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Buy Nothing Day

  • 06-11-2001 1:13am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,731 ✭✭✭


    From www.buynothingday.co.uk
    Buy Nothing Day (November 24th UK), is a simple idea, which challenges consumer culture by asking us to switch off from shopping for a day.
    Consumer culture is absurd, we buy out of comfort, to feel good and to impress each other. BND is a global stand off from such desires - celebrated as a holiday by some, a street party by others - anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!

    Buy Nothing Day also exposes the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism. The rich western countries - only 20% of the world population are consuming over 80% of the earth's natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth.

    As consumers we need to question the products we buy and challenge the companies who produce them. What are the true risks to the environment and developing countries? The argument is infinite - while it continues we should be looking for simple solutions - Buy Nothing Day is a good place to start.

    Buy Nothing Day isn't about changing your lifestyle for just one day - it's a lasting relationship - maybe a life changing experience! We want you to make a commitment to consuming less, recycling more and challenging corporations to clean up and be fair. Modern consumerism might offer great choice, but this shouldn't be at the cost of the environment or developing countries.

    Basically it's a great way for people to realise how much consumerism has become an inescapable part of everyday life, through trying to avoid it, we become more aware fo how it affects us - and it's only for a day!

    Anyone here willing to take part on the 24th November?


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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,488 ✭✭✭SantaHoe


    For me - every day is buy nothing day!
    Being broke is cool, really.


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,397 ✭✭✭✭azezil


    No I don't agree with that at all! ... by buying stuff we increase demand, which in turn makes jobs, which employ people, who earn money, who pay taxes, which benifits the economy n thus the general population.

    So no way man, keep ur hippy, touchy feely stuff to yourself, I'm a capitalist n proud of it! ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,525 ✭✭✭JustHalf


    I'm helping to organise one in Maynooth.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,783 ✭✭✭Puck


    I buy things either because I want to or because I need to.

    I will buy things for whatever reason I want. Right now I don't buy too many things just to make myself feel good because I'm broke, but if I want to then I will and there's nothing wrong with that.

    It may also surprise you to know that I don't get food for free and I'm not going hungry for any little project.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,438 ✭✭✭TwoShedsJackson


    You goddam heathen communists :)

    we buy out of comfort, to feel good and to impress each other

    What's actually wrong with that? OK the impressing each other bit may be a bit sad, but I see nothing wrong with buying things to make my life more comfortable or enjoyable?


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  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 28,633 Mod ✭✭✭✭Shiminay


    I dunno, all these Anti-Capitalism things that have been going on in recent months - it annoys me greatly.

    I go out and work hard and get paid. It's MY fluckin' money and I'll do what I want with it! :)

    The ideas behind BND are a good one, but in all honesty, it's a little far fetched! Asking people to help support this by deliberatly causing shops and business to have a bad day's sales is too much - what did the shop owners ever do to deserve that? They're only trying to make a living like the rest of us and at least they're doing it honestly (*ahem* I'm sure most of them are).

    However, as a mark of my support, I shall watch what I buy and keep it to bare essentials because I do think we spend a little too much (I know I do).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,275 ✭✭✭Shinji


    Excellent, less of the great unwashed (literally) in queues on November 24th. I shall set it aside for Christmas shopping, I think!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 94 ✭✭Bucon


    Almost as good an idea as the Internet Blackout thingy :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,660 ✭✭✭Blitzkrieger


    rofl - nice one Shinji

    I haven't bought a game in almost a year so hopefully Civ3 will be out on the 24th :) Excellent op for Xmas shoping too :)

    Somehow I don't think many people will take a blind bit of notice tho :shrug: (yes I know it's not a smiley)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,136 ✭✭✭Bob the Unlucky Octopus


    Although no one is probably going to give two shakes of a mongoose's tail, ideas like this are the brainchilds of idiots imho. I'd go as far as to say it's a noble, but dangerous idea, with no grasp of the practical economic realities we live in. Consumption isn't just the basis for a market economy, but in a sense for *all* economies. Less consumer spending potentially results in a downward confidence spiral, generally a bad day out, even for those strange "anarchists" organizing themselves into groups to support it :P

    On an ideological level, I agree with CT- what is wrong with the availability of consumer goods? Price dictated by the free market allows for choice, competition and availability of everything from basic essentials, to luxury goods, which is I assume, where this protest is directed. The hilarity of the situation is, I could do my shopping on the previous day, spending like the greedy capitalist pig I am, and yet still adhere to the no-shopping day.

    Now, on to the assertion that 20% of the global population consume 80% of global resources- to put things in perspective, human beings comprise less than a thousandth of the nitrogen cycle, and play a part in roughly a millionth (5 millionths if you count global warming) of oxygen and dioxide byproduct cycling. Now that isn't a lot- the world bovine population contributes more. Not to say that we shouldn't take the environment into consideration, this is where NGOs put pressure on governments to find a balance between productivity and sustainability of scarce natural resources. These "greedy 20%", while consuming a great part of global resources, are actually the only governments even considering the use of alternative sources of energy. Millions of dollars of R&D and actual investment goes into these technologies every year in California alone.

