I’m waiting for the pepper sprayer to claim that Faux News said it was a harmless vegetable product, so its all okay…

Of course the Faux News dipshits have never sprayed down their gardens for deer and read the packaging that spray comes in, either. 

The behavior of police and the rationalizations of the idiot brigade in the media all just adds to the mythology that it is okay to casually use “nonlethal” weapons to get what you want.

That kind of overreaction is one of the main reasons I forgo Black Friday shopping. Crowds like that are just way to unpredictable for my comfort. And, it really is shitty how the retailers only have 5-10 of whatever doorbuster item on sale. If the public knew that, perhaps there would be less frenzy.

I just flashed to the scene in"Despicable Me” where Gru, annoyed at the long line at the coffee shop, breaks out his freeze ray and gleefully shoots everyone in the shop, takes someone’s order, and leaves a tip (though he didn’t pay).

It’s funny, but supposed to illustrate how awful he is.  Apparently, it will soon be an accepted outcome.  Overreaction is the new reaction.

Both halves of this post are just great. Well done.

I couldn’t agree more on the pernicious oppressiveness of knee-jerk anti-materialism. I think this is the less obvious of your two points and deserves much wider discussion. Carefully thinking through the distinction between (a) our (valid) distrust of corporate power, and (b) our (apparently) visceral distaste for anyone or anything making use of goods produced by a corporation; would serve our collective cause greatly.

On the second point (use of violence), see also violence around kids’ sporting events (coaches/refs/children assaulted by parents/coaches) and parallel trends in the implication of *potential* violence (guns allowed in bars, etc.) These are unsettling, to say the least.

THANK YOU. I find Black Friday to be unpleasant and distasteful, so I don’t participate, but the anti-consumerist sanctimony is even worse. Especially:

Plus, I just really don’t like how most liberal commentators I see who address Black Friday sneer at people who try really hard to get the advertised deals, ascribing that behavior to madness and sheeplike conformity. Another possibility that I might offer, though it may burst your bubble, is that it’s a lot of people who struggle to get by.

This is one of those things that I don’t see how people have difficulty in understanding it, yet they really don’t seem to realize that a lot of people have to buy gifts for their family members*, that these gifts can constitute a major expense and that the sales can make this all much easier to deal with. Sneering at these people is nothing more than privilege blindness and moralizing. It’s kind of gross.

*No, it’s not actually optional

Raised by a single mom who relied on food stamps for much of my childhood, I resent the way retailers prey upon struggling parents’ desperation to provide their children the same material joys experienced by more affluent kids. And, yeah, some of that resentment is aesthetic. I think it is disgusting to watch people fight - elbowing, screaming, pushing - to get cheap goods. For the 1% it is probably a spectacle for mocking the lower classes.

For me it is personally painful. I can’t stand seeing my fellow human beings reduced in this way, nor being the object of corporate media scorn. I hate the way my mother was made to feel inadequate as a parent - for many reasons other than materialism, but that was a contributing factor, for sure - and the way the holiday season only exacerbated her insecurities. (Still does, despite my efforts to get her not to worry about it. Thanks, Baby Jeebiz!)

Now I have kids of my own, I resist similar insecurities and the push to lavish my children with all the marketplace has to offer. It is really hard, there is so much of it, the kids are bombarded every day with bullshit, and everywhere you go there is cheaply made knockoffs that break almost as soon as you get it home. Maybe it is lefty kneejerkism, but I am glad there are counter messages of Buy Nothing and Buy Local out there - the BUY BUY BUY messages are far more prevalent and overwhelming.

It’s fine to find it displeasing, but the cause is not the consumers, but the corporate structures that allow for this to happen. If they were forced by regulation to treat their customers with more respect, then it would be a whole lot better.

I think one of the reasons people will start using pepper spray over minor inconveniences is the justification given by the bootli…err…defenders of the police every time one gets mildly annoyed and hoses down a bunch of people: It’s totally harmless, and it’s better than hitting someone or shooting them.

Of course anyone that’s ever been sprayed with it will tell you the stuff is far from harmless. It’s worse than a taser, stun gun, or fist for causing pain. It also handily combines that blinding pain with the instant panic that comes from being incapable of breathing. Sure it’s a (usually) non-lethal compliance device, but so is breaking fingers. How it isn’t considered torture unless used in a valid self-defense situation is beyond me.

But repeat how harmless it is often enough in defense of the police using it on a whim and eventually people will start to believe it actually is harmless. The only reason it didn’t happen with tasers is because they cost too much. Stun guns never caught on because they require you to get within poking range.

Sneering at these people is nothing more than privilege blindness and moralizing. It’s kind of gross.

Agree!

I find Black Friday to be unpleasant and distasteful

Also agree. But: the ‘distasteful’ bit is where it admittedly gets difficult not to judge some of those participating in “competitive shopping” as they say.

For instance I’ve got no hesitation in judging pepper spray lady, as assault simply isn’t acceptable in this context.

But I have to admit it is exceedingly difficult not to recoil in similar disgust at the ‘waffle riot’ spectacle (below). These people aren’t doing anything wrong, exactly, and didn’t create this situation, but you want to shake them anyway. 

youtube link (warning - potentially NSFW; this black friday video puts the ‘keep your pants on’ in ‘keep your pants on.’)

“As a moral value, anti-materialism reeks of puritanism, because it brackets off certain pleasures as base and animalistic and therefore suggests we should be better than that.”

Not sure I agree that anyone has implied it is “base and animalistic” (unless you count cartoons depicting shoppers in the sales as wild animals), just bad on at least some levels. I don’t think there’s anything puritanical about suggesting that some things that humans can find pleasure in have a net negative effect.

I don’t really disagree with your wider point there (that there are limits and flaws to anti-materialism, a difference between consuming luxury goods and crass consumerism for the sake of it, and plenty of valid reasons one might need to participate in sales), but the idea that it is “puritanical” just irked me, mainly because I’m tired of the notion that if someone, somewhere is enjoying something, it negates any criticism of that thing and you’re suddenly the Pope for making that criticism.

See, that’s my problem, Kevin. Buy Nothing Day makes it a matter of personal morality and distracts from realistic solutions that put the blame on our government and our corporate structures for creating the problem. It casts the excesses of Black Friday as a personal failing of ordinary Americans and not as something deliberately created by corporations who are exploiting some of our most human instincts (the social value of gift-giving) and some of our best instincts (generosity). Instead, it just adds more needless guilt to the pile while accomplishing nothing of value.

“some things that humans can find pleasure in have a net negative effect.”

And to clarify that I’m not just talking about things that are genuinely accepted as fun, remember Rule 36. Humans can find ANYTHING pleasurable.

It’s fine to say that our consumer spending is bad for the environment! I do it all the time, and happily suggest alternatives.

It’s the sneering at people for wanting goods that I can’t countenance. We can want things that are morally fine in and of themselves that have unexpected negative outcomes. That doesn’t make our desires inadequate. If it was just about the environment, then the Buy Nothing people would do well to start a Stop Visiting Your Family campaign, because the fuel spent on that is tremendous. But no one is going to do that, because it’s hard to harness the puritanical urge in that case.

I just want a neat separation between our desire to be puritanical and scold people for wanting things, and environmental criticisms. That neat separation can improve our analysis, if nothing else. It also points to more effective solutions than guilt-tripping.

It’s fine to say that our consumer spending is bad for the environment! I do it all the time, and happily suggest alternatives.

