Materialism

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., is a holy day of obligation for materialists. They carry out bizarre rituals. They sit in parking lots in darkness to prepare for storming shopping malls and retail chains. They risk physical harm to vie for their merchandise. This isn't shopping for needs. This is religion.

 

Black Friday has been packaged with Thanksgiving Day, Hanukkah and Christmas by advertisers, who reap their high profits from plying the gullibility of the screen-entranced. The retailers, cast by government and media as the saviors of Western Civilization in their attempts to reverse the Great Recession, have come to believe they represent some worthy cause while exploiting poor workers, who have chosen substandard pay over unemployment.

 

The ethics which are at the core of humanism have been turned upside down by conforming materialists. They proudly compare retail stories on Facebook. They share links to their favorite sites for retail binging on line. They do not want to hear about growing poverty outside their doors. They do not want to hear about the civic responsibility of paying taxes to maintain a fair and just society.

 

Black Friday indeed! Black ink may be the color of retailer prosperity, but black is also the color of mourning. Mourning the loss of a truly ethical social focus in America is part of my humanist practice today.