Copyright 2007 T. Sheil & A. Sheil All Rights Reserved
This time of year, we are bombarded with inducements to buy myriad different items. The implication in most advertisements is that the price of a gift is the measure of one’s love. In other words, the more you spend, the more you care. Advertisements are couched in holiday themes, promoting an array of pretentious baubles and frivolous accouterments. Their entire focus is to urge you to spend.
Our present society has become increasingly mercantile. Advertising is everywhere. It is on television and radio, in magazines, on buses and billboards. We are bombarded with ads for everything from razors to pharmaceuticals. The tenor of ads has changed for the worse. They have become more aggressive and more intrusive. At the same time, our economy is driven more and more by seasonal sales. We hear of the health of the economy expressed in the increase in holiday shopping. This is not to say that all of the mercantilism is seasonal. Exhortations to buy are a year-round phenomenon.
Sometimes it seems that advertisements work to confuse what we want with what we need. Therein lies the quandary. What is a necessity and what is a luxury?
We got a wake-up call last year. Audrey’s mother was moving into assisted living, and we were charged with clearing out the house to sell it. There were many things that were cosmetic, from a clutch of Hummel figurines to Lenox bowls and Franklin Mint dolls. Most of it was sold. It only brought in a percentage of what it had cost. The woman had been an accumulator of gee-gaws, knick knacks and baubles. It was all so much stuff.
Stuff. The problem is that our current culture is fixated on stuff. Instead of “You are what you do” or “You are what you think”, it has become “You are what you own.” Nothing exemplifies this more than the Christmas shopping binge. Millions of people cram into shopping malls in a “buying bender.” There is a madness in the air as shopping becomes the human equivalent fo a feeding frenzy. Stores open earlier and earlier, each vying for more customers. This is not prosperity. It is greed.
The mercantile madness is not limited to the winter holiday season. There are exhortations to buy the right car, the right jewelry and the right perfume. They imply that the right product will make you someone special. Children are overwhelmed with ads promoting a variety of toys. On the bad edge are the pharmaceutical commercials that imply that their pill will make you happier through better sex, better weight or the ability to piss like a racehorse.
We used to laugh at the silly commercials for things like Hai Karate cologne, Score shaving creme and Norelco razors. 40 years later and it is cute any more. It is like a sickness.
Again, this is not prosperity. It is pure, unbridled greed.
This is the perfect season for us to confront the mercantile mania. The time of Christmas glut is a great time for us because of our holiday, Yule. Christmas might be a big parade of extravagant excess, but Yule is our time for family, friends and spirituality. Yule is not Christmas, and our gift giving is not excessive. We seek to have a tasteful Yule which focuses on things that really count rather than bombarding folks with lavish geegaws. Here is where we most clearly see the difference between devotion and mercantile gluttony. Christmas is the annual shopping spree for the Christians. Yule is the annual household holiday for Heathens and other Pagans. Ours is not about what we spend on gifts, but with whom the holiday is spent. Ours is about caring rather than extravagance. Yule is generosity rather than greed, and love rather than excess.
Our things do not define us. Our identity is not found in a car or a suit or a diamond ring. We are not what we buy. Things are to serve us, rather than be the center of our attention.
Here we meet the paradox of the Fe Rune. The Fe Rune literally means Cattle. In ancient times, Cattle were the measure of a family’s wealth. The term Fe, sometimes rendered Fehu or Feoh, is etymologically linked to words such as fee and fine. It may go so far as to include Fief and Feudal. Cattle were an asset. Today, money is meant to be an asset. Money and other things are our “Fe.” They are ours to use. This is prosperity.
Fe has a shadow side wherein assets become masters. When assets become too important to us, they can become our masters. Assets become an obsession. Our Fe no longer serves, but we serve it. Ths is greed. The rampant mercantilism of Christmas is a prime example of the flip side of Fe. The mentality that says “You are what you own” is Fe gone bad. When that happens, do we own our assets or do they own us?
The merchant is not intrinsically evil. He is a source of needful supplies, and so is an example of Fe and Raido at work. There are many good merchants. The evil is in excess. It is the nature of merchants to seek profit. They do so by promoting their wares and improving the product. Our problem is that the promotion has gone to extremes. It has taken a season of traditional family holidays for Heathens, Pagans, Christians and Jews and turn it into mercantile muck. We need to take back our holidays.
Three questions will help put things in perspective:
What do I really need as opposed to what I want?
What do I think I need and what do I really need?
In my life ,where is the line between prosperity and greed?
Here are some ideas for you:
1) Keep Yule separate from Christmas, Hanukah and other holidays. Make your Yule fit your beliefs, be they Heathen, Wiccan or other Pagan. At Yule, we honor the Gods when we focus is on family and friends.
2) Gift giving is a pre-Christian tradition, so let’s keep it that way. Instead of giving whatever crap you see on TV commercials, give something thoughtful. Give with a thought of the receiver and not yourself. Make your gift meaningful. Most important, as a bulwark against mercantilism, set a limit on gifting. Focus less on the spending and more on the caring.
3) Toymakers launch unrelenting as campaigns on children. Parents need to teach children that what they see on TV is not always true. Ths is especially true of advertisements. Let them know that toy ads are trickery. Adult marketing specialists employ psychological tactics to target small children. To me, this is trickery of the worst kind. Parents need to be on the front line against such manipulating marketing.
4) If you must deal with Christmas, Hanukah or other holidays, do it judiciously. They may be your family’s holidays, but they are not yours. Try not to allow yourself to get sucked into their “giving means caring” attitude. Remember, the cost of the gift has nothing to do with affection. Fe measures assets, not sentiments. With family, compromises may have to be struck.
5) Mercantilism goes beyond the holidays. Manufacturers constantly promote their wares. The question you need ask is this: Do I need it? Will it really make my life better? Is this good for me, or for the merchant? Is the additional cost of a luxury going to give me additional benefits, or am I better off with the non-luxury version?
6) Live within your means. Do not overspend. There is no point filling your life with stuff, if all it does is make your poorer. Learn to cut back. There is a difference between being cheap and economizing. Cheap is related to greed. Economizing means making the most of your assets. Do you really need the new video game, the plasma TV or the oversize gas-guzzling SUV? Place needs before wants.
7) Quality first. If you buy something, make it a quality purchase. Learn to recognize the difference between quality and extravagance. Many times the better item is not the most expensive.
8) Use the 14 pound rule. If it doesn’t hit you with the impact of a 14 pound mall, don’t buy it. This is a great way to cut down on impulse buy and extravagance.
9) Real value is not revealed in cost. It is revealed in its usefulness to you and its intrinsic quality. A thing has value only if it is benefits you. When you must buy, look for the item that fits your specific need best. Again, it is likely not the most expensive. Many times, all we need is a moderately-priced version rather than the high-priced one. For you, value is personal. What has value to someone else might not be the same for you. When you know your needs, you get a better picture of value. Think about this.
In an era of marketing gimmicks such as planned obsolescence and created markets, we can find ourselves caught up in the mercantile fantasy. That is a sorry state. The marketeers are at a point where they can create a product before they create a market for it. For us, it is no way to live. We need to seriously detach from the bonds of greed. Our prosperity demands it. We cannot allow ourselves to be the marketer’s FE, buying every time they invent an artificial “demand.” We must control our own purse strings.
Remember ,the real richness of life is not in what we own, but how we live. Life free, live proud, and live wisely.