It’s the sneering at people for wanting goods that I can’t countenance. We can want things that are morally fine in and of themselves that have unexpected negative outcomes. That doesn’t make our desires inadequate. If it was just about the environment, then the Buy Nothing people would do well to start a Stop Visiting Your Family campaign, because the fuel spent on that is tremendous. But no one is going to do that, because it’s hard to harness the puritanical urge in that case.

I just want a neat separation between our desire to be puritanical and scold people for wanting things, and environmental criticisms. That neat separation can improve our analysis, if nothing else. It also points to more effective solutions than guilt-tripping.

Comment #9: rb2 - Okay, there is something almost anamalistic about going so nuts over something as basic as a waffle iron. They are $10-$15 when they are not on sale.* The fact that some people with push and shove over something so cheap simply because it’s a little bit cheaper and there are only a few strikes me as more instinctual reaction than rational thinking. I’m reminded of when I worked at a small college. Not only would students (understandable) flock to any event with free food or other prizes, but the faculty (not understandable considering their pay scale) would too.

*I know that amount of money can still be too much for some people, but that doesn’t explain that kind of frenzy.

The Ellen Willis essay is really, really good—I’m so happy to have recently discovered her (through Pandagon, natch), although I kind of wonder how I had not heard of her before.

I believe Slog also had a post linking this pepper-spray incident with the encroaching police state. I would think the parallels are a little too obvious and too timely to ignore. The sad fact is that when your daily life is violent (as the lives of many poor people are), violence becomes naturalized, normal. It’s expected. I think it’s also telling that the violence this time was pepper spray—it seems like every year we hear stories of someone being trampled or hit in the Black Friday rush, but this year it’s like pepper spray was percolating in our collective unconscious or something. Someone was bound to have an itchy trigger finger.

“Are we going to see someone whip out the pepper spray on a retail worker who they want to move faster? “

How appalling is it that my first thought was, “well at least they don’t have guns.” Of course in my home state you can carry guns openly everywhere, including in bars and parks, so that’s probably why I thought that.

I also had a knee-jerk reaction to “buy nothing day,” but only because I associate it with Adbusters Magazine, which my husband subsrcibes to and which I’ve found to be sexist, racist, ableist and deeply misogynistic. But once I put my irritation aside I’m not in support of the day because, as you say, it seems like a distracting culture war. And thanks for the Ellen Willis essay.

In my younger(ish) days, I was definitely one of those who would be likely to go on an anti-materialist rant if the subject came up - though not specifically on Black Friday, because that phenomenon doesn’t exist in the UK (Black-Whateverday being used to refer to various economic crises on this side of the pond).

That was until I happened to see a random programme on TV about something random, in which a young working class woman pointed out that it only became “crass materialism” when poor people were able to start getting nice stuff.  The rich have been getting nice stuff forever, but no one criticised them for being materialistic (well, they did, but not society as a whole).

That stopped me short in my comfy middle-class steps.

As a moral value, anti-materialism reeks of puritanism, because it brackets off certain pleasures as base and animalistic and therefore suggests we should be better than that.

I like to buy presents for my friends and family to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah, and I don’t enjoy the shaming that I get when I spend money *on other people.* How is is selfish and materialistic to want to give gifts to others? There are also so many toy and clothing drives this time of year that ask for new items for those in need - those donations also have to be purchased somewhere. Some people take advantage of Black Friday sales to buy a new wardrobe, and there’s nothing wrong with that either - but the majority of the things purchased will be given away.

Ok, to clarify: Black Friday really needs to change but I think Buy Nothing Day targets consumers, not corporations. It also makes me furious on behalf of the salespeople: corporate marketers create a very unsafe situation of panic, anger and urgency, assemble a crowd of critical mass, deprive that crowd of sleep and unleash them on a small team of salespeople unequipped to deal.

Some of the big box stores had employees go through the line an hour or more before the actual opening, handing out sheets from a stack of papers guaranteeing that the holder could purchase the discounted limited availability item.  One sheet got printed out per item available, one paper per item per person was the limit, and when the papers ran out that was it.  If you didn’t get one of these papers for what you wanted you could go home.  No one had to run or jostle.

Much more orderly than the whole Wal*Mart thing.  I was in there a couple of weeks ago and a clerk was saying, no, we can’t tell you how many we will have, we can’t tell you where they will be, we can’t tell you how they will be handed out.  The stores stayed open leading up to the time, which I guess just meant that people congregated in the toy and electronic areas waiting for the poor staffers to bring out or open the stock.

Why the government does not impose more rules on these sales is beyond me.  I mean, yes, they have to say on the flyer “limited quantities available” and in some locations must say how many are available, e.g. “minimum of 5 per store.”  But they should require that the distribution be orderly and based on something measurable so that there’s no incentive to assault other shoppers.

I just can’t be bothered to fight the crowds, but I enjoy shopping for certain things, so I can’t diss people for wanting to shop.  I don’t like the fact that stores are encroaching on Thanksgiving, though.  But to your point on pepper spray, I thought the same thing- hey it’s just crowd control, right?  A food product, essentially.  There was a good diary on DKos about the contrast between the black friday and OWS responses-
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/24/1039726/-BREAKING:-Police-Mobilizing-Across-the-US-as-Consumers-Illegally-Camp-for-Black-Friday-Movement

How is is selfish and materialistic to want to give gifts to others?
Comment #19: MissCherryPi on 11/28 at 12:08 PM

Well, some people get into a real competitive frenzy with other family members to see who can give the most lavish gifts, regardless of affordability.  If you haven’t been in such a family (I luckily wasn’t) you might not know how vicious it can get. 

Which is not to blame the average consumer for this, because the ultimate driver is again the seller and not the buyer.  I was away from home and the Tivo around Thanksgiving and the number of ads for expensive gifts you’re apparently expected to give for Christmas (cars, diamonds) was pretty extreme, and they showed these items with bows on them.  Honda has an ‘anti-commercial’ where the spokesman says only millionaires give cars as presents, but then says he’s giving one to his niece.  Because being a millionaire is great!  STATUS!

@Livi: The fact that some people with push and shove over something so cheap simply because it’s a little bit cheaper and there are only a few strikes me as more instinctual reaction than rational thinking.

Right, and this goes to Amanda’s point that the villain here is those who set up the rules of the situation.

We tell each other “don’t buy into it,” pun intended, but there is privilege in that. I know this and yet when I see that video it is very difficult to put the blame where it belongs.

@Kevin For me it is personally painful. I can’t stand seeing my fellow human beings reduced in this way, nor being the object of corporate media scorn.

Hear, hear. It sounds like we had similar upbringings, and you put this perfectly. And yet even though I should know better I find myself getting angry at the shoppers themselves. It is instructive to ponder that, and I appreciate this conversation.

Are we all in danger of being doused with pepper spray for having the nerve to be in line in front of someone at the coffee shop?

No, that’s what tasers are for.

@Amanda: I have a lot more power over my personal actions than over the government.  I live in a world where Republican Presidential candidates wish for weaker child labor laws, and go up in the polls.

I’ve pretty much accepted that my fellow Americans are so hateful toward both themselves and me that any victories we get will be long-term and small.  But I can decline to participate in stupid rituals that debase myself, and having a name for it lets me pay a smaller social price.

Fundamentally, decent people are losing right now.  We’re losing on points, and we’re improving our tactics, so there’s hope.  But 9% unemployment for 3 years is Class Warfare so blatant that we’ve reentered the type of society where rich folks don’t view themselves as bound by the Social Contract.  That never ends well.

