parfois!
Today I found the ugliest assortment of Christmas bulbs ever manufactured, hand-blown in India for Old Navy (really), "Targét," and some other unnamed temple to misguided consumption, overpaid marketers, and underpaid producers. I reflected on the bulbs (and for that matter, in them, but that is a different story), both because the holidays sometimes provide ample reason to remain in musty basements longer than needed, and because I found in these hideous artifacts some twisted commentary on our collective idea of value.
We are all taught a simple formula - value, or rather, price, is a relation between scarcity and demand. Demand may be elastic or inelastic, but this itself is a function of relative value. Inelastic demand comes from objects that satisfy basic needs, or that are priced so low that any modest increase would not impact the decision to purchase. In other words, it relates to the things we need the most, and the things that seem to impact our financial lives the least. But what does it mean to "need" something, and how is value affected when cost becomes meaningless?
There're many answers, both varied and valid, but this is the one I came across that struck me the most.
http://www.slate.com/id/2083452/Because often, when price is meaningless, the need is abstract. In this case, meaning, whatever the Sotheby assessment, is a matter of narrative significance. The article undersells the enormously decadent saltshaker by implying it could be replaced by a four-dollar table set from Target - a short trip to the smelter could turn that irreplaceable, irreplicable piece of Western cultural history (a true monument to décadence) into several thousand dollars worth of bullion. Inevitably, though, we would say that it had lost "value." But what do we lament, the entropic loss of Cellini's virtuosic craftsmanship, or the gaping hole in our archeological record - the dissolution of an artifact into specious accounts and unremarkable specie. Both of course, but while the one has disappeared permanently, the figurative loss remains: a debit against the past that cannot be repaid.
And so, in the spirit of Christmas, we remember that it's "the thought that counts," but that thought is fear. This fear of being without the hard stuff, the bullion, the proof takes on a ritualistic quality come the holiday season. Who wants to be the one without a gift? The social capital invested in the wrapped whatever-it-is has far more value than the item itself. This is not the same as spontaneous giving. We all know which gifts we may have bought each other anyway, out of pure consideration (though the cynic would suggest that they all fall in the category of items with meaningless cost). We also know the season creates certain holes that must be filled, lest our stories and our cultural memory slip into "the" abyss. Otherwise, there may be empty spots on your Christmas tree.
That's why we buy cheap ornaments when the tree's about to go up, even if some poor Bangledeshi uttered an ancient curse on the miserable designer when she had committed another day to blowing his nauseating glass balls. The fear of losing meaning at this highly meaningful time compels some people, including my precious mother, to buy these absurdities even when quaint and perfectly lovely orbs sit below piles of other trucs (there is no real translation for "stuff").
That's why I took them to the garbage and smashed them individually. And go figure, there was nothing inside.
(sauf, peut-être, une histoire).
also, on spending time in the basement alone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39UJuPogwiY
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