uganda”, vital information regarding condoms, safe sex and marriage and HIV have been removed from primary school curricula. At both the secondary-school level and at U.S.-sponsored rallies, falsehoods persist about condom use and premarital intercourse. “These abstinence-only programs leave Uganda’s children at risk of HIV,” said researcher Jonathan Cohen, one of the report’s authors. “Abstinence messages should complement other HIV-prevention strategies, not undermine them.”
Your money may go to “children enslaved by the global sex trade”, but the administration you support owns a shameful track record in this regard. A 2005 Associated Press story cites the president as deciding to “waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia … for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers.” One year later, in nearby Iraq, an IRIN-reported story noted that “Thousands of Iraqi women are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous sex worker traffickers seeking to exploit young girls’ desperate socio-economic situation for profit”. These two stories don’t even delve into the most blatant example of related conservative wrongdoing. Tom DeLay, on behalf of Jack Abramoff, helped keep in place special labor laws for Saipan (the largest island in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) that led female sweatshop workers to face forced abortion and forced prostitution. Said DeLay, after touring several garment factories (where the clothes earn the “Made in USA” designation), “You represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America.” Despite Wal-Mart’s claim that it “does not conduct business with factories in Saipan”, a 1999 complaint filed in California Superior Court would suggest otherwise. “During the last four years,” it read, “defendant Wal-Mart has shipped into the U.S.A. through ports located in California an estimated 7.3 million pounds of garments worth an estimated wholesale value of $43.8 million, manufactured in sweatshops located in the CNMI.”
So, you may showcase your benevolence by donating to these very worthy causes, but you give even more freely to repulsive perversions of all that is just, in exchange for “the sheer accumulation of stuff – the cheaper the better.” Sure, you appreciate the inexpensive goods you’re able to buy at the local Wal-Mart, but your spend first, ask questions later philosophy conveniently ignores the damage your behavior does. Your article, written in an effort to simultaneously pat yourself on the back while ridiculing progressives, inadvertently accomplishes the opposite, because neither ignorance nor negligence are virtues. Here’s the bottom line: It’s about being an informed consumer and, by extension, an informed citizen. You, sadly, have purposely chosen not to be an informed consumer, believing instead that your faith-based generosity is enough. It’s not. Not only because whatever good works you can claim are betrayed by actions of those you support, but also because we can no longer afford not to take a universal approach to making the world a better place. You tell us you’re “raising little capitalists”. You’re not. You’re raising poor citizens.
Most unfortunate is that they – not you – will pay for your disgraceful attitude. For they will inherit a society and an earth ridden with the cancer that you allowed to spread. They will face unthinkable shortages and restrictions because you were too busy with the “sheer accumulation of stuff” to notice what you were doing and who you were hurting. They will look back at you and wonder why you failed to make even the most minute decisions that would have resulted in a much different outcome. Doing the right thing isn’t hard. Nor is it expensive. You don’t have to buy a Prius or completely retrofit your house to make a difference. It can be as simple as teaching your children to unplug their PlayStation 2 when it’s not in use or making sure your car’s tires are properly inflated. Even bringing reusable shopping bags the next time you visit Wal-Mart helps. But what’s not helping is an unprincipled, immoral ideology like yours.
They have a whole different word for that. Evil.
I am a very liberal leftist.
OKAY….I’m an unabashed socialist AND a Christian.
This will be short and sweet.
Bobcat is 100% correct in my humble opinion….
But a tad too harsh with his words.
I fear his delivery might cause folks to discount the point he was trying to make with the very people he needs to address.
So please give him a listen.
It’s clear that Nancy bows before Mammon six days of the week, leaving Sunday as “God’s Ghetto.” And what’s worse, she teaches her kids (perhaps inadvertently) that every service they perform in life always must have direct financial reward attached to it.
If this is “proper capitalism,” capitalism must be destroyed at all costs. (thankfully, though, most of us are good enough to realize that capitalism is good, but doesn’t apply very well to all corners of life)
All of your depictions of people you consider blue, or blue-state, or whatever unnecesary and divisive cheap cliches are being used, are almost comical and certainly as off the mark as the same generalizations many liberals make about red people or red states etc (the whole blue/red thing comes from the TV networks, who have in the passed switched colors for each presidential election; we’ve made it hard for them to do that by claiming this crap as reflective of who we are as people, but you probably didn’t research that). I know many a progressive who does not shop at Dolce and Gabanna or drink double skim latte trappachinelos. Many of them are senior citizens who barely make ends meet but know a snake in the grass when they see one, usually a Republican. Likewise there are plenty of liberal Christians who think Jesus would be the first one throwing Wal-Mart and its saduceean rulers out of the temple. You’re not as stupid as we think you are, and we’re not as stupid as you think we are. I can’t take anything you say seriously when you’re writing about liberals and progressives in such a lazy way. Be a better writer. Be more incisive and honest, if you have it in you. And do stop and think sometime about the lessons you’re teaching your kids with the jars. They will grow up equating money with worth and, worse, with love. Oh, and more than likely they won’t be doing your taxes but putting you in a home somewhere so they don’t burn through all those quaters.