I agree completely with the part about normalizing violence and pepper spray. But I’m not so sure I agree with much of your first point. It’s one thing to argue that we ought not to disdain people who enjoy a little materialism, or to point out the classism involved: it’s quite another to argue that anyone who finds “Black Friday” appalling is therefore classist or disdainful of ordinary people.

Yes, it would be better to point out that roughly 70% of the US economy is based on consumer spending, and that therefore the retail corporations must fight a race to the bottom as far as store hours and perceived bargains are concerned (not to mention employee schedules), than it would to sneer at the plebes who pepper-spray each other for a fucking waffle iron. And yes, Adbusters can be annoying, though I tend to find it more smug-utopian than racist/sexist/etc. But in point of fact, Adbusters was largely responsible for the initial phases of Occupy Wall Street. And “Buy Nothing Day” actually serves a couple of very useful purposes: it makes people think about how dependent most of us have become on consumer spending, and even more importantly, think more abstractly about what it means to be a “consumer” and what the implications are of a society driven on “consumer” spending.

And no, Grolby, you don’t have to buy gifts for family members. I haven’t done it for about fifteen now, and while it took everyone a couple of patient explanations to get used to it, about half of my extended family doesn’t participate in it anymore, either—and the rest at least accept it, if perhaps not understanding it.

How can you look at the $2 WalMart Waffle Iron riot and not conclude that the corporations exist to not only maximally extract money with no limits, but to completely degrade their customers and workers in the process?

What’s not mentioned here is how this Black Friday (now Black Thursday night) damages the limited family time of the people who are required to work at the big box stores at those absurd hours.  When do they get their family time?

Personally, I don’t participate in Black Friday or travel to see family during these holidays.  I prefer to visit my parents in the spring or early autumn, when it isn’t a peak travel time and when it is less likely to get flight delays due to weather.  But I also acknowledge that I am fortunate enough to be able to schedule my life accordingly, and not everyone has that kind of freedom. 

Similarly, I don’t give Christmas presents or the like.  Instead, if I see something appropriate as a gift, I give it at that moment in time; I don’t feel the need to give gifts solely because of a planetary alignment.  But I again acknowledge that I’m fortunate enough to be in the position to do just that.  Not everyone is.

@Comment #28: Ms Kate on 11/28 at 12:41 PM

How can you look at the $2 WalMart Waffle Iron riot and not conclude that the corporations exist to not only maximally extract money with no limits, but to completely degrade their customers and workers in the process?

By being as dumb as the average American.

This has been another episode of etc. etc.

I’m really not mad at “encroaching on Thanksgiving”. After spending an entire day locked up in your house with your family, having something to do on Friday is an act of mercy. Expecting people to spend four days with their family with no relief is kind of monstrous. Hell, my family tended, on family get-togethers, to have an outing by the end of the first day to relieve the stress of being all locked in together.

Comment #28: Ms Kate - I agree. It really is the corporations preying on the natural instincts of people to get/hoard what is scarce that are to blame. But, if people would just take a pause and think for a moment they would realize they have the ability to opt out of a lot of this. It is unlikely that any regulations will be passed on the retailers, so the quickest way to change things is with consumer behavior.

And felagund has a point about “perceived bargains”. Aside from those actual doorbuster items that get people to the store, much of the rest of the merchandise will continue to be marked down during December, and will certainly go on sale after Christmas. Black Friday is not the only day to get a good deal.

Rather than going on about scolds who do not exist in any significant portion, it probably makes more sense to look at this issue as an a symptom of the weakness of the left wing in this country.

Yeah, the only way to actually change the situation is to focus on changing the behavior of the oppressor rather than the oppressed.

Unfortunately, the left wing is weak and disorganized. People seem to feel that they can’t influence those who benefit from the status quo anymore. Instead they try to get the oppressed to change their behavior. After all, they can influence the people around them, in a one by one kind of fashion.

In this case, changing the behavior of the oppressed can really only come in the form of nagging about the environment and third world oppression. Then maybe, once people are consuming less, corporate power will weaken.

Yeah, that’s a really long shot and a totally round about way of trying to do things, but given the political climate, I am not sure that it is a longer shot than trying to pass regulations against “job creators” or whatever the media is calling the corporate elite today.

Amanda—I think the problem is that the stores insist that their employees not be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families. Four days straight with a family can test anyone’s resolve, but having that meal on Thursday should be something that people are allowed to do without worrying about having to get up at 1 in the morning to get the displays set up for the 4am doorbuster. Let the wage slaves get that day off when they can just have a nice meal and go into a turkey coma.

I agree, the stores who orchestrate these spectacles are the villains here. They take advantage of people’s desperation to recruit them as extras in their marketing campaigns—customers and employees, both. It’s gross. These sales often end badly but that’s largely because the stores have set up situations to bring out the worst in people. The stores want the huge lineups and the boisterous crowds and the free advertising disguised as journalism.

The notion that inconvenience can be met with physical violence, as long as it’s packaged in a neat weapon that keeps your hands clean like pepper spray, has been introduced to our society. And this incident at Wal-Mart suggests it’s going viral.

But, hey, at least we’re reassured it will be a polite society…

It’s fine to find it displeasing, but the cause is not the consumers, but the corporate structures that allow for this to happen. If they were forced by regulation to treat their customers with more respect, then it would be a whole lot better.

There is NO regulation that can force a corporation to treat customers with respect if there is no profit in it.  Witness the way “Have a nice day” has become a mantra for insincerity. Corporations will only treat customers with respect if there is a competitive choice and shoppers are able to take customer service into account.

And no, [g]rolby, you don’t have to buy gifts for family members. I haven’t done it for about fifteen now, and while it took everyone a couple of patient explanations to get used to it, about half of my extended family doesn’t participate in it anymore, either—and the rest at least accept it, if perhaps not understanding it.

Well, good for you. I’m glad you’ve found a way to make this work in which your family accepts and no one judges you. But I’ll reiterate my point: refusing to buy gifts for family members is not optional for the vast majority of people. Your specific experience of finding yourself willing and able to deal with the aggravation of such a decision doesn’t make this a realistic or reasonable solution, and it sure doesn’t justify judging others who don’t go that route of having suffered a moral failure. Hey, furthermore: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with buying shit or, heaven forfend, enjoying buying shit, whether for oneself or for others.

I think Katherine’s comment #18 gets the Internets Prize for the day:

In my younger(ish) days, I was definitely one of those who would be likely to go on an anti-materialist rant if the subject came up - though not specifically on Black Friday, because that phenomenon doesn’t exist in the UK (Black-Whateverday being used to refer to various economic crises on this side of the pond).
That was until I happened to see a random programme on TV about something random, in which a young working class woman pointed out that it only became “crass materialism” when poor people were able to start getting nice stuff.  The rich have been getting nice stuff forever, but no one criticised them for being materialistic (well, they did, but not society as a whole).
That stopped me short in my comfy middle-class steps.

Just because people should have the right to purusue pleasure doesn’t mean all pursuit of pleasure is good or equally good.

The reason Black Friday gets criticism isn’t because it is wrong per se to want to find a bargain; it’s because the event seems to bring out the worst in a lot of people (including the retailers who make their employees work ridiculous hours so they can open early).

@ Ms Kate- “How can you look at the $2 WalMart Waffle Iron riot and not conclude that the corporations exist to not only maximally extract money with no limits, but to completely degrade their customers and workers in the process?”

