Shopping for Salvation in a Brand New World
George Gonzalez asks “Will the revolution be commodified?” Continue Reading →
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My Wish This Valentine's Day
By George González
No doubt, much of our contemporary consumer society is magical and ecstatic. This extends to our niche and lucrative markets in love and romance. Hallmark and Hollywood movies send the message that the truest expressions of romantic love are ones that sweep up two individuals—preferably heterosexual, white, English speaking, lovely and bourgeois—into a world where little else matters but the passionate love the protagonists share. Similarly, the multinational chocolatiers have to assume this kind of self absorption when they ask us to give that special person in our life a box of chocolates. The companies do not want us to think about the child labor, much of it in the Ivory Coast, that actually produces the cocoa that makes Valentine’s Day sweet for the American consumer of romance. By and large, the chocolate industry is not kind to African farmers. My wish, this Valentine’s Day, is that religious conversations about love turn away from the singular focus on gender—another form of self absorption–and draw more and more upon powerful religious resources for understanding the ethics of sociality and gift exchange. Marcel Mauss, the anthropologist, stressed the ways in which gift giving creates powerful bonds of obligation between the giver and the receiver of a gift precisely because one always gives spiritually and existentially of oneself when one gives a gift. One loses part of one’s soul, as it were, if one fails to reciprocate and repay a gift. To this let us add the more critical idea that when we give gifts in an economy of consumption, the existences of the very people who make the totems and fetishes we live and even love by are rendered invisible by the workings of commodity magic. Jesus, echoing prophetic Judaism, is understood by Christians to stand with and lift up the least among us. For all they can also occlude, religious narratives and practices can also provide resources for remembering. What is owed the least among us whose very real hands, sweat and tears we fail to see?
My Wish This Valentine’s Day
By George González
No doubt, much of our contemporary consumer society is magical and ecstatic. This extends to our niche and lucrative markets in love and romance. Hallmark and Hollywood movies send the message that the truest expressions of romantic love are ones that sweep up two individuals—preferably heterosexual, white, English speaking, lovely and bourgeois—into a world where little else matters but the passionate love the protagonists share. Similarly, the multinational chocolatiers have to assume this kind of self absorption when they ask us to give that special person in our life a box of chocolates. The companies do not want us to think about the child labor, much of it in the Ivory Coast, that actually produces the cocoa that makes Valentine’s Day sweet for the American consumer of romance. By and large, the chocolate industry is not kind to African farmers. My wish, this Valentine’s Day, is that religious conversations about love turn away from the singular focus on gender—another form of self absorption–and draw more and more upon powerful religious resources for understanding the ethics of sociality and gift exchange. Marcel Mauss, the anthropologist, stressed the ways in which gift giving creates powerful bonds of obligation between the giver and the receiver of a gift precisely because one always gives spiritually and existentially of oneself when one gives a gift. One loses part of one’s soul, as it were, if one fails to reciprocate and repay a gift. To this let us add the more critical idea that when we give gifts in an economy of consumption, the existences of the very people who make the totems and fetishes we live and even love by are rendered invisible by the workings of commodity magic. Jesus, echoing prophetic Judaism, is understood by Christians to stand with and lift up the least among us. For all they can also occlude, religious narratives and practices can also provide resources for remembering. What is owed the least among us whose very real hands, sweat and tears we fail to see?
I Love You, I Do.
We asked our Near and Dear to tell us something about today, the day when we celebrate love–or loss or absence or grief or joy or chocolate or the color red. Valentine’s Day is one of those not-so-holy (or so-holiday) holidays we bump into on the annual calendar, on our way to spring, rebirth and Easter rising. We didn’t really know what we’d get for our asking.
It’s an odd and fascinating assortment of reflections and observations from some of our favorite loves–our regular contributors, family and friends. Happy Valentine’s Day! We love you, we do!
“Month of Valentines” by Stacy Doris
“#MyGrownUpValentine” by Ashley Baxstrom with image by Angela Zito
“A Buddhist Valentine” by S. Brent Plate
“My Friend” by Jacob Glatstein, translated from the Yiddish by Peter Manseau
“A Valentine Offering” by Genevieve Yue
“My Wish this Valentine’s Day” by George González
“A Simple Dinner” by Anthea Butler
“St. Valentine’s Fallen Face” by David Metcalfe
“Heart in the Snow” by Mary Valle
“A Red Bagel” by Adam Becker
“The Gospel of Sacred Candy Hearts” by Amy Levin
“Be Mine” by Jeremy Walton
image: “Heart to Heart” by Angela Zito Continue Reading →
All the Market's a Stage
By George González
Placards at this weekend’s forced evacuation of “Occupy Boston,” as elsewhere in the country, defiantly read, “You Can’t Evict an Idea.” This kind of contention is key to understanding the sophisticated politics of the “Occupy Movement.” The seeming contradiction between this notion and the original focus on the physical occupation of space exemplifies the genius of the movement.
