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Why do people do it?
Dec. 29th, 2011 09:46 amThat's the question that gets asked, sometimes in that tone of faux bemusement which stakes a firm claim on the moral high ground, and especially at Christmas time. Why do people overconsume? Why do we overeat, overdrink, buy things for ourselves and each other that maybe we don't really need? Why have more than one guitar, more than one computer, more than one car, more than one helping of goose and roast potatoes and sprouts and stuffing till we feel we're going to burst?
Maybe--and this is just a thought that occurred to me--maybe it's becausewe're a Londoner we know, on some level, the truth that really can't be escaping anyone any more, the truth that underlies the financial crisis and the Occupy movements and the political slanging and even the fever that overtakes so many of us at this time of the year. That over ninety per cent of the money in the world, over ninety per cent of the money that passes through our hands, that we earn and borrow and spend and try to save--belongs to someone else. Belongs, in point of fact, to the banks from whom it was borrowed into existence at some point. It wasn't created by a government, it represents no actual wealth or production. We only have this world on a temporary loan, true, but money is even more fugitive and ephemeral than that, because the creditors are here, standing a little way off smiling that special smile that says "we own you," and waiting for one of us to overreach just a little.
But if we can eat it, or drink it, or turn it into a thing we have in our house, then at least we've had something out of it that (as long as the money was "ours" at the time) they can't take back. As the money moves faster and faster, greater and greater volumes of it flying through our hands and our accounts and possessing less and less actual worth, all we can do is take whatever we can grab of value or pleasure from it as it passes. If we can't be sure of the future, and it's unavoidably clear now that none of us can, then surely it's understandable (if not entirely laudable) to focus on present pleasure.
Maybe--and this is just a thought that occurred to me--maybe it's because
But if we can eat it, or drink it, or turn it into a thing we have in our house, then at least we've had something out of it that (as long as the money was "ours" at the time) they can't take back. As the money moves faster and faster, greater and greater volumes of it flying through our hands and our accounts and possessing less and less actual worth, all we can do is take whatever we can grab of value or pleasure from it as it passes. If we can't be sure of the future, and it's unavoidably clear now that none of us can, then surely it's understandable (if not entirely laudable) to focus on present pleasure.