I’m another Blue Meanie. I find, after reading the comments by BobcatJH, Stevietheman, and mademark, that I’ve got little to add to your post. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I got all of the things out of it that they did. Which is not to say that I got nothing at all out of your post. No, indeedy. In fact I got exactly two things out of your post, both of which I make bold to share with you now, it being the season for giving and all that.
1) The first thing I got out of your post is that to be sincere, unspoiled, and virtuous like your kids, I should make about $6.00 per week like your kids, and that, like them, I should only be permitted to keep about half of that. This would leave me with funds insufficient to make any meaningful purchases, and thus, I would be unable to vote with my dollars, because I’d only be able to amass around $144.00 of the darn things a year.
(BTW, I think you are absolutely right about one thing. People who only have $144.00 a year to spend can’t “Make A Statement” with respect to what they do or don’t buy, because they’re in a situation where they can’t buy a whole lot. Self-evident, no? If the making of significant purchases [purchases that Mean Something] corrodes the soul, then probably one of the simpler ways to make certain that nobody’s soul gets corroded is to make sure most people don’t have access to much money.)
And there will be no follow-through here about what people who work at WalMart make, what they can therefore afford to buy, and where they will find that they inevitably have to shop. No sirree, none at all.
2) I’m overjoyed to learn that every time I, as a Blue State Meanie, buy a Valu-Sized bottle of tonic water at a Dollar Store, or acquire a new pair of odd-lot woolly socks at the same venue, I’m acting out of a hunger for significance, a hunger which causes me to hunt for products, and to shop at outlets, which exude hipness, style, and je ne sais quoi. I’m overjoyed to learn this because I never would have guessed it for myself. I always thought I was just a dull person buying dull stuff. I never even knew I was prowling around after significance–imagine, all I ever thought I was looking for was tonic water and woolly socks. Now I find that what I really wanted was flair, coolth, and the ability to save the planet. And I actually couldn’t be more thrilled; in fact I don’t think I’ve been happier since I got a secret decoder gizmo for my tenth birthday–though of course the gizmo didn’t work.
Merry Christmas.
Wow, so when I spend money buying fair trade products such as coffee to help farmers in Brazil make a decent living and to stop them from being exploited by huge capitalists, and when I make sure I buy more expensive clothes made in America so I do not support child labor, when I buy organic produce to help encourage growth and stop pesticide and fertilizer pollution…………..
All the extra money I spend is not “giving” because it does not go directly into a collection plate earmarked for elaborate, unnecessary and wasteful displays of luxury at a mega-church.
I live simply, I don’t buy unnecessary garbage that is going to end up in a land fill in two months and I recycle virtually everything.
I try to do what I can to make the world a better place for ALL PEOPLE.
And I don’t shop at Wall-Mart. I would NEVER buy products made by child slaves just to save a few bucks. THAT is true immorality.
Your compartmentalization between rhetoric and action is worthy of Bill Clinton’s finest moments. Congratulations.
I would also challenge your statement that religious conservatives out-give or out-spend their more liberal counterparts on charitable causes. You’re confusing correlation with causation, and you are making definitive statements beyond what the research really indicates in order to buff your argument that religious conservatives are more good and more generous than more liberal religious people. This is in itself deeply wrong, and anti-Christian. It is a tragedy and a misuse of your pulpit to do this.
Charitable giving is a western way of paying for our guilt. Giving money to deal with the symptoms of the problems caused by our unthinking endless greed.
In my opinion its better to cure the causes of the problem than treat the symptoms.
The primary resposnibility for solving the problems lies with designers and retailers who should make ethical choices attractive, affordable and easy to make. However many retailers just see the ethical consumer as another vicitm to exploit by extracting greater profits.
The issues are complex indeed. And a war of accusations is really no help to anyone. I hope to raise the level of debate and help identify real solutions. So I set up my http://www.ethicaldesignlab.com and I write on the subject of ethical consumerism for blogs and magazines.
The debate here is excellent – but lets not make this a fight that all will loose. It can be a win for all if th right solutions are discovered.
Blue & Red, Black & White…..and Eye for an Eye?
The world really is not so simple as stupid people looking for a fight would like to believe.
What a lovely lesson to teach your children–it doesn’t matter that the worker who made that cheap little dinosaur that your child wanted was another child or a woman working 14-hour days for the price of that dinosaur or a man locked in his factory and forced to breath the noxious fumes emitted from making plastics. As long as Johnny gives his money to charity to buy off his conscience, then it makes no difference what another person has to endure so you can buy your cheap “stuff.”