In my previous post, “The Market, Warren Buffet and the Occupation of Wall Street,” I discussed how arguments which overstate the rationalist dimensions of economic life, whatever their political persuasion, are dangerous because they contribute to misunderstandings of how economic power actually works in our daily lives. If we misdiagnose the stakes or misread the landscape, our social critique is impaired. I made the point that, in practice, Warren Buffett’s financial empire understands quite well the “emotional content of economics,” as one of my mentors, Bethany Moreton, nicely puts it. Yet, his solutions for improving our economic lot are strangely rationalist given the multifaceted ways in which his company does business. What I mean by this is that his solution is formal, proceduralist and bureaucratic. It makes a policy appeal regarding tax law and commends legislative approaches. Legislative and legal activism that benefits from ten-point plans and specific policy goals are, no doubt, very important pragmatic dimensions of the work that needs to be done. Such work, however, does not begin to exhaust what is meant by the mantra Occupy Everything! nor begin to exhaust the sakes as many “occupiers” understand them. Continue Reading →
All the Market’s a Stage
By George González
Placards at this weekend’s forced evacuation of “Occupy Boston,” as elsewhere in the country, defiantly read, “You Can’t Evict an Idea.” This kind of contention is key to understanding the sophisticated politics of the “Occupy Movement.” The seeming contradiction between this notion and the original focus on the physical occupation of space exemplifies the genius of the movement.
In my previous post, “The Market, Warren Buffet and the Occupation of Wall Street,” I discussed how arguments which overstate the rationalist dimensions of economic life, whatever their political persuasion, are dangerous because they contribute to misunderstandings of how economic power actually works in our daily lives. If we misdiagnose the stakes or misread the landscape, our social critique is impaired. I made the point that, in practice, Warren Buffett’s financial empire understands quite well the “emotional content of economics,” as one of my mentors, Bethany Moreton, nicely puts it. Yet, his solutions for improving our economic lot are strangely rationalist given the multifaceted ways in which his company does business. What I mean by this is that his solution is formal, proceduralist and bureaucratic. It makes a policy appeal regarding tax law and commends legislative approaches. Legislative and legal activism that benefits from ten-point plans and specific policy goals are, no doubt, very important pragmatic dimensions of the work that needs to be done. Such work, however, does not begin to exhaust what is meant by the mantra Occupy Everything! nor begin to exhaust the sakes as many “occupiers” understand them. Continue Reading →
The Market, Warren Buffett, and the Occupation of Wall Street
The power of consumer society works precisely by blurring the distinction between the street and the interests of financial markets.
By George González
“Do You Really Think 3000 People Are Here at This Park Today to Make a Point About Nothing Important?”–Sign written by one of the protesters at Occupy Wall Street in New York City
In his national debate-stirring NY Times op-ed, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” Warren Buffett calls for “shared sacrifice” in American public life. Specifically, he argues that current tax codes allow the “super rich,” a group he certainly belongs to, to pay into the public trust at much lower rates than the working and middle classes, who are increasingly squeezed by unemployment and underemployment. Buffett identifies this one important aspect of the disparities he, I and many Americans bemoan: the fact that income produced by wage labor is taxed at higher rates than are the financial gains made by those who “make money from money” or even off wage laborers.
As an ethnographer who tends to understand practices and ideas as dimensions of the human experience within the context of specific life-worlds (or what some anthropologists call cosmologies), the question of what causes a society to value some kinds of labor over others is exceedingly complex. I would look to social practices—not just normative ideas—in an effort to tackle such a question. Continue Reading →
In the News: Mad Men, Mormons, Monks, and more!
A round-up of the week’s religion news. Continue Reading →
Venezuela's Personal Jesus
In the weeks following the death of Hugo Chávez, thousands of his supporters flocked to Caracas to view his body. Ezra Fieser was there to learn more about the myth, the man and his “Jesus image.” Continue Reading →
Venezuela’s Personal Jesus
In the weeks following the death of Hugo Chávez, thousands of his supporters flocked to Caracas to view his body. Ezra Fieser was there to learn more about the myth, the man and his “Jesus image.” Continue Reading →