Thank you! This hit me a few years ago in a Walgreens when I noticed most box stores had switched from the phrase, “customer appreciation,” to “customer rewards.” I got to the counter and the guy was wearing a Walgreens vest with a prominently placed button that read, “If I don’t smile you get a free roll of film developed! [logo]” Yeesh, how demeaning. If I’d stuck to my ethical guns I shouldn’t have been shopping there in the first place because of the labor practices for the products they sell, so it’s sad to admit my behavior only really changed when I personally felt demeaned, and only slowly at that. Buying shockingly cheap crap used to be fun when I was younger but now, even though I’m not rich, it feels gross because poorer Americans are fed products made by exploited workers. Like putting chicken meat in chicken feed (or is that cows? I forget). Sorry for the rant.

@felagund - Yeah, I realize Adbusters kick-started the OWS protests and I appreciate that. I think the protests have lasted this long and gained traction because the movement has made large efforts to eschew the problematic attitudes that I have with Adbusters. And about not buying presents for family: I have tried so hard to get my family to stop buying crap! I wish the family could get together and go see the Nutcracker or bake cookies or volunteer somewhere instead of make furtive, panicked shopping trips all over town (we’re all serious procrastinators). But it’s mainly my dad who won’t stop, as he’s bought into the patriarchal, “providing for your family means you love them,” thing. I can’t get angry at that but it is frustrating. And as everyone knows if someone gets you a present and you don’t give back, you are evil and do not love your family.

Re: #31- It’s upsetting that they’re opening on Thanskgiving day itself.  I feel bad for retail workers who won’t get to enjoy a full day off anymore.  My biggest, maybe only problem with the biggest shopping day of the year being the day after Thanksgiving is that I’ll have to watch those awful Crazy Target Lady Ads on TV.  Otherwise I really don’t care one way or the other.

How can you look at the $2 WalMart Waffle Iron riot and not conclude that the corporations exist to not only maximally extract money with no limits, but to completely degrade their customers and workers in the process?

Well yes, but I’d argue the latter is a method to get to the former. As Kinsley said in re the Bush Admin and truth, you get the sense that if treating their customers with respect would be equally effective, they’d try that, too. Corporations seem not to be not malevolent as much as indifferent to the plight of the worker/consumer; i.e. they are sociopathic.

That said, it is difficult to look at that spectacle and not be upset with people (specifically the customers, not the workers) for failing to simply walk away. I understand the structural conditions in place, but Christ that is some repugnant behavior. As I said, I’m working on this. It’s an issue for a lot of us, I’d wager. 

As someone who survived several years of retail hell with some of my original soul intact, I can easily see why anti-materialism is a knee-jerk reaction. Work a twelve-hour shift on Black Friday at a toy store and try not to let any future sightings of shoppers setting up tents outside of stores send you into a frenzy of vomit, hyperventilating, and/or crying fits. Have several people ask when your shift ends so they can come back and murder you because they weren’t approved for the store credit card. Hours of being screamed at to go faster so the shopper can hurry to the next sale. Being told to go fuck yourself several times on Christmas Eve because “YOU RUINED MY KID’S CHRISTMAS!”  Although my favorite incident was when I gave my usual “Happy Holidays” goodbye to a cranky old couple, their cart filled to the brim with expensive plastic and electronic gizmos: “It’s Christmas! It’s about Jesus, young lady!”

Their behavior made sense later, when I remembered how much of a dick Jesus was in the New Testament. Surely he would be getting into fights in the parking lot of Best Buy, too, if he were around today.

Corporations are going to be soulless and greedy. That’s capitalism. However, consumers don’t have to be such assholes. Period.

When I was a retail worker, I loved working on holidays because it meant I got time and a half or even double time. That was where I earned my money to buy Christmas presents for friends and family.

I know many people who love black Friday shopping. In my personal calculus, I like sleeping more than shopping in crowded circumstances, so I try to stay away from stores on that weekend. I have no real objection to black Friday in and of itself, but buying cheap stuff from people who pay their workers very little money is part of this country’s problem. A big part of it.

Right on, MP @ #34.

Their behavior made sense later, when I remembered how much of a dick Jesus was in the New Testament. Surely he would be getting into fights in the parking lot of Best Buy, too, if he were around today.

Big ups for the unexpected laugh out loud.

I think Lindsay Beyerstein has it at #35. With the addition that even the pepper-spraying and the trampling deaths are good marketing: they send the message that the stores are offering deals so good people are willing to commit mayhem for them. (If Walmart didn’t have a scorched-earth legal policy, it would be interesting to see the internal company email discussing crowd control and other strategies.)

Meanwhile, of course, it’s not a polite society until everyone has pepper spray. (And I would submit that pepper spray is kinda similar to guns in the hands of non-experts, in that it’s generally difficult to use to hit exactly what you’re aiming at and only what you’re aiming at.)

#20 No kidding.
I also get pissed because these stores actively work against public safety. Other venues that have hundreds or thousands of people showing up have to have security measures in place. But these stores don’t. They’ve fought against some city governments that want to treat them like any other venue. A friend of mine who does security for midsize venues says a general rule of thumb is a security employee for every 100 people. Walmart doesn’t do that. You know they know the risks. But they don’t care because again and again the media and the public will blame the shoppers, not the stores.

My corner deli understands that there will be a rush of people between 12 and 2pm so they make everyone take a number. But then my corner deli actually gives a shit about it’s customers.

Are we literally treating other human beings the way we treat insects now?

On the pepper spray thing, we as a society haven’t really confronted all the ramifications of widely available “nonlethal” weapons, just as we haven’t confronted all the ramifications of remote-controlled drone warfare.

Whatever one wants to say about guns and their proliferation, there is at least something, in the vein of mutually assured destruction, to the argument that an armed society is a polite society. Precisely because the harm that guns do when fired is so extreme that a sane person would not fire his or her gun at someone unless absolutely necessary under the circumstances.

What pepper spray does is provide us a way to do violence on the cheap. And therefore, the very fact that it is “nonlethal” can serve to INCREASE total levels of violence, in the same way that making it possible to wage war without risking the lives of Americans is likely to increase the total amount of American warfare.

Lindsay@35
“The stores want the huge lineups and the boisterous crowds and the free advertising disguised as journalism.”

Yes, and the stores continue to plan for and provide situations that they expect to end in violence.  Even the death of a WalMart clerk in 2008, trampled by the crowd, doesn’t stop the stores from doing this.

For the record, the man who was killed was Jdimytai Damour.

Totally with you, moonboot. I worked in retail for years, in toy departments a lot of the time during the holiday season.

I’ve seen two 50+ yr old women get into a fist fight over the last pink furby (remember those?).  Watched a grown man deliberately trip a teenaged boy who he mistakenly thought was heading towards the t.v. he wanted.  People pissing on the floor because the bathroom line was too long.  Ive gotten attacked by psychotic soccer parents freaking out that I won’t go look in the back because, after an 11 hour shift, I’ve done that 7 billion times. There’s nothing fucking back there!

AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHh. 

I don’t buy the “they’re just struggling to get by” theory.  If you were struggling to get by would you be fist fighting or pepper spraying random strangers for useless crap?  Wouldn’t the struggle be over something important and necessary?

And, even if they are struggling to get by, how the fuck is shopping on Black Friday - where everything gets marked up way just so stores can pretend things are on sale - saving you anything?

Amanda is 100% correct that the lion’s share of the blame here lies with greedy, soulless, craven corporations.  Call me a knee-jerk anti-materialist if you want, but some of it does lie with consumers.  If they weren’t out there willing to cannablize each other over useless plastic crap, stores wouldn’t be open that day and some poor retail workers could get a goddamn holiday.

Oh look, more ‘contrarianism’.

Nah, anti-consumerism is still actually not worse than pseudo-holidays which literally incite mobs and kill people, sorry.