    As for the idea that globalization and MNCs affect the developing world, well, that's where market protection, and sensible trading cooperation comes in. If developing countries' governments want to "sell their souls" to prosperity and consumerism to the detriment of their own people, then it is they who must reform, and they who need to look inward- not the MNCs or governments selling to them. This is a basic principle of free-market economics- if the product isn't harmful, and people purchase it, don't blame the guy who's selling it.

    If I were to buy products that I knew would cause long-term destruction of the social fabric in my nation, I certainly wouldn't protest to the guy selling said products. I would merely refuse to buy them. However, the idea that I should stop spending merely because other nations' governments haven't a clue how economic development proceeds within the boundaries of a sensible international trade partnership, is a preposterous one. A well-defined multilateral trading arrangement that protects fledgling industries in a developing economy is the responsibility of those nations' governments, not of the free market agents making a quick buck on the back of corruption reaching to the highest levels of 3rd world government.

    The developed world, on its part, must also make concessions- the renouncement of third world debt is one, the dismantling of ineffective conditional loans from the IMF and World Bank is another, aid should ideally be untied. It must be said, that the develped world has made far greater progress along these paths than the developing world has along its corresponding goals- which include the elimination of corruption, and the stabilization of international trade arrangements. Their power structures are simply to ridden with corruption, devoid of transparency, and void of public conscience to make the right decisions (for the most part).

    The idea that the West is to blame for all these evils is a popular one in several decolonized nations, some of them have a case. But most are simply providing an excuse for "their own way of doing things" which is often to the public detriment in their societies. Blaming the corporate world for political ills is an ultra-simplified view of the so-called "evil" of globalization. The same globalization that brought about international law, the United Nations, GATT/WTO and the same globalization that allows NGOs to operate on an international scale with the freedom to express their views. If the message of anti-consumerism includes anti-globalism in its policy line, I reject it utterly, and without reservation.

    Occy


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  • Registered Users Posts: 21,264 ✭✭✭✭Hobbes


    If you do go ahead with this buy nothing day then some poor kids working in a sweat shop are going to get paid! :eek:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    Originally posted by Hobbes
    If you do go ahead with this buy nothing day then some poor kids working in a sweat shop are going to get paid! :eek:

    hang on, don't you mean "are not going to get paid" ?

    Anyway as for the original notion its good to see people
    reacting against this sort of anti-globalisation touchy-feely claptrap, which is mainly a bunch of rich western kids playing politics, ha! they'll learn...

    Mike.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,660 ✭✭✭Blitzkrieger


    Well said Bob.

    tbh I think the whole BND is going to fizzle. I spoke to a number of people today and they knew nothing about it, and frankly didn't give a toss. Probably be relegate to the "And finally..." section if it makes the news.



    [aside]A freind of mine is doing a social sciences degree (or something like that :) ) and mention his philosophy lecturer was talking about how, because of America, it is now acceptable grammer to begin a sentence with "And"..........Whatever floats your boat :D [/aside]


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 880 ✭✭✭Von


    Nothing can be done to change the world until capitalism crumbles. Until then lefties should all go shopping to console themselves.

    banksytanks.jpg


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,275 ✭✭✭Shinji


    Indeed, retail therapy for political extremists.

    Food therapy works as well. Street protest getting nowhere? Cries for the smashing of capitalism going unnoticed? Run out of the hallucinogenic drugs that make you think anyone cares what you think? Console yourself with a nice juicy McDonalds quarter pounder. There there. You'll feel much better.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 880 ✭✭✭Von


    Originally posted by Bob the Unlucky Octopus
    Although no one is probably going to give two shakes of a mongoose's tail, ideas like this are the brainchilds of idiots imho.


    The plural of brainchild is perhaps brainchildren. While I don’t necessarily agree with BND, I’m not smug enough to think that the people behind it are idiotic. As with any idea that attempts to question the way things are, it will have its kneejerk detractors, people in whom the very idea of change either produces anxiety or a threat to authority. Such people are weird.

    It’s asking people to question the validity of the “practical economic realities” we live in. It’s “practical economic realities” that dictate that we must consume more and faster to maintain “consumer confidence” whatever that is. Does greater consumption result in greater confidence? I was in America last year and I never saw so many fat people in my life. Fat but bloody confident. I’ll tell you what produces a downward spiral in consumer confidence – jumbo jets crashing into buildings and the carpet bombing of medieval societies that’s what, and no amount of nonsense from George W(asp) Bush (telling us we can defeat terrorism by spending more money on flash trousers, buns, flags made in china, trips to disneyworld, blah blah blah, fukk sake?) will alter that. It was consumer confidence that led to the South Sea and Dot Com bubbles. Confidence is pure bluff.

