Gifts...

[Gob]

There’s nothing they need, nothing they don’t own already, nothing they even want.

So you buy them a solar-powered waving queen; a belly button brush; a silver-plated ice cream tub holder; a “hilarious” inflatable zimmer frame; a confection of plastic and electronics called Terry the Swearing Turtle; or – and somehow I find this significant – a Scratch Off World wall map.

They seem amusing on the first day of Christmas, daft on the second, embarrassing on the third. By the twelfth they’re in landfill. For thirty seconds of dubious entertainment, or a hedonic stimulus that lasts no longer than a nicotine hit, we commission the use of materials whose impacts will ramify for generations.

Researching her film The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard discovered that of the materials flowing through the consumer economy, only 1% remain in use six months after sale(1). Even the goods we might have expected to hold onto are soon condemned to destruction through either planned obsolescence (breaking quickly) or perceived obsolesence (becoming unfashionable).

But many of the products we buy, especially for Christmas, cannot become obsolescent. The term implies a loss of utility, but they had no utility in the first place. An electronic drum-machine t-shirt; a Darth Vader talking piggy bank; an ear-shaped i-phone case; an individual beer can chiller; an electronic wine breather; a sonic screwdriver remote control; bacon toothpaste; a dancing dog: no one is expected to use them, or even look at them, after Christmas Day. They are designed to elicit thanks, perhaps a snigger or two, and then be thrown away.

The fatuity of the products is matched by the profundity of the impacts. Rare materials, complex electronics, the energy needed for manufacture and transport are extracted and refined and combined into compounds of utter pointlessness. When you take account of the fossil fuels whose use we commission in other countries, manufacturing and consumption are responsible for more than half of our carbon dioxide production(2). We are screwing the planet to make solar-powered bath thermometers and desktop crazy golfers.

People in eastern Congo are massacred to facilitate smart phone upgrades of ever diminishing marginal utility(3). Forests are felled to make “personalised heart-shaped wooden cheese board sets”. Rivers are poisoned to manufacture talking fish. This is pathological consumption: a world-consuming epidemic of collective madness, rendered so normal by advertising and the media that we scarcely notice what has happened to us.

In 2007, the journalist Adam Welz records, 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa. This year, so far, 585 have been shot(4). No one is entirely sure why. But one answer is that very rich people in Vietnam are now sprinkling ground rhino horn on their food or snorting it like cocaine to display their wealth. It’s grotesque, but it scarcely differs from what almost everyone in industrialised nations is doing: trashing the living world through pointless consumption.

This boom has not happened by accident. Our lives have been corralled and shaped in order to encourage it. World trade rules force countries to participate in the festival of junk. Governments cut taxes, deregulate business, manipulate interest rates to stimulate spending. But seldom do the engineers of these policies stop and ask “spending on what?”. When every conceivable want and need has been met (among those who have disposable money), growth depends on selling the utterly useless. The solemnity of the state, its might and majesty, are harnessed to the task of delivering Terry the Swearing Turtle to our doors.

Grown men and women devote their lives to manufacturing and marketing this rubbish, and dissing the idea of living without it. “I always knit my gifts”, says a woman in a television ad for an electronics outlet. “Well you shouldn’t,” replies the narrator(5). An advertisement for Google’s latest tablet shows a father and son camping in the woods. Their enjoyment depends on the Nexus 7’s special features(6). The best things in life are free, but we’ve found a way of selling them to you.

The growth of inequality that has accompanied the consumer boom ensures that the rising economic tide no longer lifts all boats. In the US in 2010 a remarkable 93% of the growth in incomes accrued to the top 1% of the population(7). The old excuse, that we must trash the planet to help the poor, simply does not wash. For a few decades of extra enrichment for those who already possess more money than they know how to spend, the prospects of everyone else who will live on this earth are diminished.

So effectively have governments, the media and advertisers associated consumption with prosperity and happiness that to say these things is to expose yourself to opprobrium and ridicule. Witness last week’s Moral Maze programme, in which most of the panel lined up to decry the idea of consuming less, and to associate it, somehow, with authoritarianism(8). When the world goes mad, those who resist are denounced as lunatics.

Bake them a cake, write them a poem, give them a kiss, tell them a joke, but for god’s sake stop trashing the planet to tell someone you care. All it shows is that you don’t.

www.monbiot.com

1. http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-stuff/

2. It’s 57%. See http://www.monbiot.com/2010/05/05/carbon-graveyard/

3. See the film Blood in the Mobile. http://bloodinthemobile.org/

4. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_dirty_ ... inos/2595/

5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7VE2wlD ... FQ&index=9

6. http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/07/commer ... -revealed/

7. Emmanuel Saez, 2nd March 2012. Striking it Richer: the Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States (Updated with 2009 and 2010 estimates). http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-USt ... s-2010.pdf

8. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p424r

[Reality Bytes]

Well I happen to have bought my nephew a Terry The Swearing Turtle as his Xmas gift from me this year I was so tickled by it when it arrived and I tested it that I recommended it to several other people who have also now purchased it as a gift for their friends and family who are "hard to buy for". I know for sure that the Terry I bought will be used and used regularly, I also suspect Terry might well venture overseas from time to time in the company of my brother. Terrys "voice" is very silly and enough to make you giggle without the added childishness of the random swearing. I only tested it on the PG setting as I didn't want to take it out of the box as its a gift, but the sight of my dog looking totally bewildered wondering just who the heck had shouted "anal probe!" at him as he walked along the empty hallway setting off the motion sensor was enough to make me cry laughing!

