I realized today that I live a sheltered life. I've managed to insulate myself from the worst of American popular culture by watching television only rarely and by almost never entering a mall. A trip to the mall yesterday and a restaurant outing today have focused my attention on materialism and excess as the truly obscene factors in our society. According to an op-ed by Jim Wallis of Sojourners, I have more company than I would have thought.
(more in extended entry)
We've had out-of-town relatives visiting for the past few days. Yesterday, my husband and I took advantage of a rare opportunity to get out of the house without our children and went to the mall to pick up a few things for the house. I've been doing most of my shopping, except for groceries, online for the past 6 years. Walking though stores yesterday, I found myself revolted by the overflowing displays of extravagant merchandise. I'm sure the stores looked the same six years ago, but my long absence, the political awakening I've experienced over the past two years, and the current situation in SE Asia have conspired to sensitize me.
Today we went out to lunch with our relatives. My family doesn't go out to eat all that often these days. I made a conscious decision to use money we would have spent in restaurants to support candidates and causes that I believe in. Today we went to a new restaurant, the Cheesecake Factory. I was dumbfounded by the portion sizes. The glasses, plates, and bowls were all huge, double the size that anyone would have in the house. The soft drinks came in enormous glasses. Most of the adults ordered salads, and they were served in large flat bowls that I would have used as serving platters. I could only finish about a third. There was no children's menu, so some of the children had grilled cheese sandwiches. These arrived on platters overflowing with fries and on bread that was oversized. One man ordered a club sandwich, and this turned out to be 8-10 "quarters" lined up on a platter with fries. My older son, who was not very hungry, ordered something from the appetizer menu that would have been a generous portion for an adult. For dessert, they offer a couple of dozen varieties of cheesecake, served in huge slices. (No one could face the thought of dessert.) I found the whole experience truly obscene. I could not help thinking of the starving people in distant countries.
A few weeks ago I happened to catch an episode of "Meet the Press" where Russert's guests were four ministers: Falwell and another fundamentalist preacher, Al Sharpton, and someone named Jim Wallis. I'd never heard of him before, but I was so impressed that I looked up his website. I went there today, and saw a link to an op-ed that he's had published in US Today. The whole thing is well worth reading, but I was particularly struck by the following excerpt:
Polls taken since the election have consistently shown that Americans care about moral values -- and don't restrict them to one or two issues. For instance, a Zogby International poll found that, when asked to choose the "most urgent moral problem in American culture," 64% of respondents selected either "greed and materialism" or "poverty and economic justice," while 28% chose abortion or gay marriage. Voters don't want to ignore these broader issues.
I had no idea that there was such widespread concern about these issues. There seems to be an opportunity here, both to exploit it to our political advantage, and to modify the unfortunate state of our society.
Any ideas?