    Faster television, faster computers, faster food. MTV, Microsoft, McDonalds. The “practical economic realities” mean that at present, we’re bombarded with 1300 adverts a day in ever more intrusive forms. You literally can’t take a pee without having an ad in your face. It’s self-evident that MTV, Microsoft, McDonalds and “practical economic realities” all suck massive mickey. Looking around at the rake of new books on the future of corporatism, apparently the plan is to turn goods into idols and the market into some sort of god. Advertising is being recast in ecclesiastical terms as "evangelism" and the corporation as an ecumenical organization. The next step after conferring "personality" on the corporation is its "ensouling" - a logical evolution of the concept of the corporation as an entity. “In an irreligious world, brands provide us with beliefs. They define who we are and signal our affiliations. The next big thing in brands is social responsibility”, said some corporate wacko whore in The Economist. There you have it.

    BND people *might* argue that there’s nothing wrong with the availability of consumer goods per say, but rather it’s the extent to which they seek to attain the “total occupation of social life” and the impact that this is having that is the problem. As Guy Debord (raving wine guzzling situationist) wrote in Society Of The Spectacle in 1967 “Social space is invaded by a continuous superimposition of geological layers of commodities. Alienated consumption becomes for the masses a duty supplementary to alienated production.“ Or as Bruce Robinson (raving wine guzzling creator of Withnail And I and How To Get Ahead In Advertising) put it “The whole ambiance now is “Listen to that (top 40 muzak) on your fukking headphones day and night, come home and eat your Marks and Spencer’s chicken fukking tikka – there’s a luxury for you – and sit in front of Brookside (or your computer) til you die, PS with two weeks in some slob Thomas Cook Holiday. There it is, a fat-a$sed munching society with junk being shoved down it.”

    For maximum efficiency, consumerism demands predictablity. Creative or innovative people are by definition unpredictable and therefore must be either co-opted or else be considered extraneous. Anyone who’s ever spent 5 minutes with muzak biz company scum will know what I mean. Why do people intuitively slag off manufactured boy bands and enthuse about (for example) Nirvana? Because they admire the spontaneity, freshness and sense of freedom Nirvana exuded. To expect any spontaneity or innovation from conveyor belt muppets like Ronan Keating or Limp Bizkit is a waste of fukking time. Why do U2 complain that they’re not considered “cool” except by people who’ve never heard rock music before, like the mulleted masses of the former eastern bloc countries? Because despite Bono’s pathetic pseudo revolutionary stance and his tiny leather jacket with the little red star on it, the people (demographic in marketing dept speak) he so desperately wants to impress, see the incredible marketing machine, the sheer calculated fukking massivity of it, driving the whole cynical laboured pompous stadium mock rock U2 brand and the considered reaction is.....“Twat.” Apologies to U2 fans.
    Now, on to the assertion that 20% of the global population consume 80% of global resources- to put things in perspective, human beings comprise less than a thousandth of the nitrogen cycle, and play a part in roughly a millionth (5 millionths if you count global warming) of oxygen and dioxide byproduct cycling. Now that isn't a lot- the world bovine population contributes more.
    Cows can’t drive cars. Not yet anyway. But with GM heading the way it is, there may come a time when they can drive themselves to the abattoir. Monkeys could do it I’m sure. Imagine losing your job to a monkey. It will happen!
    Not to say that we shouldn't take the environment into consideration, this is where NGOs put pressure on governments to find a balance between productivity and sustainability of scarce natural resources.
    This is an example of what some call the retreat from responsibility. Leave everything to pressure groups, NGOs, “experts”, anyone at all that will take care of doing awkward things like thinking or asking questions. Where was this support for the 250,000 individuals, members of NGO’s and pressure groups who showed up in Genoa and got beaten and gassed off the streets by robocops as per usual? The same 250,000 individuals, members of NGO’s and pressure groups that didn’t understand the issues at stake if I remember correctly.

    The loss of the sense of personal responsibility from official culture was expressed by Thatcher's TINA principle. There Is No Alternative. Any sense of personal responsibility becomes futile; an antiquated concept which has no place in the “practical economic realities” of global capitalism. It’s part of the trend towards a self-obsessed culture of narcissism where instant personal gratification over-rides all other considerations. The human condition in the post-modern (post-liberal, post-national, post-rational, post-whatever) western world can be described as one of severe disorientation, even more so since Sept 11th. Disillusionment with the democratic political process, exemplified by the growth of the anti-globalization (pro-democratic, internationalist, whatever it’s called now) movement and record low turnouts in the Nice Treaty referendum and British general election, as well as the evaporation of the church’s influence on society, signify a time of cultural and political alienation and stagnation. Traditional left/right/centre shades of politics no longer provide any sure guide to political thinking. The reaction to ceaseless spin (as exercised by the phony Tony Blair government in Britain for example) has been irony and cynicism. We are living in cynicism so to speak.

    The whole myth of Oedipus dealt with the relationship between personal responsibility and fate. Nietzsche also re-raised the issue with his idea of Eternal Recurrence and its relationship with the individual will. But regardless of how the relationship between necessity and responsibility plays out, Oedipus and Nietzsche would seem to concur that full human potential can never be reached without acting *as if* we were personally responsible for it. It's that *as if* which separates noble from ignoble natures.