<blockquote>Oh look, more ‘contrarianism’.

Nah, anti-consumerism is still actually not worse than pseudo-holidays which literally incite mobs and kill people, sorry.</blockquote<

That’s a good point - Amanda did point out that, in her opinion, inciting mobs and killing people is both literally the same thing as being consumerism and that they are totally acceptable in the pursuit of buying things!

Oh wait, no she didn’t.

WTF is so fucking hard to understand about this shit? The specific criticism is of the sanctimonious anti-materialism that shames people for wanting to buy shit. If you actually pay attention, the way that the stores fuck with people and individual misbehavior comes under criticism as well. Both/and, people.

I don’t buy the “they’re just struggling to get by” theory.  If you were struggling to get by would you be fist fighting or pepper spraying random strangers for useless crap?  Wouldn’t the struggle be over something important and necessary?

Thinks about Christmas as a kid in a worn out trailer.
Cues up “Welfare Christmas”.

I feel incredibly sorry for people who attend Black Friday sales in the dim hopes of stretching their holiday budget farther, because many of them won’t get the items they intended to purchase. The stores are designing scenarios where stampedes and physical altercations are more likely to happen due to limited inventory, which, in my opinion, is all the more reason to stay home and do your shopping another day. The deals aren’t so great that it’s worth risking getting trampled.

Having survived working in retail, I guess my knee-jerk anti-materialism is partially in response to my horrible experiences with shoppers, holiday shoppers in particular. My experiences absolutely soured me on Christmas for years. On Christmas Eve one year, the store was closing at 8:00PM, and we were all eager to hurry home to our families, but several shoppers refused to leave the store. A bunch more crowded around outside and tried to get in whenever an employee would leave. They were like zombies. I guess they really wanted their last-minute gifts! When we finally got the customers who were refusing to leave the store checked out, they waited for the rest of us in the parking lot and shouted at us for being rude as we made our way to our cars. That same holiday season, a customer slapped a cashier across the face because an advertised item was out of stock. Cashiers would routinely get yelled at and insulted to the point where they were in tears. The behavior of some of these people is just fucking beyond, so I don’t think I’m being sanctimonious when I say I’d rather have a root canal than deal with the crowds on Black Friday.

I’ve worked in bars and restaurants, and people are dicks there, too, but holiday shoppers are the worst. The absolute worst. And there’s something so surreal about it—the meanness juxtaposed with the silliness of the items everyone’s competing over. People screaming at each other over video games, gut-checking each other over Hot Wheels!

Most of my life, I’ve struggled to get by, but I love giving gifts to people who enrich my life. I’ve also never had much in the way of extra income. In Christmases past, I’ve always made things (and after 30 years of this, I’m now a whiz at stuffed toys, cookies, and fancy filled chocolates) and also haunted thrift stores year round looking for things for people on my list.

For one of my siblings (who is well-off), homemade things or even the best thrift store find (and I’ve found some amazing things) isn’t good enough, and she stated sometime ago that she doesn’t want my gifts (if it’s not new-in-the-box and on her list, she’s not happy).

Her attitude makes me understand WHY some people who could not otherwise afford it would go to those Black Friday things.

“See, that’s my problem, Kevin. Buy Nothing Day makes it a matter of personal morality and distracts from realistic solutions that put the blame on our government and our corporate structures for creating the problem. “

Twice you use ‘personal morality’ like it was something to be avoided.  Then tout regulation as the cure.  Another thicket of low-level bullshit legislation to entangle the courts.

There’s something puritanical in Amanda’s reaction to this: the puritans like regulation too.

The specific criticism is of the sanctimonious anti-materialism that shames people for wanting to buy shit.

Nah, anti-materialism is still actually not worse than pseudo-holidays which literally incite mobs and kill people, sorry.

Twice you use ‘personal morality’ like it was something to be avoided.  Then tout regulation as the cure.  Another thicket of low-level bullshit legislation to entangle the courts.

There’s something puritanical in Amanda’s reaction to this: the puritans like regulation too.

I don’t think it’s puritanism. Indeed, even though I’ve gotten into some disagreements with Amanda in the past about various issues where I am probably a bit more libertarian than she is, she’s clearly exactly what she says she is, a pro-sex, pro-pleasure feminist.

Rather, I think she’s a bit defensive about her personal preferences, her likes and dislikes. Sometimes, it’s important to divorce those likes and dislikes from what’s good for society. It’s perfectly OK to like shopping (I do too!) while understanding that consumerism may be a bad thing overall, just like it’s OK to smoke marijuana while harboring skepticism as to whether we would really be better off if more people smoked it. Not everything we do or say or believe has to meet whatever personal test we have for what is good for society, just as not everything we don’t like is necessarily bad for society.

It should be possible to say (1) shopping, including shopping on Black Friday, is fun, and (2) Black Friday has nonetheless become an out-of-hand spectacle of American consumer culture running wild. But Amanda, like most of us, wants to think that whatever she likes is going to be objectively good, and life doesn’t always work that way.

In my “Horsepower War” book, I think I have a similar take as Marcotte’s ‘personal morality consumer’ canard. Remember that “What would Jesus Drive?” business from around 2002-3, promulgated by Arianna Huffington? It was one of the all-time worst liberal ideas in the world.

National problems demand national solutions. The notion that you are somehow ‘voting with your dollars’ (or in this case, by withholding them) actually serves to REINFORCE the canard that consuming something means somehow ‘voting’ for it.

Having said that, I’m going to indulge in some good ‘ol liberal ‘interpretation’

THIS IS A SIGN WE HAVE GONE TO HELL!

Just the gleeful violation of one of the few non ‘commercial’ holidays is enough to tell me we’re not in Bedford Falls anymore - welcome to Potterville! Indulge your meanest vices 24/7! There’s no such thing as empathy anymore. We’ll get rid of all laws that apply universally to all people. The notion of a day of rest that will apply to all is so 1950’s!

This nihilism in shopping, nihilism in retailing, nihilism in ruining the lives of retail workers - it’s all of a piece: Pepper spray the shoppers with loss leaders and make them fight like its Lord of the Flies, pepper spray the retail workers who don’t get to have normal lives (and they are one of the few labor segments that is increasing in numbers -BTW: UNION NEEDED HERE) and pepper spray the whole notion of a national ‘holiday.’

she stated sometime ago that she doesn’t want my gifts (if it’s not new-in-the-box and on her list, she’s not happy).

That’s truly obnoxious, and I’m sorry to hear that.

Defending doorbuster shopping is like defending fast food. No one has a right to take that pleasure from anyone else, and in this country there are distressingly few other sources of pleasure many people have, but the sources themselves are still gross and ultimately unsatifying.

Comment #61: junk science - I can’t really see how waiting hours in lines in the middle of the night and frantically rushing thru a store to (maybe) get a good deal on something because consumerism has guilted people into thinking anybody needs item X is anything but stressful. Shopping and getting a good deal can be fun, but the fact that people risk real danger on Black Friday I would think negates any pleasure to be had.

Now stores that have a more reasonable approach to Black Friday I have no problem with, like a clothing store in the mall I saw late Friday that had a 40% off everything all day. That’s a good deal and I can see how shopping there would have been fun. The ones that purposely create mobs, no.

Livi—people actually do derive pleasure from feeling like they’ve gotten a good deal. Shopping is a pleasure for a lot of people, and there is an identifiable pleasure center that is hit when someone gets something half-off if they are a bargain-hunter.