“Our shopping is nothing but the sheer accumulation of stuff—the cheaper the better.” Yeah, tell that to your God on judgement day and see where it gets you.
Seems like you really struck a nerve, Nancy! These well thouhgt out comments/essays (verbose novels?–maybe they should have their own book deals!?!?) that have been posted here attest to the fact that people are extremely concerned about making sure THEIR own unique viewpoint is heard– and validated. It amazes me how passionate (offended) people become…. it’s easier to criticize than to examine, I guess. Also amazing that they have the time and energy to create such rebuttals!
In a sociey where diversity and open-mindedness are praised, how odd that it only applies if in agreement with the reigning liberal “progressive” views in voque at the time– which, Nancy, you unfortunately are at odds with that crowd! So– expect the insults and the hatred– I’m sure more will follow!
Why must these “debates” always turn ugly between the “red” and the “blue” in this modern day civil war? I think your book goes a long way to explaining why…. Thanks for daring to speak up for those of us who don’t feel the need to constantly justify our actions or explain or behaviors and who refuse to feel inferior to the liberals who try to portray us as unedicated, overly-religious, socially irresponsible, and unconcerned about the world. Funny that they think they are the only ones on the planet who actually care.
I’m sure most of them blindly missed the report that came out a few weeks back which showed Americans out give EVERY other nation overwhelmingly– roughly $900 per person. This doesn’t even reflect what our government gives away each year. Too bad this EVIL capitalistic nation is such a thorn in the world’s side– as most of those who have commented probably believe. A company like Walmart could ONLY exist in such an evil empire as this!
Perhaps there will always be this cultural/politcal divide; people just see the world from completely different eyes. The “I’m right; You’re wrong” mentality doesn’t get us very far though…. only as far as the next comment to be posted here!
Westermaab, I found your response rather interesting. I can’t speak for everyone else who has posted here and overwhelmingly disagreed with the sentiments found in Nancy’s article, but I’m not here to have my viewpoint validated. I’m here to help make things better. And I find it funny that, in talking about the responses to the piece, you say that it’s “easier to criticize than to examine”. You’re right, but you’re talking about the wrong people. Perhaps if Nancy had examined the consequences of her family’s quest for the accumulation of stuff, maybe then she would stop perpetuating a wrong that is having harmful effects both in America and around the world.
Your second paragraph, too, is laughable. How is pointing out what we’re point out hatred. I don’t hate Nancy. And, believe it or not, I don’t hate you. What I do hate, however, is behavior without thought of the consequences. And thanks for returning this to a red/blue debate, which is a tired tactic. You may not think you have to justify your actions, but you most certainly do. Not to me. But to all of us. You may bristle when I say that acting without thinking about the results is evil, but it most certainly is. Sure, you may get a cheaper roll of toilet paper, but it’s not that simple. And it’s not we liberals portraying you as socially irresponsible. Your actions themselves are doing a fine enough job without us having to chime in. Show us you care.
And I’m so sick of hearing reports about giving and who gives and who cares. How about the recent report that self-identified conservatives were twice as likely as liberals to have less compassion for those suffering from HIV/AIDS? It’s not about how much we give and how much out government gives. It’s about the choices we make in our personal lives that directly counteract any good that we may do.
It’s not much of a debate or a divide when the subject at hand is making the world a better place through whatever you do. Either you do or you don’t. Not much debate there, I think.
Reading this reminded me of viewing a X rated movie: no socially redeeming value whatsoever and you really do have to suspend all belief.
There are so many leaps of unconnected thought that the only thing necessary is a jar into which to place it so it can be buried for later laughs.
a quick comment–it seems like teaching your kids to noisily empty the change from the God jar into the collection plate (while a great idea in principle) can encourage the same sort of sanctimoniousness that I keep hearing from people re: giving of charity. The best, most truly charitable impulses are shared by noone and given in the spirit of humility, not recognition.
As for Wal-Mart, the fact that it has been losing so much revenue due to unscrupulous business practices is actually having an effect–for example, the company recently made the decision to only sell fish that have been harvested from sustainably farmed fisheries. So spending to “make a difference” can actually do so, which I think most sane people would agree will help keep the world in some sort of shape for these children of yours to inherit.
Whenever I read articles like this it brings up the question why can’t you do both. Why is it always one or the other. With two sides fighting about which one is better with no real change being done? Why does it matter how you give as long as you are giving in some way. Sometimes people give money and other people buy things that give money when they buy them. Why is either way of giving better?. Wouldn’t it best if both sides stop fighting and tried to give a little like the other? It shouldn’t be about what side is better because they are both really good. They both help. It should be about giving a little like the other because in giving like the other and like yourself your are infact giving more.
simply amazing. bobcat makes nancy’s article seem like a complete farse. thank god this blog system is up to serve as a critique.