    Ironically, this seems to be what neo-liberal capitalism shares with the propogators of Jihad. In neither are real human actors responsible. In the one, it’s market mechanisms and economic necessity, and in the other, it is the inexorable will of God. The exercise of personal responsibility becomes futile in both cases. What is human has no place in either.
    If I were to buy products that I knew would cause long-term destruction of the social fabric in my nation, I certainly wouldn't protest to the guy selling said products. I would merely refuse to buy them.
    But you couldn’t give a toss about trying to convince fellow citizens to do the same so your boycott, apart from making you feel better about yourself, would be futile. This whole don’t rock the boat attitude reminds me of Ibsen’s play An Enemy Of The People. Main protagonist discovers that the baths, the source of the town’s prosperity, are contaminated and have to be closed down for expensive repairs. For his honesty, he’s persecuted and ridiculed because “Considerations of expediency turn morality and justice upside down.”
    In effect, the mechanism rules. If a mechanism is allowed to rule, personal responsibility is null and void. To be responsible means to be alert to the world around us, for whose health and well-being we feel personally responsible. With the atrophy of this sense of personal responsibility, even the desire to become conscious would atrophy as well. And certainly, democracy becomes meaningless too if the citizen loses all sense of personal responsibility for its future.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 880 ✭✭✭Von


    Originally posted by Bob the Unlucky Octopus However, the idea that I should stop spending merely because other nations' governments haven't a clue how economic development proceeds within the boundaries of a sensible international trade partnership, is a preposterous one. A well-defined multilateral trading arrangement that protects fledgling industries in a developing economy is the responsibility of those nations' governments, not of the free market agents making a quick buck on the back of corruption reaching to the highest levels of 3rd world government.
    Heh. That sounds like a gentrifed version of Viz’s “man in the pub“. You’re one step away from saying nig nogs can’t rule themselves. You don’t have to go all the way to the 3rd fukking world for corruption you know. Have a look here to see how our masters plan to treat the corrupt savages.
    The idea that the West is to blame for all these evils is a popular one in several decolonized nations, some of them have a case. But most are simply providing an excuse for "their own way of doing things" which is often to the public detriment in their societies. Blaming the corporate world for political ills is an ultra-simplified view of the so-called "evil" of globalization. The same globalization that brought about international law, the United Nations, GATT/WTO and the same globalization that allows NGOs to operate on an international scale with the freedom to express their views. If the message of anti-consumerism includes anti-globalism in its policy line, I reject it utterly, and without reservation.

    The UN? Bwahahaha. The UN is utterly impotent. International law? Get up the yard. As has been said a million times before, the theory behind globalization is grand but in practice as it is now, it’s significantly less than grand. I invite you, in the most cordial terms I can muster, to go read any of the zillion or so books on how corporations operate (Captive State, No Logo, Good To Great, The Atomic Corporation, Corporation Nation, anything with corporate or corporation in the title in fact) before coming out with naive drivel like that. Globalization and the quest to dominate markets is not a new phenomenon. The seemingly unstoppable trend of globalization and cooperation between the US and Europe in the 19th century gave rise to an equally powerful backlash, brought about by the confluence of rising global income inequalities and political instability that played a role in sparking the first world war. Another wave of globalization occurred during the 1920s, only to be brought to an abrupt end by the Depression and more war. The preconditions of these earlier backlashes - widening global income disparities and mounting geopolitical tensions – are at present starker than ever. Not only does history tell us there is nothing inherently stable about globalization, but it also highlights globalisation's tendency to sow the seeds of its own demise.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,478 ✭✭✭GoneShootin


    buynothingday ?

    so what, we all buy nothing, and day after that ? we buy LOADSA stuff.

    in fact, the day after buynothing could be the biggest sales coup ever. Image our pent up shopping hunger being forced into just one day, concatenating buynothing day and the day after into just one day.

    its all a conspiricy !


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,731 ✭✭✭DadaKopf


    Advertising is being recast in ecclesiastical terms as "evangelism" and the corporation as an ecumenical organization. The next step after conferring "personality" on the corporation is its "ensouling" - a logical evolution of the concept of the corporation as an entity. “In an irreligious world, brands provide us with beliefs. They define who we are and signal our affiliations. The next big thing in brands is social responsibility”

    Jesus, spot on. If anything should be taken away from BND and from reading's Von's exhaustive post, it's that the reach which advertising and modern marketing methods has become so total that it's reached mythical status to the point of religion. The whole bleedin' Culture Industry and the modes of exchange are achieving total saturation in almost every section of lived experience. Our experiences and instantiations of the world are being formed by these forces, not our own. This is sick.

    You know, it's funny but the resurgence of leftist thinking and the revitalisation of Marxist thinkers like Horkheimer and Gramsci must be directly related to the fall of the USSR - otherwise that whole way of thinking would still be taboo. With the fall of Communism, it's becoming less stigmatised and people are taking the real practicalities out of it but some people still hold on to the old-fashioned, rigidly-orthodox image of leftist thinking they've been brought up with. I mean, the whole point of Marxism etc. was that it was constantly under re-interpretation itself but when people read posts like Von's, they automatically associate it with prejudices and preconceptions that don't help anyone when the opposite is the case.

