Consumerism has become a cult of things people don't need - to an absurd degree, writes Angela Long
GET OUT your hair shirts. What, you haven't got any? Seventy per cent off in certain good department stores. The recession, or "deceleration", if you will, is going to fit us all with a new fashion, stripped right down. TV fashion dictator Gok Wan and his slashing scissors will have nothing on the effect of the wallets vandalised by developments such as Bord Gáis's 20 per cent price increase.
And that might be no bad thing. A bit of stripping down, back-to-basics, a lessening of the accumulation of the unnecessary, would be purgative and purifying.
Not that I am anxious to suffer, and I am sure that you aren't either. The prosperity boom was a pleasant long-term visitor in our lives, but many were seduced into thinking it would always be like this, surfing along on a tide of plenty. Just look at The Young, who have no idea that there isn't a fluid money channel running smoothly under every home in the land. As we got richer, more and more stuff was bought, and more and more places opened full of stuff for us to buy - stuff that we didn't, and don't, really need.
Just look around the shopping centres and streets of the land. Lots of shiny pretty things, things to make you feel good, but all very much the icing on the cake, and sometimes even the cake is difficult to find. Try buying a ball of string, a pair of shoelaces, or something to store socks in. Practical things, that is. But if you want a 48th pair of shoes or yet another frilly top that won't go with anything, there they are in droves.
And for some people, such as men, there are gadgets. Computer gadgets, internet accessories preferably, or maybe something like an intelligent wine cooler, a wireless floating speaker or an Ecobutton, which prevents your computer from using maximum energy when you're not using it. Sometimes it seems that the achievement of modern civilisation has been to move as far as possible from things we actually need.
Dundrum Town Centre is a wonderful place, a mecca for millions. Fifty million, at the latest count. And no doubt it boasts a community theatre, cinemas, adult education centre, restaurants, public square, offices and apartments, among other features. It also has about 14 places to buy accessories, 20 to buy shoes, and more than 30 for ladies' fashions, with just a few less for the increasingly looks-conscious Irish male.
But if you want basic stuff - widgets, grommets, doorknobs - you can forget it.
The story is much the same on Grafton Street in Dublin. Even on the other side of the Liffey, it's a long walk down Mary Street to get to some well-matured shops where things people actually need are on sale. On the way, there are shoe shops, dress shops, accessory shops, maybe a chemist or two, department stores full of more clothes and accessories, with perhaps some mugs and cushions to join the mugs and cushions you already own.
Consumerism has become a cult of things people don't need - to an absurd degree. It all makes merry music at the tills, but buying what you don't want has become such a sport that basics are minimised.
Some time ago, a US website dedicated to telling people how to store their stuff and squeeze their ever-burgeoning possessions into their tiny and expensive dwellings, commented that part of the problem was duplication and overbuying - though it didn't use those nasty expressions.
Quoting one "storage expert", it noted that nobody designing bedroom storage a decade ago realised that people would own 30 white shirts and 30 pairs of black trousers. And that's on top of their dozen grey trousers, six red shirts, and shoe collections to rival Filipina fetishist Imelda Marcos.
Shopping addiction has become an everyday feature rather than a problem. Surveys in countries like ours show shopping is the number-one leisure activity for droves of people. Go into store, look at things, hand over money for things, walk out with bags. Some leisure activity. But it's all in pursuit of happiness, that sense of completeness that flashes by when the latest bags are handed over.
An American market researcher has made a writing career producing books with names like Why People Buy Things They Don't Need. But what Pamela Danziger hasn't told us is why we can't buy things we do need. In Dublin, it's often because the shops aren't there anymore, swept away in the tide of consumer obsession with the unnecessary.
The Ballroom of Romance has closed; our modern lustful romance with Things is due to have a bucket of cold water thrown over it.
Take comfort: that hair shirt might itch, but it will be easier to store than 25 silk ones you didn't need.
Angela Long is a journalist and media consultant