Comment #63: Mighty Ponygirl - Yes, I said that there is pleasure in getting a good deal in my comment. WTF is it with people not reading my comments all the way thru on this blog?

My biggest problem with consumerism is the idea that we call it “consumerism” and that people are called “consumers.”  When I was young, I thought the term only meant food and eating, but apparently the word extends to everything else we buy and use.  Calling people “consumers” implies that we need the stuff to live, we can’t do without it for a few hours like food.  It’s also a way for the business to in a way continue control over the people long after they bought the item.  Think about it, when you are sleeping you are still a consumer consuming the bed you bought a year ago.  To me that sounds a little creepy.  Calling us “consumers” dehumanizes us.

Because you’re saying “on the one hand there is pleasure but on the other hand, it can’t be pleasure.”

My sister did doorbusters for a long time. She was never part of a crushing mob, she would go with a friend, they would plan for stuff in advance, she loved the feeling of getting those deals. Of all the reasons that she decided not to do it this year, I don’t think “it’s not worth ‘the risk’” ever factored in because she never really experienced “the risk.” It probably had more to do with hosting Thanksgiving at her house that year and knowing she’d be too tired to get up at 2am to have a good place in line by 4.

If “The Risk” were so dire that people like my sister had to factor it in, Black Friday wouldn’t exist. There would be federal laws prohibiting it because the outrage over the hundreds of trampling deaths a year would have required action, or people would have just stopped going. There’s no way my sister would risk leaving her two kids without a mom in order to get a $30 blu-ray player if she felt that the chance that she would get crushed under a mob of psychotic shoppers was anything more than infinitesimal. 99.99% of Americans who participate in Black Friday doorbuster sales do so assured that the one or two people who will be trampled to death that day will happen Somewhere Else, and that they live in a more civilized area.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s horrible that people die every year when they’re trampled underfoot by a crushing mob. But I think it’s a little silly to pretend that every doorbusters sale in every retail outlet has a small fleet of ambulances stationed outside to carry off the inevitable human debris, and that people who are hoping to get a 3DS for $100 for their kid have some sort of Klingon “Today is a good day to die” mentality going in that the pleasure of the bargain has to outweigh.

“This nihilism in shopping, nihilism in retailing, nihilism in ruining the lives of retail workers - it’s all of a piece: Pepper spray the shoppers with loss leaders and make them fight like its Lord of the Flies, pepper spray the retail workers who don’t get to have normal lives (and they are one of the few labor segments that is increasing in numbers -BTW: UNION NEEDED HERE) and pepper spray the whole notion of a national ‘holiday.’”

“National Holiday”?  “Union”?  Sounds like more pinko/liberal/fascist/big-guvmint ideas — stuff the goddam French would do.

This is ‘Merica, dammit.  You should only get a “holiday” (which sounds too damn British, BTW - it should merely be “day off” or something more heartlandish) if you’re one of the 1% who have faithfully executed your mentally back-breaking labor, producing minimum-wage jobs among the 99%, avoiding taxes like the plague, and spending your lavish gains on solid-gold toilets and expensive Italian sports cars (and racking-up immense IOUs at Tiffany’s).

That’s the problem with this damn country: Everybody thinks they’re entitled to “holidays”, “sick days”, medical care, “disability”, and “retirement”!  Whatever happened to the Good ‘Ol US of A where you started working at 8- or 10-years of age, worked 12-16-hour days until you were physically worn-out and mentally broken (maybe ‘til you were 35-40 or so), and then spent your last months on earth as a forgotten hobo living under a bridge, until you did society a favor and starved or froze to death?  (Now, we’d just make you into Soylent Green…) 

Those were great times, amirite?  We can be great again, if we’d just eliminate all taxes on rich people, and eliminate once-and-for-all every popular entitlement program. 

Darwinism: Even Better for Societies than for biology…

(For a cinematic vision of our ideal world, take a look at Soylent Green, Logan’s Run and Rollerball (1975-version please!), with liberal healthy dollops of 1984 and Brave New World for flavor…)

I do understand that times are tough, but I am skeptical that those consumers largely responsible for turning Black Friday into a hellscape are those who are truly suffering.  Unemployed people scale back their Christmas expectations; they don’t buy big-screen TVs, even at half off.

And while wages have been stagnating/declining for the past 30 years, consumer goods are cheaper than ever.  There’s more than just economics to blame here.  Our country is still mired in the falsehood that you can get something for nothing; that you can get government services while paying incredibly low taxes; that you can get groceries for free through extreme couponing or an XBox for fifty bucks if you just wait in line for 12 hours.

I’m not trying to absolve corporations of their responsibility for creating this feeding frenzy, nor am I trying to shame anyone for wanting nice things.  But it makes sense to riot over food in Somalia.  It doesn’t make sense to riot over waffle irons in the United States.  There’s something very sick about American culture, and I’m not willing to blame it all on the 1 percent.

Comment #66: Mighty Ponygirl - All I said was that I don’t understand the joy in shopping in that kind of crowd. If someone else loves it, and obviously many people do, more power to them. Now I’d appreciate it if you didn’t conflate what was clearly a statement about how I feel into a statement about how others should feel.

EricROM, by making issues a matter of “personal morality”, it puts crap on people’s heads when the real problem is not an individual problem.

It is akin to telling a poor child that if she was a better kid, god would love her more and give her rich or better parents.

See how effective that is?

Grolby:

<blockquote>But I’ll reiterate my point: refusing to buy gifts for family members is not optional for the vast majority of people. Your specific experience of finding yourself willing and able to deal with the aggravation of such a decision doesn’t make this a realistic or reasonable solution, and it sure doesn’t justify judging others who don’t go that route of having suffered a moral failure.<blockquote>

First of all, I’m not judging such people for being moral failures. They may have a perfectly good cost/benefit calculation that tells them that trying to change people isn’t worth it. Or they may genuinely enjoy shopping and/or gift-giving/-receiving.

But my experience isn’t that specific. Like most people, I have family members who have so fully identified with the corporate version of the holiday spirit. They were aggravated and aggravating. A couple of them still are, if only passive-aggressively. The rest have about split fifty-fifty between “You know, you’re right,” and “Sigh. Pass the yams, please.” My family’s a little more affluent and educated than the national average, but really not by all that much. I think my experience is well within the standard deviation. It’s just not not optional to give presents to family members.

As soon as I heard about the pepper spray incident, I connected it to the lax use of pepper spray by the police. People are nowhere near as intelligent as we think they are, and all of the defenses of pepper spray, along with the advertisement driven frenzy of this shopping holiday make it inevitable. However, I am not a blogger, so my one facebook comment about it at 5:30am PST didn’t have a big impact. As the news kept coming out, I didn’t hear anyone connecting the dots, but I knew that these pepper spray incidents would not pass by your radar.

I am your classic privileged liberal who despises “Black Friday” (didn’t we used to call it something different a few years back? Like first shopping day of the Christmas Season?). Stores opening earlier and earlier disgust me, and waiting with a hoard of other people to go off in a mad dash just to save a few dollars strikes me as degrading. Now, I can afford the extra few dollars and have no children anxiously awaiting loot from Santa, but that doesn’t make it less degrading. I’m afraid that the real solution to this problem, however, isn’t as easy as creating some regulations (though they would be an end result).

The root of the problem is that our economic structure does not allow for any breathing room. Every quarter’s profits need to break the record of the quarter the year before, a slight downturn in consumer spending sends the market into a tailspin, and any investment that doesn’t turn out quite right can derail a company. It is always go go go, more more more, to the point where we were worried about losses in the Nikei index on the Monday after Japan lost thousands and thousands of *people* to a natural disaster. If it were my money, I’d want to give the country a break before expecting the stock market to open.

