[THO] Stacking up Capitalism

Part of the job of a theologian is to be able to look at the world and understand what is going on. To make judgements and when something is problemmatic, to sound the alarm. I mean that in the most prophetic of senses.

I've been thinking a lot about how we engage with the world around us. Introspective I know, but I think this is vital. The obsession that I have with stuff is incredible. I have a collector mentality and derive pleasure from sorting things. In fact it is one of my wierder traits. I like order, even though I live a lot of times in chaos from the sheer amount of stuff I have collected over the years. My wife is into purging, which is healthy for me, but it doesn't make it easy.

What got me thinking about this is a bit of TV I've seen lately, an advertisment and a show I saw tonight. The show was 'How Clean Is Your House' in which Kim and Aggie tackle the house of a literal rubbage collector. They dragged 4+ tonnes of crap out of this small flat (not exaggerating) and scrubbed some of the vilest crap I've ever seen. Now I live in a pristine castle compared to this man, but you know it is not hard to imagine being swallowed up by all my own crap. But for me it isn't recycling rubbish or being unwilling to part with broken stuff that does me in. I actually am pretty good at chucking real garbage. (Well if you look at my library there is a bit of crap in there that I should purge, likely will now that my shelves are full, say goodbye Josh McDowell!) What does me in is the allure of stuff that I just don't need.

Take this cup stacking game that is advertised on the tv all the time now. At first I thought 'that might be fun', but then I thought about it. 'What the heck?' They are re-selling the common plastic cup as a game??? This is the empitome of capitalism. Convincing the masses to buy more crap that they won't ever need because it fuels the artificial economy and keeps the wealthy happy in their relative comfort. But are we happy? Even the rich? The thing is for capitalism to work we all have to buy into this buy to be happy deal. If someone wakes up and begins pointing out that they are just re-selling cups then possibly the illusion will be shattered. Well, I can hope can't I. (The illusion is necessary because it lets us sleep in a world where our capitalism hides incredible disparity and oppressive poverty in the world, but let's keep this light shall we.)

Sears has this new wish big campaign for Christmas shopping, where folks are going home with more oversized things they likely don't need. It is madness, sheer madness. But what drives me nuts is I am the worst culprit. I fight with my wife over buying new tools I could borrow from neighbours. I purchase more paintable terrain than I could ever use to populate a battle map, or make sure I have oodles of miniatures for trading, yet hesitate when the offers to trade come in? I am just as sick as the whole system.

I think what this points to is my next Lenten fast. Instead of giving up food or coffee. I think this time I'm going to give up buying, in fact I think I need to find something each day of Lent to either give away or chuck out. Think of it as a protest of the capitalism that so enthralls my soul. Lent is a ways off yet, so I have a chance to get my ducks in order first. A chance to flesh out the ground rules. Last year I gave up Internet Poker for Lent, and you know what I've played maybe three times since giving it up. It was hard, damn hard actually. I really enjoyed the thrill of gaming. I actually enjoyed making new online friends. But giving it up I realized how much I was missing out on simple things, like playing with my kids (or letting them have the computer long enough to learn how to use it well). And I wasn't really playing that obsessively before! I wonder if this will change the way I feel about buying into this commercialism driving society. I know I am already very distrustful of capitalism. I see the cup game and it is like writing on the wall.