Sunday, May 28, 2006
commerce
My blogfriend, DevraDoWrite, has a quick thought about consumerism today. She cites a comment by a reader of another blog, to the effect that our culture fairly bulges with advertisements for lots of things and that those of us who buy those things are contributing to the advertisement/consumer culture. I suppose there's truth there, but like much of the world in 2006, it's simply here to stay no matter how much we might prefer the fourteenth century. Monks are cuter than computers but no one is seriously suggesting documents be produced by them. Horses are prettier than tractors but tractors are here to stay for large farms. Starbucks makes coffee that many of us like, and some of us like their stores, too. Realistically even if whole bunches of people stopped patronizing Starbucks because of social consciousness, the zillions of the rest of its customers would still be there. I imagine that DDW asked about stopping going to Starbucks with her tongue at least slightly in her cheek, but I want to say that I believe wholeheartedly that we can effect change, we just need to be realistic and figure out how to modify or change what we want to, without trying to ignore what is here to stay.
Labels: blogs (others'), reflections
I don't have a problem with people complaining about, say, Starbucks, which has now crept to within a mile of me; still, nobody is holding a pistol to your forehead and demanding you order a Frappucino, or whatever the heck that thing is called.
(My coffeehouse of choice is the locally-owned Java Dave's, which gets no points for being locally owned because it also runs a coffee service for those Evil Corporations.)
Real Americans, if I may coin a bumper sticker here, buy what they darn well please. To the extent that this means not buying something else, that's okay too.
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