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This week: Hoarder and Chaos Edited by: Waltz Invictus  
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“...What do you do with all your money?"
"Me and the French hoard gold.”
-Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future.
-Samuel Johnson |
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In my considered opinion, there are certain ethical values that are relatively easy to adhere to if you're relatively well-off. High on that list, I think, is the idea "it is wrong to steal." Now, ignoring for the moment that once you get past "relatively well-off" territory and into the land of, say, Wall Street and cable internet providers, such ethical considerations go right out the window, I'll specify the kind of stealing most people think of: you have a thing, I want the thing, so I wait until you announce your vacation on Faceback, then go over to your house and take the thing. Hypothetically speaking, that is; I'm relatively well-off, so I have no reason to take your thing.
This isn't necessarily the case for the less fortunate. In their case, hypothetically, you have a thing, and they want the thing because it can sell for enough money to maybe buy them a couple of meals. Or booze, which is equally important. I mean, people deride the homeless for spending the money they beg on booze, but really, if you were homeless, trust me, you'd need to drink, too.
My parents were old when I was born, and I'm old now, so they had clear, vivid memories of the Depression, when everyone except certain thieves were less fortunate and possibly homeless. Everyone who went through that period in American history, roughly the entire 1930s, developed attitudes that those of us born in later times of apparent plenty find odd, quaint, or downright weird. One such attitude can be summed up as:
"Save that. You might need it later."
I'm pretty sure that's what caused the Baby Boom a decade later. They decided that one or two babies wasn't enough and they had to make more, just in case.
Now, of course, despite at least three recessions and seven or eight wars (I've lost count) since that time, the popular attitude isn't "hold onto that thing" but "get rid of that thing." Partly, this is because over the past 80 or so years, the primary purpose of the US economy has shifted from making things to selling things, and they can't sell you things if you already have things.
The other day, I was looking for my drill. I couldn't find it, so I called my ex. "Hey, ex, did you 'borrow' my drill?" "Yes," she said. "You hardly ever used it."
"Well, yeah, but now I need it." I suppose that, according to "hoarding" guidelines, if I haven't used something for a year, I should give it to my ex instead (or something). Then, when I need to drill a thing, I should go out and buy a new drill to support the American economy instead of 'borrowing' it back from my ex, which could possibly be construed as illegal depending on whether I told her I was borrowing it or not. (Okay, to be fair, we bought it when we weren't exes yet, so she had as much of a claim on it as I did.)
I know a guy who collected Legos. He has vast boxes and crates of them. Hasn't built a Lego thing in years and years, but still has the bricks. I don't ask him why he keeps the old Legos around; it's not just because of sentimental reasons, but because if, at some point, he gets it in his head to build a Lego version of the Tower of Sauron or something, he'll have the materials right there and wouldn't have to go buy more. Good for him; bad for Lego and sellers of Lego. I really should put a (TM) after each Lego (TM), but come on, we all know Lego is trademarked.
So don't listen to the TV when it tells you to throw away your perfectly good stuff. The TV is there to sell you things, and it can't sell you things if you already have things, so they're not exactly unbiased. Now, I'm not saying it's not possible to go too far with this - you really don't need that stack of empty pizza boxes or the couch which made it through World War II and now sports multiple war scars - but throwing things away is something that only the very well-off really have the ability to do.
And then, only if they've successfully hoarded money with which to buy new things. |
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Comedy: July 01, 2015 Issue [#7071]
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