    However, it's very easy to criticise capitalism or globalisation but what about building alternatives to it? Well, of course this is being done right now - theory before praxis - but a popular movement has to be formed alongside this intuition. I think BND is a great place to start; like a work of modern art, it simply challenges your lived-experience by reconstituting your reality a little to simply appreciate the extent to which consumerism is all pervasive in modern life. By association, the act tends to nullify the commodity, even to subjectivise the objectified, and to turn it on itself - one inevitably has to lead to the question: "what about the people who make this?" That's what BND is about: challenging your own experience of consumerism and to think a little more ethically. It's not in the least about sticking to to the businessmen, small companies etc., as some kind of retaliatory act. It's even slightly situationist - it's a sort of revolution of everyday life.

    Anyway, great post, Von.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,731 ✭✭✭DadaKopf


    For those of you interested in BND or those cynics out there, I sent a few questions off to www.buynothingday.co.uk and got the following responses back:
    Q. Buy Nothing Day is supposed to challenge the hold that consumerism has on our everyday lives. This is a purely experiential, personal form of protest but BND also claims that it makes people question the ethics of the products they buy and the issues of global inequality. How exactly can this link be made from the personal to the global in this way? It seems there are problems linking a causal relationship; is this really credible?

    A. Buy Nothing Day is simple holiday from consumerism, it either involves taking part in an action or spending the day loafing, the choice is up to the individual. Buy Nothing Day has also become a doorway to other issues questioning the products we buy, how they are manufactured, what affect they have on environment and developing countries. However, we have 364 to think about these issues.

    Buy Nothing Day is a way of getting the over-consuming message across easily. This needs to be done in a constructive way that appeals to the shopper on the street - that is the challenge of BND.

    Q. Many people seem to think that BND is intended to negatively impact businesses deliberately, especially small businesses but, clearly, this is not BND's goal. How do you propose this false interpretation may be resolved to maximise the event¹s aims?

    A. We have never attempted to stop people from shopping by blocking doorways or used tactics that would inconvenience consumers. This year you won't see any 'anti' this or that banners. We've changed tactics because we feel this style of campaigning is becoming negative. Instead we'll be diverting attention from the shop window towards a group of people enjoying themselves without the need to consume. The Businesses who are negative towards Buy Nothing Day need to question themselves, because our action is challenging them to clean up and be fair.

    Q. People have commented that the problem with BND is that active consumerism can't be so easily defined, what consumerism is for one is not for another. How do you see BND as dealing with that accusation?

    A. Do we shop for necessity or or greed? People who shop for lifestyle have no lifestyle, those who shop for necessity are half way there. It is difficult to define consumers because they are so diverse. A green or ethical consumer who understands the issues is a positive consumer and this is what we want to promote.

    Q. Do you think that BND, perhaps, overreaches itself in declaring what it hopes to achieve compared to what it can or should legitimately achieve?

    A. BND has always been an awareness campaign and the goals aren't beyond what we can actually achieve. The campaign in the UK is relatively new and the awareness of BND has grown phenomenally in the last two years. The response from people has been very positive, this is good it shows people are interested and want to do something, no matter how small.

    Q. Some people are intending to take part on the 24th will be stocking up the day before on food and other necessities so that their effort is diminished, doesn't this defeat the purpose? How do you see people entering into BND more genuinely and productively?

    A. I don't think this is true. People always ask obvious question; what if I run out of toilet paper on BND? Tough, you'll understand how lucky you are, unlike the the billions of people in the world who don't have access to clean water or proper sanitation. I guess the the only true way to celebrate BND is to stay at home and do something constructive. Going 24 hours with spending any money is quite challenging. If you manage it - you'll feel liberated and detoxed from consumerism - I suggest you give it a try.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 20,099 ✭✭✭✭WhiteWashMan


    and what exactly is wrong with commertialism and capitalism.
    usually you will find its the people with nothing who d all the shouting.

    as G'nR said:
    its so easy to be social
    its so easy to be cool
    its so easy to be hungry
    when you aint got sh1t to lose.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,731 ✭✭✭DadaKopf


    I think you're missing the point, slightly. It's not about commercialism or capitalism as such, it's about the effects it has to which most people simply don't think about. BND is a way for people to begin to think about it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 146 ✭✭Sharkey


    Originally posted by DadaKopf


    Basically it's a great way for people to realise how much consumerism has become an inescapable part of everyday life, through trying to avoid it, we become more aware fo how it affects us - and it's only for a day!

    Anyone here willing to take part on the 24th November?

    C'mon. Screw the symbolic crap and get real. If you're going to be an anti-consumption advocate -- live it 24/7 -- don't yak about not spending on a particular day to prove your moral superiority.

    Find a cave, kill some animals and wear their skins, eat grubs under rocks and potatos for a few years. No burning of wood or fossil fuels, no barter for medicine, none of that store-bought soap or tooth-paste. That'll impress the chicks!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,731 ✭✭✭DadaKopf


    And you're missing the point, also.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,525 ✭✭✭JustHalf


    Going 24 hours with spending any money is quite challenging. If you manage it - you'll feel liberated and detoxed from consumerism - I suggest you give it a try.
    This attitude worries me.

