BEFORE people can give adequate thanks, they're wanting more. There's a certain festive irony in the juxtaposition of two holidays with exactly contradictory philosophies. On Thanksgiving, families and friends gather 'round the dining room table -- you know, in that fancy room with the nice silver that is only used on special occasions -- to eat to their hearts' content and enjoy being together. But now, at the midnight hour when people should be sleeping off the kilocalories, they are sprinting to the nearest shopping center to get once-in-a-lifetime deals on limited-edition everything.
Unless we as a nation take a step back and reexamine our values, Christmas is looking a lot more like our nation's worship at the altar of capitalism rather than that of the Holy Savior.
In the hustle and bustle of this premature holiday season, Americans are displaying beautifully the pitfalls of untempered capitalism. Allow me to reconstruct the scene: Droves of moms, armed with family Christmas lists, rush to shopping centers in an attempt to get the best deals of the season. Parking lots at Best Buy are packed at five a.m.
According to a Washington Post article, Prince George's County, Maryland policemen set up a perimeter around a Wal-Mart in Clinton to keep the crowds in order in the early morning. The article reported how shoppers could be heard on cell phones "coordinating meeting points and buying strategies."
At other stores, the morning was not so tame. A New York Times article described customers in Columbus, Ohio "dashing toward five a.m. deals [who] pinned employees against stacks of merchandise."Across the nation, red-eyed parents tried to grab one of the elusive PlayStation 3's ($600) or a Nintendo Wii (a mere $250).
In the old days, animals would battle for survival, competing for needs such as food, water and shelter. People claim modern-day capitalism is just as natural, with people fighting for limited goods. But there's a subtle difference. In American culture, people are fighting tooth and nail for wants, not needs. There is something wrong with society when policeman have to monitor otherwise normal men and women who are willing to trample each other to buy toys for their three-year-olds.
It is hard to point a finger at who is to blame for this fiscal frenzy. No one forces shoppers to line up outside electronics megastores before dawn. At the same time, Americans are bombarded in all directions about the need to buy a certain hot item, the need to start holiday shopping as soon as possible. Television commercials, radio ads, advertising circulars strewn on living room floors -- our lives seem to be measured not by who we are but what we have.
This year, according to The New York Times, the National Retail Federation projects a five percent sales increase as compared to last year, when retail corporations raked in a shoddy $457.4 billion.
Another interesting phenomenon is the rise of men shoppers. While women are buying cute sweaters for their nieces and Target gift cards, men are racing to the electronics department first thing in the morning to buy the latest gadgets, flat screen televisions and video game consoles. No longer is shopping solely women's work.
Every Black Friday I ask myself: Don't Americans ever feel duped? Don't they ever imagine retail corporate executives sitting around the boardroom laughing at the pitiful masses buying shopping carts full of "stuff"?
There's nothing wrong with buying gifts for one's family and friends as a kind of tangible expression of our love (after all, my mother is reading this). But surely those same items will be available in December. It seems that in the few dollars we save, we are losing our sanity and our perspective.
Capitalism -- it's the gift that keeps on giving -- and taking. And in the true spirit of Christmas, what would Jesus do? Who am I kidding -- He would knock down grandma at Target for the $25 DVD player, too.
Marta Cook's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at mcook@cavalierdaily.com.
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