Consumerism Conscience

This is a speech I wrote and presented as a Grade 12 English assignment, and the topic is something about which I am quite passionate. (If you’ve really been paying attention, you might recognize Sterling’s quote from my “Favorite Quotes” on Facebook.) Bear in mind that it was written as a speech – by which I mean that I would have written it differently were it an essay, commentary, or blog post.

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The man worked at a Wal-Mart on Long Island. His death occurred on Friday, November 28^th, 2008, a day when most of the nation was looking the other way. You see, the day was 2008’s “Black Friday”, the first day of the December shopping season. So how did the worker die? He didn’t die in a car accident in the New York traffic. He was not mugged on the street on his way to work. On the contrary, he died at work around 6:00 A.M., after being trampled by a crowd of avid shoppers.

With this in mind, I must say that I am not here today to tell you to live like cavemen. I am not here today to claim that Wal-Mart is evil. However, I am here today to give you a chance to reflect on a societal habit that our age group often overlooks. Because the more I look at our society, the more I grow convinced that our biggest threat is one for which we are all responsible: our consumer culture.

In truth, consumerism has dominated humanity for most of its civilized existence. A civilization’s economy helped it expand, trade led to cultures and empires discovering each other, and trade routes eventually led to the global village we have today. But the irony is that this global village is now being damaged by the consumerism that helped create it, and the effects are worse than ever.

We see this when basic commodities are made in foreign countries, made by the hands of women and children paid little for their efforts. This is not just. And we see this when, in the middle of a cold Canadian winter, supermarket produce departments are filled with foods that have been shipped from warm tropical climates half a world away, just to get to our dinner table. This is not sustainable.

We also see this when our global village is linked by a media that serves only to advertise. We complain about advertisements when they interrupt television programs or websites, but do we ever try to reject the mentality that gives us these ads? Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, we are being told to buy items we don’t really need. We are being told that buying these items will increase our self-worth and outward image. We are being told all this through whatever forms of media we choose, but unlike in previous generations, our modern media is so deep and so far-reaching that it we often turn it into our own personal universe, a cocoon made from the messages we like best.

I would like to close by going back to the Black Friday movement. A group called Adbusters has created a counter-movement, called “Buy Nothing Day”. This day intentionally falls on Black Friday, every year. A peer of mine commented, upon hearing of the idea, that buying nothing that day would be a “stupid” idea, because of the day’s lower prices. But ultimately, neither Black Friday nor Buy Nothing Day is about prices. If we are to try and weaken the pull and temptation of consumerism, what better time is there to do it than on consumerism’s strongest and most tempting day? So I encourage you to not only participate in Buy Nothing Day this coming year, but also to be conscious for the rest of the year of the things you buy, want and need. Science fiction author Bruce Sterling recently said it best:

It’s not bad to own fine things that you like. What you need are things that you GENUINELY [sic] like. Things that you cherish, that enhance your existence in the world. The rest is dross.

Dross. Anything that is trivial, that has no worth.

Dross. Waste, impurities, scum.

What in your life enhances your existence? And what in your life is merely dross? My challenge to you is to reflect on this. But don’t just stop there: do what you can to remove this dross from your life.

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Bibliography (Works Cited)

“dross.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 12 February 2009 <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dross>.

“dross.” Wiktionary. 26 Oct. 2008. Wikimedia Foundation. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dross>.

Long, Colleen. “Wal-Mart worker dies in Black Friday trampling.” Sympatico/MSN Finance. 28 Nov. 2008. Associated Press. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/investing/insight/article.aspx?cp-documentid=14539064>.

Sterling, Bruce. “The Last Viridian Note.” Viridian. 19 Nov. 2008. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/451-500/the_last_viridian_note.html>.

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Developing a Conscience for Canada's Consumerism Culture by Jonathan Van Dusen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.