    For a start, I do not see how going 24 hours without spending any money is quite challenging. Unless consumerism is habit-forming... and although I'll admit it is easy to fall into such a habit (after all, the country is set up so we HAVE to buy things or have stuff bought for us -- this is necessity) I'd find it hard to have such a low opinion of human beings.

    It is perfectly understandable that some people find a need to participate. It's also perfectly understandable that most people will not want to. I'm talking about those who try but find it too hard.

    Also, this opinion that you'll feel liberated and detoxed from consumerism? What are they getting at? That consumerism is a contaminant?

    I'm organising a Buy Nothing Day in Maynooth because I think people don't realise that they can go a day without buying anything, and hopefully extend that to the realisation that all you SHOULD be able to buy is things. I doubt I'll be able to get many people to make that jump though (probably due to my poor skills of persuasion more than anything ;) ).

    Unfortunately, you CAN buy more than things. You CAN buy a lifestyle. You CAN buy 'friends'. You CAN buy 'happiness'. It all depends on how much money you have.

    And as we've all probably guessed now, I could do with some sleep. Bye.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,731 ✭✭✭DadaKopf


    So why are you organising a Buy Nothing Day for Maynooth? It's great that you are, I doubt it will happen in my very own UCD - too many Fianna Fáilers and Commerce students!

    Yeah, I've been curious about this assumption that you'll be 'detoxed' from consumerism - I can't entirely see the link there but I do see the point of BND. In America, BND falls the day after Thanksgiving day - the biggest shopping day of the year in the US. BND makes sense: it's a day free from elevated, totally unneccesary consumerism.

    What's so succinct about BND is that when you consider all the major holidays and feast days of America and Europe, presents and gimmicks are central so, in effect, these holidays are about consumption (Love Day, anyone?). There are holidays about consumption, why not holidays about non-consumption? Those of us who see over-consumption as a bad thing will see non-consumption as a good thing. It's possible to do something positive by not 'doing it at all'. Whether anyone ends up 'detoxed' is probably the same as saying a person will feel a certain way when they view a certain painting. I see BND as more of an artistic project than a political one, which is the reason for its appeal (but not judging from this board).
    Unfortunately, you CAN buy more than things. You CAN buy a lifestyle. You CAN buy 'friends'. You CAN buy 'happiness'. It all depends on how much money you have.

    I'm afraid I don't quite agree with you. I don't think people can buy any of these things, it's just that they're told they can. That's part of the challenge of BND - to help people realise that you are who you are because of what you do not what you can buy.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 190 ✭✭Gargoyle


    Quote:

    While most Americans celebrated their blessings, both material and spiritual, on Thanksgiving last year, the anti-consumer movement united to celebrate Buy Nothing Day. They called for a boycott of shopping, buying . . . indeed, consumption itself. Adbusters, an anti-consumption group famous for its "culture jammer" network, focused on "expos[ing] the environmental consequences of consumerism."
    Consumers of the developed world, they claim, cause "a disproportionate level of environmental damage" to Planet Earth. One Web site even claimed that Buy Nothing Day is "the one day a year we turn off the economy." Their campaign might well have been endorsed by economist Thorstein Veblen, who at the turn of the nineteenth century coined the derogatory term, "conspicuous consumption."

    Some activists proclaimed the day, "Steal Something Day." By taking action against capitalist exploitation, "Steal Something Day promotes empowerment by urging us to collectively identify the greedy bastards who are actually responsible for promoting misery and boredom in this world," one wrote.

    Their rationale? According to these groups, the consumption patterns of the developed world are simply unsustainable. They raise fears of suburban development and climate change: In their view, economic development creates problems, rather than human opportunities.

    The anti-consumption group refuses to consider the offsetting benefits of economic growth and technology, and of consumption. Through material wealth, we lead healthier, happier, and more fruitful lives. We have been freed from the toilsome, hand-to-mouth lifestyle that most of the world still leads--a life of subsistence farming, exposure to the elements, disease, and early death. Unfortunately, such "nasty, brutish, and short" lifestyles have been romanticized by these wealthy elites.

    It is somewhat ironic that Adbusters rails against technology . . . but uses computers to coordinate its anti-consumer campaigns. The leaders of this movement live in modern insulated houses or apartment buildings (not in mud huts), which save energy and still protect them from the elements. They own refrigerators and use plastic containers to store their food, both of which help to eliminate wasted food. And should one of them fall seriously ill, it is a near-certainty they will call an ambulance to take them to a hospital, where modern medical technologies would be used to save their lives.

    Which of these options would they reject as "unsustainable" or not "green"? What are "green" substitutes for technologies that use resources to save resources?

    Our lifestyle promotes both environmental and human well being. Resources are used not to willfully "destroy" the Earth, but to help us live healthier, cleaner, and more environmentally benign lives. We use resources to control our environment (rather than being controlled by it). Consumption actually helps us to "lighten" our footprint on the Earth: New technologies replace older technologies, allowing for better resource conservation.