Another case in point is the debit card fee losses banks faced after they were required to reduce the fees that merchants pay. The fees were created by banks to make more money, but regulations put that cash cow on a diet. Instead of eating the losses for a quarter or two, the banks had to figure out a way to make the losses up, hence the $5 debit card fee for consumers. Now that everyone is pulling their money out of the big banks, they’re likely going to see some losses there. I have heard that they are now making up losses by dipping into the cash that they need to keep on hand for emergencies. Like that will end well.

The problematic thinking is that anything that increases “business” must be good, even when that business (i.e. health insurance, tobacco companies) is harmful to the public. I have no idea where to start pushing against this line of thought in a meaningful way, but it might have something to do with We the People… and OWS. I’m looking forward to the time when we can finally break up the big banks, the restoration of glass-segal (sp), and when shopping on the day after Thanksgiving is a casual, enjoyable experience.

I do understand that times are tough, but I am skeptical that those consumers largely responsible for turning Black Friday into a hellscape are those who are truly suffering.  Unemployed people scale back their Christmas expectations; they don’t buy big-screen TVs, even at half off.

If you live with less than enough or without much luxury and always second best and make-do the rest of the year, the dim hope of competing successfully for a luxury item is very much appealing.  Sometimes the very people who are competing for the items on sale have that money, or will have that money, because of the seasonal rush means additional employment as a first or even second job.

People seem to feel that they can’t influence those who benefit from the status quo anymore. Instead they try to get the oppressed to change their behavior

This comes from this liberal fantasy instinct to see the oppressed “organize!™” as though the primary purpose is for people to come together as a group rather than to pursue a specific goal.

I like the concept of “Buy Nothing Day” in general, but designating it the Friday after thanksgiving comes across not just as spitting into the wind but also comes across like a futile attention-seeking tantrum: it’s not an organized action as much as it gives people an excuse to feel righteous on a day when other people are out shopping, like designating Super Bowl Sunday, “no sports day.”

It’s not just Unemployed vs. Well-off. There are a lot of people out there who are underemployed who can barely make ends meet, but still want to give their kids a nice Christmas.

If you live with less than enough or without much luxury and always second best and make-do the rest of the year, the dim hope of competing successfully for a luxury item is very much appealing.

Amen. I can remember with extraordinary clarity the three occasions in my childhood when we bought a “luxury” item. (Sofa, TV, carpet. Not particularly luxurious, any of them, but all crucially *new* and not second-hand.) It carries an unwarranted, but unsurprising, psychological heft.

Props to RickMassimo in the previous posts comments.
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments//in_favor_of_black_friday#281608

It seems to me that Black Friday, as a middle class liberal who’s never participated, is a pretty female-dominated activity? At least that’s who’s always getting interviewed on the news about it. I can see it as women getting pushed into doing all the Christmas shopping by about the same reason they get pushed into most housework.

Oops, cut myself off.

I’m thinking some of the competitiveness of shopping is because it’s an socially-acceptable place for women to be competitive. Or is this sounding like Sex and Gender 201?

Guns have been brought up, and I wanted to add that I think that guns would be used so casually no matter how militarized police get, cops blow away unarmed non-threatening people all the time and have been doing so for a long time.

But I can easily imagine the use of tasers and pepper spray being used casually by the public more often. The weapons aren’t considered dangerous by the general public, the media often portrays these weapons as safe, they don’t create loud noises or intimidating recoil, the wounds they cause aren’t visible and don’t make bloody messes, and people find the use of these weapons on others hilarious. On top of that the police and the government insist through statements and coroner’s reports that it is the victim’s fault if they die because they are asthmatic, allergic, or have a heart condition, which could make some feel absolved of any responsibility for potential deaths. These weapons also lack a tradition of violence like guns or clubs as they are newer and only recently have been used regularly by police forces.

Sorry: guns wouldn’t be used so casually no matter how militarized police get.

Calling us “consumers” dehumanizes us.

Comment #65: Albert Cirrus

It goes along with the view of us not as “citizens” (who have a voice and the duty to actively participate in our government) but as “consumers” (whose only duty is to shop, shop, shop to prop up the economy).  That was my first thought after Bush’s “we’re at war, go shopping” speech…. that it was now our duty to ignore the war he was ginning up and hit the mall as part of our patriotic duty.

When I was a retail worker, I loved working on holidays because it meant I got time and a half or even double time. That was where I earned my money to buy Christmas presents for friends and family.

Well good for you. If you were still working retail now you find that there is no extra pay for working federal holidays in most states, and your hours would be severely cut at the beginning of the week so they could have your work 10-12 hours on Thursday/Friday without going into overtime. Enjoy dancing that knife edge between spending all your time at work and not getting payed enough to cover your bills.

Amanda this is one of your best!

Chip Dallery

“Every quarter’s profits need to break the record of the quarter the year before, a slight downturn in consumer spending sends the market into a tailspin, and any investment that doesn’t turn out quite right can derail a company. It is always go go go, more more more, to the point where we were worried about losses in the Nikei index on the Monday after Japan lost thousands and thousands of *people* to a natural disaster.”

This is the true sickness of America:  The conversion of an economic system primarily based on producing and selling tangible things to an economic system primarily based on finance and financial “products”.  Add in the mentality of a mob-owned Las Vegas Casino to the mix, and it’s easy to understand why there are Wall Street leeches betting on how badly an earthquake affects the Nikkei Index, rather than seeing an opportunity to loan money to some people who need to rebuild — which is how the bankers of old, however mean and miserly they might have been, would have conducted themselves.

“If it were my money, I’d want to give the country a break before expecting the stock market to open.”

...as would I, but all that statement does is provide further evidence as to why neither of us is worthy enough to occupy a choice spot among the 1%...

I’m going to be a bit contrarian:

The level of casual violence is much lower now than it used to be—perhaps the reason the use of tasers and pepper sprays is up is because the casual use of violence is down (really, think about what a cop would have done 30 years ago).

Most ‘anti-materialists’ don’t really want people to buy nothing. They just think that this society puts much too much emphasis on buying and we should buy less. The point of Buy Nothing day is to advertise the fact that there are other things we can do with our life (which you point out in your other post) that are more pleasurable. There are, of course, people who take this to the extreme (hey this is the US), but is it really such a bad thing to convince people to buy less stuff?

If “The Risk” were so dire that people like my sister had to factor it in, Black Friday wouldn’t exist. There would be federal laws prohibiting it because the outrage over the hundreds of trampling deaths a year

Given the routine level of violence which retail workers suffer, this is just silly.

I remember only too well one of the incidents you referred to - the tasering of Justice Thomas’s nephew - because I was facing the prospect of entering the very facility involved for depression - and I have seizures that aren’t completely controlled by medication.  Thanks for fighting the good fight, Amanda.

Agreed about the lack of time and a half, etc these days. This year I was scheduled to work 6am-3pm on Thanksgiving, no time and a half involved. I also was scheduled 40 hours even though I am part time- to help ensure that any full-time people didn’t get overtime. I was able to get off early which surprised me, last year I was unable to do that. By some scheduling miracle I was off on Friday. I DID get holiday pay of 6 hours for Thursday (regular wage).  Hell-Mart is open every day except xmas, and you won’t believe how many people are pissed we close early on xmas eve. One effing day we want with our families, and entitled assholes want to be able to shop.

Huh.  Jon Stewart also makes the point.

