Hey all,
I was at the mall food court the other day and picked up another interesting ad. The mall and a couple other organizations are sponsoring a charity drive. All you have to do is buy things from certain stores and part of your purchase money will go the charity of your choice. However, wouldn't it make more sense to give all your money to the charity and not have to buy anything? Also, wouldn't a person get more satisfaction by simply giving all the money to the charity instead of buying something for themselves? Lastly, the charities would gain much more money by a donation instead of a small portion of a purchase.
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Those are good questions, CT. But what does the combining of charity with purchase tell us about our culture? How do we view the act of buying things for ourselves? Does giving to charity make the purchase more satisfying because in doing something for ourselves we are also doing something for someone else? Is this also a false discount? If part of the sale goes to charity, then we presume the actual purchase was somehow discounted. In a sense we are getting something extra for our money and giving that to someone else. Are we conflicted about our shopping culture? Does this say something about shame? Money? Consumption?
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