    In reality, the anti-consumption movement is a cloak donned by groups who seek to impose their vision of society upon us. For instance, they warn we are "running out" of resources . . . but at the same time, they reject technologies that would save resources.

    They claim biotechnology is "too risky" for people and for the environment. People might suffer allergic reactions to foods created using biotechnology, they claim (citing no scientific evidence to support this assertion), and biotechnology might produce "superweeds." Yet the far-greater risk is that malnourished people in technologically lagging regions of our planet will erode their soil, harm biodiversity, and leave less land for simple environmental amenities. These risks are never weighed.

    Adbusters correctly recognizes that poverty is unsustainable--but at the same time, the group claims a small number of the world's people live at the expense of many. They call for redistributing the current resources of the world via sustainable development, rather than expanding these resources to alleviate global poverty. The world's poor lack basic necessities such as mobility, clean water, literacy, medicine, and energy--all of which people in the anti-consumerist movement take for granted.

    Mere resource redistribution will not solve these problems or provide for sustainable development. Only a system that encourages and empowers these people to become more productive to provide their own needs offers any hope of sustainable development. [That system is laissez-faire capitalism.]

    With technological progress, affluence, and economic development, people in developing countries will be able to appreciate the environment just as Adbusters' members do.

    Despite being consumers, people are also creators of resources. We replace scarce whales with more abundant oil and gas fields to light and heat our homes. We use sand to create silicon optic fibers to communicate with each other. Humans address scarcity by finding substitutes that are cheaper, better, and more abundant.

    A static analysis always focuses on scarcity. A dynamic analysis, on the other hand, realizes that humans possess, in Julian Simon's terminology, the infinite resource: knowledge and ingenuity. When people are free to be productive, the people of the Earth can all be as rich as we are now, and far richer in time. Our intellect allows us to put things to work, to improve both our lives and our environment.

    Buy Nothing Day celebrates the decision not to consume. But most of the world lacks the ability to make such a choice. Rather than promoting guilt for being wealthy and healthy, we ought to empower the less-fortunate members of our world to become as wealthy as we are. The poor of the world must speak out against such elitist paternalism--they have nothing to lose but their poverty.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,525 ✭✭✭JustHalf


    Originally posted by DadaKopf
    So why are you organising a Buy Nothing Day for Maynooth? It's great that you are, I doubt it will happen in my very own UCD - too many Fianna Fáilers and Commerce students!
    As I said in my last post, so people will realise that they can actually go a day without buying things. Well, I sort of said that - as I made clear, I am not sleeping enough. ;)
    Originally posted by DadaKopf
    I'm afraid I don't quite agree with you. I don't think people can buy any of these things, it's just that they're told they can. That's part of the challenge of BND - to help people realise that you are who you are because of what you do not what you can buy.
    If a person is told one concept, and that concept is drilled into them so much that they believe it, then for all intents and purposes it is real.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,478 ✭✭✭GoneShootin


    hate when individual posts get long. dont have the attention span to read them all

    ooo look a shiny thing....


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,136 ✭✭✭Bob the Unlucky Octopus


    First, a few small points:

    Cows can’t drive cars. Not yet anyway
    Industrial output, automobile use and waste disposal are included in those statistics. They don't need to drive cars, they just outproduce us in harmful greenhouse gases by natural means. Spooky, huh? :P

    You’re one step away from saying nig nogs can’t rule themselves.

    Bullsh1t- I'm saying in simple terms, that if people leave themselves open to exploitation, if they in fact, invite such exploitation, then they're reaping what they sow. And I still stand by the argument that the western world has done a lot more on its part in waiving 3rd word debt, increasing untied aid, encouraging development programmes, than the 3rd world has done on its part to encourage sensible trade. As for corruption- there are levels, and levels, and levels of corruption Von. A nation like Nigeria is so riddled with corruption to the highest levels of office, that millions of people suffer. Can you prove to me that millions suffered for Berlusconi's transgressions, immoral as they are? We all have to live with a certain level of corruption in politics. But when corruption threatens the livelihood of three quarters of your population? This isn't uncommon in the third world, totalitarian leaderships devaluing their own currency markets for a quick buck on currency speculation, embezzling billions of dollars daily from government coffers- this isn't quite the level of corruption seen in the West, I'm sure you'll agree. There needs to be a balance Von- would you toss loose change to a homeless guy on the sidewalk? And if you did, would you expect that change to help him dig himself out of his situation? Development can't be a one-way street, globalization is an easy scapegoat for what is in actuality, a far more complex problem. There are other ludicrous arguments presented in Von's post, such as the claim that global income inequalities caused the First World War, and that economic depression and war are the inevitable outcomes of globalization- anyone who's read Steven Ambrose, Chomsky or Devine will know that there were sweeping political and economic reasons for both wars and for the depression...nowhere is globalization mentioned. I could go into further detail, but the ludicrosity of these comparisons is so self-evident, I won't bother.

    Originally posted by Von:
    In effect, the mechanism rules. If a mechanism is allowed to rule, personal responsibility is null and void. To be responsible means to be alert to the world around us, for whose health and well-being we feel personally responsible. With the atrophy of this sense of personal responsibility, even the desire to become conscious would atrophy as well. And certainly, democracy becomes meaningless too if the citizen loses all sense of personal responsibility for its future.