Another possibility that I might offer, though it may burst your bubble, is that it’s a lot of people who struggle to get by.

I’m calling BS on the above. Did a little non-scientific, informal polling today. Of those who participated in any door busting middle of the night Black Friday shopping, only 1 is in the really struggling/just lost a job group.  Many have household incomes in the low-mid six figures(I know this because they are colleagues or relatives) are in the DINK or DIgrown kids groups.  And many privately admitted that they weren’t buying for others, but were buying for themselves.  The artificial aggressive competitiveness brought out by Black Friday is an adrenalin rush for these people. That is the appeal, to reptilian, base instincts. Keven, way up thread had it right.  And sadly, though it is possible to opt out of these degrading spectacles and degrading consumerism, it is increasingly harder because of the way it permeates life.

Personally, I find the thought behind getting the deals to be more like gambling with a poor payoff than anything.  And I detest any sort of gambling where the odds or mechanism are hidden.

Re:  Crazy Target Lady Ads on TV.

I remember when Target had artsy, good ads and you could tell which ad was going to be for Old Navy because it had some crazy people trying to pretend their cheap clothing catchphrase was stylish.

Anyone else think Crazy Target Lady is a ripoff of Amy Sedaris?

Shorter Marcotte: Moral arguments make me uncomfortable, ‘cuz they harsh the buzz I get from buying really cool stuff, so shut up.

@Wapsie: “Moral arguments” or “moralist arguments”? Some distance between the two.

I find Marcotte’s implication that the goal of living is some kind of perpetual orgasm perhaps the most oppressive and heartless moral code I can conceive. Because it’s a standard no one can ever manage, not even her so-very-cool self, I’ll bet. Puritanism is a breath of fresh air by comparison.

I’m calling BS on the above. Did a little non-scientific, informal polling today. Of those who participated in any door busting middle of the night Black Friday shopping, only 1 is in the really struggling/just lost a job group.  Many have household incomes in the low-mid six figures(I know this because they are colleagues or relatives) are in the DINK or DIgrown kids groups.

Your sample bias is laughable, Phylo. Among my sister’s sampling pool nearly everyone would be solidly middle-class, or middle-class-but-struggling. So your point is?

Anyone else think Crazy Target Lady is a ripoff of Amy Sedaris?

I don’t think so. Maria Bramford has been doing her own thing for a long time.

I feel conflicted sympathies with both the OP’s points and those who feel the consumers involved in these Black Friday events cannot dodge the smidgen of responsibility for their participation. 

This was influenced from hearing countless stories of how my immigrant parents/relatives grew up in deprivation in China during Japanese invasion, The ROC(Taiwan) when it was in serious danger of being invaded by Chinese Communists, and a branch which remained in Mainland China and experienced Maoist excesses like the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.  After hearing such stories, only the most spoiled older cousins would dare demand gifts beyond basic necessities like clothing, books, or munchable treats. 

Even after our financial conditions improved, some of us still have conflicting feelings over the materialistic excesses of the Wintery holiday season.  It’s probably one reason why in our extended family….we have an unwritten rule that gifts should only be given by older relatives to those in the younger generation until they graduate high school or reach the age of 18…whichever comes later.  For the adults…a Holiday card, letter, or long phone call is more than good enough. 

With that said, I know that’s my issue and that it is not for me or anyone else to denounce someone else for enjoying the shopping experience, gift-giving, or buying stuff for oneself so long as they’re not hurting others in the process. 

As for buying used versus new, that depends on the nature of the item.  Perishable personal items, or items which tend to deteriorate/generate maintenance headaches like computers and clothing are things I’d rather buy new. 

However, other products such as electric guitars I overwhelmingly prefer to get used off CL after bargaining the seller down.  After talking with several friends who are musicians and comparing the benefits of buying new/used…..this is one area where one definitely gets more for their money….especially when the warranties offered for new stuff doesn’t cover much or is so limited to the point it may as well not exist.

Anyone else think Crazy Target Lady is a ripoff of Amy Sedaris?

I don’t think so. Maria Bramford has been doing her own thing for a long time.
Comment #98: Livi on 11/29 at 11:15 AM

Did Bamford write that character, though?

Shorter Marcotte: Moral arguments make me uncomfortable, ‘cuz they harsh the buzz I get from buying really cool stuff, so shut up.
Comment #94: wapsie on 11/29 at 10:45 AM

I took her to objecting when people make things into moral values that aren’t really moral values.  Not objecting to the existence of moral values or moral arguments.

The question is, is buying things at its root really immoral?

As Katherine said, it only seems to become “crass” materialism when poor people do it.  I guess rich people buying things are actually being virtuous because they’re creating jobs.

I find Marcotte’s implication that the goal of living is some kind of perpetual orgasm perhaps the most oppressive and heartless moral code I can conceive. Because it’s a standard no one can ever manage, not even her so-very-cool self, I’ll bet.

I know what you mean. I don’t know how to have fun, and I resent anyone who does, because they make me feel inferior. Can’t they just pretend they’re miserable and unfun like me so I’ll feel better about myself?

Your sample bias is laughable, Phylo. Among my sister’s sampling pool nearly everyone would be solidly middle-class, or middle-class-but-struggling. So your point is?
Comment #97: Mighty Ponygirl on 11/29 at 11:06 AM

Well MPG, must be that my colleague/family/friend pool is a bit more eclectic than yours or your sisters.  Salary/family income ranges run the gamut from really struggling to quite comfy to likely in 1% ers. Again, of the ones who participated (or admitted participating, or lied about participating - heck I said unscientific unofficial) in the middle of the night stuff, most are solidly in the middle class and buying for themselves, not as gifts.  So the point was to refute Amanda’s “well, they’re there because this is the only way they can afford it,” because that’s not what my observations say. 

The really disgusting one was the relative who worked (medical professional) another T-Day, missing the family gathering because she gets time and a half, but could manage to do the midnight thing.  Her daughter is a severely anorexic child (at age 13) and has been for years - her psychologist says it is because she doesn’t get enough attention from the workaholic mother who is a poster child for consumerism run amok.  She has forever been into the buying stuff for the kid, crying about why the kid doesn’t use it, but never, ever sitting own to play with the child, or even talk to her - so yeah, materialistic over consumption can do some very serious harm.  And it is really sad to see a third party take the brunt.   

Her daughter is a severely anorexic child (at age 13) and has been for years - her psychologist says it is because she doesn’t get enough attention from the workaholic mother who is a poster child for consumerism run amok.  She has forever been into the buying stuff for the kid, crying about why the kid doesn’t use it, but never, ever sitting own to play with the child, or even talk to her -

That’s terrible.  It’s unfortunate she’s a single mother.  I know lots of guys like this, but I think their kids are reasonably well adjusted because there’s another parent there to pick up the slack. 

Part of the problem with the anti-materialist, “puritan” breed of anti-consumerism is that it doesn’t even really function as an effective critique of contemporary consumer culture any more. It’s operating in a framework inherited from an era in which consumer goods were sold as an end in themselves, but that’s really not true any more; now a great many products are sold as the facilitator of experiences, as offering not simply material but some psychological or spiritual fulfilment. Companies stress not only- or even primarily- the material qualities of their commodities, but the (real or imagined) “spiritual” qualities, appealing not to some animal appetite to the exclusion of some Millean “higher pleasures”, but directly to these “higher pleasures” themselves.

I mean, last week I saw adhesive tape, of all things, being sold under the slogan “inspired by YOU”. There’s no way that sort of thing can be explained in a framework that assumes consumerism to be a necessarily vulgar and materialistic phenomenon.