I applaud Good’s exploration of different perspectives as plowed by Nancy French’s article “Unconscious Consumption.”
However, her hackneyed blue-state-red-state misrepresentation of conscientious consumerism is not to be lauded. Nancy has constructed a false arguement to justify her desire for more, consequently cheaper goods, at the expense of others (i.e. Chinese, American, Honduran, and etc. workers).
To make this all okay she concludes her article with a statistic which she believes establishes that the religious conservative community financially attones for its sins with donations that were earned from money gained at the expense of others, which then is cleansed by the return of a tenth of those savings to the poor.
Nancy has failed to address, or is unaware, that donations to the indigent would be needless if they were paid fair and liveable wages from the start–a policy Wal-Mart strongly discourages.
i had read this story in the magazine and for a few minutes, i thought that the author had a good point as far as teaching her kids to save money, spend money and give money to charity. then the rest of it got pushed into the typical liberal vs. conservative stereotyping which we all know about.
no matter what type of person she may be, what she seems to show here is the necessity to blindly buy into the superficial political/religious/big business system without doing any background research. she really should look into wal-mart and their practices here in the u.s. and abroad and think about if the cheap products are worth it and are something that she wants to support with a clear conscience. and have the same thought process when she’s voting and donating to charity.
maybe her article should have been more focused on doing the right thing and educating ourselves rather than falling back and defending her demographic.
“Red State” & “Blue State” are the most idiotic & simplistic terms we have to endure in this era.
And anybody using these terms is a moron. Yes, that means you, and yes that means anybody at GOOD MAGAZINE who uses these terms in an article. You’re a moron.
So 51% of the people in a state voted for one career politician asshole, and 49% of the people in the state voted for the other career politician asshole. So what.
So now everybody else in the state gets stereotyped for how barely more than half of the few people who actually went to the polls voted.
The world is not as black & white, cut & dried, as a lot of you who like to throw around those moronic terms seem to think it is.
Nancy and her husband have written some interesting books! Check out _A Season for Justice: Defending the Rights of the Christian Home, Church, and School_ by David French, and _A Red State of Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle_ by Nancy French. As a progressive Christian, it’s always interesting to me to see how rich conservative evangelicals feel persecuted. Perhaps God does want Nancy and her family to shop at Wal*Mart. But I don’t think so. And I think deep down, Nancy knows that, too. She’s just too busy counting her pennies and deciding which jars they should go in to pay attention to where they come from, where they go, and what happens along the way.
I appreciated the insight into your character. I think it behooves everyone to know that there is more than one way to be “Good” and do good things.
However, I think that ultimately, based on your description of being a capitalist, your way of life is outdated. The new paradigm that is emerging is so much about conscious consumption precisely because unconscious consumption has gotten tired, and old, and useless (and inefficient). You and many others will unfortunately be kicking and screaming throughout the transition to this new way of living, but you are quickly becoming the minority. I did appreciate your honesty and openness, and willingness to share your dearth of moral discernibility. Also, and I am guilty of this oversimplification as well, the “us vs. them” mentality is also beginning to sour, haven’t you ever seen the Purple America map?
Finally, it has been a fairly consistent phenomenon throughout history: great minds think alike, and tend to meet resistance from old ways of thinking whenever the collective consciousness progresses and exposes the archaic nature of those ways. Eventually, no one will care that you choose to live as a mindless capitalist drone, and we will build a better future… without you.
I was so stunned when I came across this blog. I am an evengelical Christian and I do not shop at Wal-Mart for the reasons that the liberals state. I think it is crazy to shop somewhere knowing what goes on with the company just so you can save a buck! This should not be a liberal thing it should be human thing. We should care about corporate greed and what it is doing to American. When I hear people say that by not shopping at Walmart you are not making a differnce is crazy. If everyone cared about the issues and held Walmart accountable then they would not be in business. If this is a liberal point of view then so be it. I find that funny though because that is usually not the label people give me. Maybe we should not be so quick to judge people because of the way they believe on certain issues.
I was going to write a very lenghty letter to the editor for the next issue about this article, but I’m extremely pleased that others have found it just as despicable and careless as I did.
I’m disappointed in the magazine for publishing an article that so perfectly illustrates the “culture war” that Bill O’Reilly & Co. are trying to force on our country and the world at large. I know it’s important to be “balanced,” so to speak, but it’s more important to be at least generally cohesive — and not publish the first piece of conservative garbage that falls on the doorstep for the sake of that balance.
I sincerely hope that no generally sane people were convinced by this article. This kind of carelessness is exactly what undoes all of the careful work being done by thousands of citizens to change the political and social climate in this country for the better.