[rubato]

Buying someone TTST isn't getting them an object, its getting them an experience. For that purpose it is irrelevent what happens to Terry after x-mas.



yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

We bought a mate one of the inflatable Zimmer frames mentioned in the article for his birthday, (he's 56, but looks 76.) The funniest thing about it was when he damn near passed out trying to blow the bloody thing up. Oh how we laughed.

[Miles]

Many years ago I had a friend, female, who had emergency surgey just before Christmas. Some friends and I visited a local adult book/porn store and purchased a rather large green dildo. It was quite pliable with a filler hole in one end and a much smaller hole in the other. We filled it with small curd cottage cheese and gave it to her in her hospital room. We got in trouble with one of the nurses as she laughed so hard her stiches were in peril.

[rubato]

We bought a mate one of the inflatable Zimmer frames mentioned in the article for his birthday, (he's 56, but looks 76.) The funniest thing about it was when he damn near passed out trying to blow the bloody thing up. Oh how we laughed.

Theater!


Not really about 'stuff' at all.

yrs,
rubato

[Jarlaxle]

Just one more reason that I want NOTHING. As with the last few years, my policy quite clear: gifts addressed to me will be destroyed unopened.

[dgs49]

It's a losing battle. After 39 years of marriage I have received every conceivable gift already, and the fact is, if I want something I just go out and buy it for myself. But if I don't tell my wife something she will buy something stupid, then be hurt when I take it back.

I need to buy a bigger house to store all the junk. The problem is that none of it is "junk." It is all high-quality, expensive stuff that I simply have no use for.

The only comforting thing is that we keep the economy humming along by buying stuff that we don't need. If we only bought what we need, the economy would slow to a crawl.

[Jarlaxle]

Tell her you want NOTHING. I did.

[Rick]

Jar you eat too much red meat maybe you ought to eat a carrot or something every now and again...

[Lord Jim]

I need to buy a bigger house to store all the junk. The problem is that none of it is "junk." It is all high-quality, expensive stuff that I simply have no use for.

Two words Dave; "Yard sale".....

Just one more reason that I want NOTHING. As with the last few years, my policy quite clear: gifts addressed to me will be destroyed unopened...

Tell her you want NOTHING. I did.

You'll have to forgive Jarl....

He hasn't been the same since his partner Jacob Marley passed away....

[dales]

I need to buy a bigger house to store all the junk. The problem is that none of it is "junk." It is all high-quality, expensive stuff that I simply have no use for.

Give the crap away since you have no use for it. The LORD loves a cheerful giver and Merry Xmas, ya big lug!

[dales]

Just one more reason that I want NOTHING. As with the last few years, my policy quite clear: gifts addressed to me will be destroyed unopened.

Would that include the ownership papers to a 427 Cobra?

[The Hen]

I really like Christmas
It's sentimental, I know, but I just really like it
I am hardly religious
I'd rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu, to be honest

And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To consumerism, the commercialisation of an ancient religion
To the westernisation of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer
But I still really like it

I'm looking forward to Christmas
Though I'm not expecting a visit from Jesus

I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

I don't go in for ancient wisdom
I don't believe just 'cos ideas are tenacious it means they are worthy
I get freaked out by churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy

And yes I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation of children who, in tax-exempt institutions, 
Are taught to externalise blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs

I'm not expecting big presents
The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolate is just fine by me

Cos I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

And you, my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You'll be handed round the room
Like a puppy at a primary school
And you won't understand
But you will learn someday 
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people who'll make you feel safe in this world
My sweet blue-eyed girl

And if, my baby girl
When you're twenty-one or thirty-one
And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home
You'll know what ever comes
Your brother and sisters and me and your Mum
Will be waiting for you in the sun
Whenever you come
Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum
We'll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Darling, when Christmas comes
We'll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Waiting for you... 
Waiting... 

I really like Christmas
It's sentimental, I know...

[Jarlaxle]

Just one more reason that I want NOTHING. As with the last few years, my policy quite clear: gifts addressed to me will be destroyed unopened.

Would that include the ownership papers to a 427 Cobra?

Yes. next question.

[Sean]

Just one more reason that I want NOTHING. As with the last few years, my policy quite clear: gifts addressed to me will be destroyed unopened.

Do you give gifts at Christmas Jarl?

[rubato]

Just one more reason that I want NOTHING. As with the last few years, my policy quite clear: gifts addressed to me will be destroyed unopened.

Your own little private "Theater of the Absurd"!


If you sing a song while they're destroyed or use some creative or interesting mode of destruction you can film it and put it on U-Tube!


But will you destroy them unopened? A morally, spiritually and theatrically pure act? Or will you peak before dropping them into boiling Aqua Regia so you can save one if its something you really like?



yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

Aqua Regia

Fun stuff always a good choice...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Just one more reason that I want NOTHING. As with the last few years, my policy quite clear: gifts addressed to me will be destroyed unopened.

Doesn't that leave you wondering if the kitten was already dead? Or something?

[Sue U]

Doesn't that leave you wondering if the kitten was already dead? Or something?

First check to see if the box is from Erwin Schroedinger.