    This is the beauty of democracy you see- if you don't like the current mechanism or system of rule, vote for a different one. TINA? What a crock...if there is no party that enshrines your views, go start one! Recruit other naifs to your cause, whatever floats your boat. That, is how legitimate political views are formed Von. Want to take to the streets and be tarred with the same brush as the violent thugs looking for satisfaction at the expense of peaceful protest? That's fine too, a democratic system allows for that.

    Be prepared however, to lose a substantial amount of political credibility- people don't respond to placards and slogans, except perhaps with disdain, muttering "Don't those smelly unwashed hippies have something better to do?". That's not my opinion by any means, but the halls of public opinion and "plebiscinian" credibility are the imporatant issues that need to be tackled. Because that's where your battle will be won or lost Von- not on the streets of cities where global trade conferences take place, not on the back-alleys of capitals, and certainly not on a message board. If you are advocating what in your view is sensible change, then public opinion is not going to be swayed by a few thousand people taking to the streets. Certainly not when the case the protesters are making rarely affects their way of life. Personal responsibility on a global level is not something that wins votes, public support, or political credibility. Cynical perhaps, but also a practical view, though you might snub it as expedient. Nevertheless, it is the way of things, as they stand, like it or lump it.

    As for consumerism, listening to "Top 40's muzak" and eating their crappy takeaway meals- who is forcing you to do any of these things? If you consider such actions shallow or devoid of character, then no one's pointing a fukking gun at your head. Distressed that other people exercise the right of choice? Tough sh*t. Live under the blanket of prosperity and question the manner in which it is achieved? Some might call it biting the hand that feeds you, but that's a bit too cynical, even for me :P Well go live on an island commune then, grow your own fruit & veg, and get away from those evil, insidious billboards that destroy our social fabric. Oh I'm sorry, you want the change the system, not live outside it...well then return to paragraph one, start a political party that perfectly enshrines your goals, and get on with it. Or join the next best thing to get you started. It's one thing to complain about the inadequacies, lack of moral principle and personal responsibility rife in the human condition- it's another to get off your a$s and do something about it. Waving a placard around? That's the easy part- want to get real change done? Go to the houses of parliament(if people will elect you) and stake your claim.

    To be honest, you accuse me of not being a*sed to convince my fellow man- well I do, just by a means that is slow, sensible and democratic in nature. I've moved petitions, lobbied for the Wildlife Fund near my hometown, written letters to my senator, that is how sensible political change is affected. "The protests of a few shall not deplete the fruits of the many", as Thurow once said. If the majority of public opinion backed your arguments, then they would be politically achievable. Seeing as the methods the left uses to make itself heard are viewed with disdain or contempt by the vast majority of the general public, you might want to try electing a few officials to make your voice heard in the corridors of power. Otherwise this is just so much pompous nattering, isn't it? Message board warriors, placard-waving masses, but no legitimate political voice. Which strangely enough, is exactly what attracts a lot of people to the left, the idea that they can be a "rebel", "a social outcase, dude!", or just an old-fashioned "Viva la Revolucion" Che-Guevara logos emblazoned revolutionary. You know, suddenly, the legitimate elected processes don't seem all that bad, do they?

    The UN? Bwahahaha. The UN is utterly impotent. International law? Get up the yard.

    You're taking the f*cking p1ss right? I mean, forget the millions of children saved from malnutritive death by UNICEF, the millions of refugees settled then repatriated, the millions of lives saved by UN Peacekeepers. Oh, and the erradication of smallpox by the WHO and ECOSOC? That wasn't really an achievement was it? No, no. Or the guarantee of minimum birth weight across two thirds of Africa. None of these things are significant enough to bother with, the UN's just impotent...yeeees, that's it. Scoff at international law? You don't have a clue do you? How do you think every single international treaty is negotiated, every single European treaty of note, from Maastricht to the Treaty of Rome? My dad worked in international law for over 28 years, I suppose he was just wasting his time arguing for the human rights of ethnic minorities? Be cynical, go ahead, but get down off your cynical high horse first and look around. Learn about how your rights are safeguarded under international law, at every level, read a few books, understand the legislation, and the impact the European Court of Human Rights is having on every legal system across Europe. Then tell me it means nothing, not before.

    In other words, the TINA argument means absolutely nothing- there is always an alternative, it's just that the intellectual left are too pampered, spoiled and lacking in political will to turn those ideals into reality by legitimate means. Living outside the system in an escapist manner is somehow more appealing, yet taking to the streets, trying to "live the revolution" is a lot less likely to succeed than actually thinking the practicalities through in a sensible manner, and getting across a political paradigm.

    You can vote with your ballot-paper, a placard, or your feet, whatever floats your boat, our societies give you the freedom to do all three. But don't expect it to amount to significant change.


    "The moral high ground is a lot easier to espouse when one is in a position of no importance whatsoever"

    -Oscar Wilde

    How...true :P

    Occy


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