A week or so ago, there was a discussion at Ozarque (just generally a very interesting read, by Suzette Haden Elgin), spread over a few posts, about, generally, money. Much of the conversation annoyed me, but I am now calmer about that, so I am going to respond to it, in parts. (I am wolfangel78 there.)
The gist is this: SHE was responding to an ad which went something like: a teenager girl asks her father for 80$ for jeans. He asks the name of the designer, goes and buys stock in that designer, and hands her the cash.
I pointed out that no designer sells their jeans for that little, that, in fact, average jeans come close to that.
The conversation then began to revolve around what is average, and what is reasonable, etc etc.
(I’m trying not to be too defensive, because I think this is just too reminiscent of my old roommate, who would sit there and wonder how I could spend my money on whatever, while she enjoyed using my whatever, which grated.)
We had lots of people laughing. Ha! Like Gap is average! I can get my jeans at Target/Walmart/thrift shop for 30/20/2! That’s average! Well, no, it’s not. Average means in the middle.[1] Not the cheapest or the most expensive. Of course you could get them for less, or you could get them for more. Ignoring the 4 digit prices, it’s easy to get 2 or 3 hundred dollar jeans at a mall in any middle class neighbourhood. Thrift shops are not average prices by any means, though you might be able to make a good case for 30$ jeans.
Then we had the Well, it’s just if you care about brands that you shop at the Gap, Target/Walmart/thriftshops have jeans that look as good and last as long etc etc. Point one: expensive things are often expensive for a reason. They fit better, wear better. Point two: my time is worth something. I can walk into a Gap-brand store and I know the jeans there fit me well. I dislike shopping for jeans, so making this process painless is worth something on top of my time. Gap is certainly not a trendy, cool brand, either.
And there was the question of morality: is it *immoral* to buy jeans that cost 80 dollars? But at what point is a luxury immoral? Is it immoral to go out to dinner, since you could make the same food at home for less? Immoral to buy other than the store brand of anything? Immoral to travel, since you could save all that money? Immoral to buy new computers, or more expensive computers than you absolutely need? Buying them at all, since there are public libraries with computers? Immoral to use washing machines instead of washing your clothes by hand? Immoral to buy books, because you could go to the library instead, or donate all the books you buy to the library? Immoral to see movies? At what level are we allowed to spend more money to make our lives easier or more pleasant? Is it only ok to ask this of people who have money, or can we also tell people without money that it’s immoral to smoke or drink or eat dessert or whatever? Stephen at Ethesis also made this point, which no one there responded to. Presumably because everyone has their own little luxuries which they are understandably unwilling to give up. My contention is that if you have some, you really have no basis to condemn them in other people.
Of course I judge people too — someone remarked upon a $10million bat mitzvah which is really horrifying. I don’t know where I draw my line, but it’s somewhere after 80$ for jeans and before 10,000,000$ for a party.
But it’s interesting, the amount of self-righteousness — to which I was not immune — there, about what is and isn’t appropriate or ok to spend money on, what people do or don’t “deserve” and what they are or aren’t “entitled” to. (I dislike those verbs; they give much the wrong emphasis.) Where it is okay to spend money on yourself and where it isn’t. (The answer, of course, is that whatever I do is right, and anything different isn’t.)
I want to defend spending more than the absolute minimum of money necessary, but I am not into conspicuous consumption, either, and I can’t figure out if this is just the answer above or something more thought-out. I am not sure, either, why some things are okay to spend on (computers, books, food) and others not (clothes, televisions). I can come up with some ideas, of course, but none seem quite right.
The word ‘need’ doesn’t work for those purchases but — few people only purchase what they actually *need*. It’s rather hypocritical.
In the end, I try to stick to one rule: you can insult what other people buy or like (it’s fun), but not to their faces.
[1] Yes, it has other meanings, many of which are precise.