Running of the poor (part 2)

Some might say that the mall is the site for the middle class, what has replaced parks, markets, public space, community. The mall is where there is no class, where there are all sorts of people and all sorts of neat things to buy. I don't believe it. Most of the employees make minimum wage. Many are part time. The mall might not want poverty to be visible. It might not want us to think about how much things cost. It might want us to imagine ourselves as privileged, wealthy, where money is no object. But, desperation is there, permeating the entire place. It's not hard to see.

And now, some go shopping armed not with bags but with weapons. Television news around here has been asking people if they are scared to shop. No one is. Maybe this is what is scary--fearless, armed shoppers, at least some of whom are sick of everything.

Link: Omaha.com Business Section.

"My friends and I used to shop at Younkers and Express. We hung out at the movie theaters all the time. And who didn't go to Bishop's with their grandparents?" she said of the longtime cafeteria.

Continuing to add new stores and to respond to customers will have more of a long-term effect than the shootings, said Malachy Kavanagh of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

"Obviously, there is a period of time for mourning, a very appropriate time," Kavanagh said. "But . . . people have a connectivity to their center."

A person's favorite mall can be the site of first jobs and first dates, and it offers familiarity and comfort, Kavanagh said.

That makes something like Wednesday's shooting even more horrific, he said.

"It's sort of an invasion of a sanctuary in some terms. It will take time for some to go back, but others will go back immediately, almost in defiance of this individual."

Some morning radio deejays this week exhorted listeners to return to Westroads to shop as soon as it reopens.

The mall as violated sanctuary, the sacrosanct temple of consumption. This strikes me as infinitely more horrific than the fact that in a country unwilling to disallow weapons people sometimes shoot each other.  The comfort of the mall?  It sounds like a small town, but one without incest and abuse, alcoholism and suicide, lynchings and cross-burnings. Even the mall has its obscene supplement. But the shooter isn't it; the shooter is barely a symptom. Rather, the obscene supplement, what we have to suppress even to go in, is the truth that the people who make most of the products cannot buy them, that the people who provide most of the services cannot afford them, and that, really, we don't even want them. We go because it's all we know to do; it's the only sanctuary left. All those other sites we've imagined have lost their appeal.

So we should congregate, run, stampede. And then make something new.

Comments

[Joe Clement]

My girlfriend and I had an argument in the car one day about bars/taverns/pubs, and the commodification of our social spaces. I made the comment that for as disgusting as they were for my own personal reasons (growing up in a family of alcoholics and bartenders), I felt that most bars preserve something against the kind of commodification of spaces that leads to "the mall" as a sanctuary.

Of course, I had to admit, practically every bar is chock-full of commodities. That wasn't my point though. Commodities are everywhere unless you are a fascist little town in the Swiss Alps. My point was that there is something unimaginably local about different bar-scenes that escapes the commodity form.

My girlfriend's retort was, "what about the Irish Pub?" We went back and forth on it, and I still don't think it addresses the breadth of the issue. Not all bars/taverns/pubs are Irish Pubs, nor is there any desire for them to be. Then there is the club-scene, which marches very close to the bar-scene, especially in a hip big-city like Portland. I still think that most people go to most bars/taverns/pubs because they're there, with booze and a familiar entourage, like they've been for hundreds of not a thousand years or more.

To that end, the consumption of booze is largely cultural, and has been around far longer than the commodity. Likewise getting together in a sanctioned place to drink booze has history that exceeds the commodity form.

I wonder if the disgust-factor I feel has more to do with a subtle taste I may have developed for consumption more in line with commodity logic, more than my personal history with them. To that end, I wonder if there are still social spaces like these to be rescued, that we have to teach ourselves to like again in order to get on where we left off.

[patrick j. mullins]

"we don't even want them. We go because it's all we know to do; it's the only sanctuary left. All those other sites we've imagined have lost their appeal."

Have they for you? or are you generalizing about another population? Have you statistics? I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually true for a majority, but are you sure it is? I'm hardly representative of general trends, so the fact that I go to malls once every two years when on vacation only means very little in terms of trends. Even my suburban friends and family members don't go to malls much. Disagree that we don't want the stuff, though. I like the stuff fine at malls or whevever I get any stuff at all. I wouldn't get the stuff if I didn't want it.

"So we should congregate, run, stampede. And then make something new."

Make what? Does that 'and then make something new' mean anything? I'm NOT saying it doesn't, but it sounds like a 'positive note' to end on, which would mean something if you were specific, unless it's just overthrowing World Capital.

"Commodities are everywhere unless you are a fascist little town in the Swiss Alps."

What a totally weird thing to say. So if you can find this 'fascist little town in the Swiss Alps', you think there won't be amenities? And are Swiss particularly Fascist? Leftists are definitely as shameless as rightists, and they no longer even seem any more creative either, which they once did.

[Dale]

Joe: Bars are a tough one on the commodity front. When I was in college, I liked to kid myself that there was a difference between a certain "kind" of pub that was beat up, had well-worn furniture, and a regular cast of characters, and another kind of pub that bought the same frosted glass, brass fixtures, and the same generic hunting prints that Pubs-R-Us sold to every "Irish Pub" simulacrum in North America. I think my desire to separate those two kinds of pub is wishful thinking of the worst kind.

But pubs are one of those weird spaces such as blogs which, while certainly imbricated in fields of commodification (whether it be banner ads or those mirror engravings with "Smithwicks" or "Guinness" on them), are also sites where discourses and communities can arise that are not easily controlled by the forces of commodification. The barkeep or site adminsitrator can give you the bum's rush if you get difficult, but they can't dictate in positive terms what you can talk about. If they want people to frequent the joint at all, some minimal tolerance of multiple viewpoints is going to be in effect.

[Bob Allen]

No No No, it was about revolution! The kid said, "I've been a piece of S*** all my life, and I'm going to take some pieces of S*** with me!". This is class war, he went to that sanctuary Jodi so eloquently described, where all is simulacrum, and in the face of naked Inequality he set out to lay low the Other, to equalize social relations in a symbolic clash of symbolic Titans in his tortured mind. He was David, They were Goliath, and instead of a slingshot he took an AK47...

[Electric]

Jodi, you may be interested in Kingdom Come by J.G. Ballard, there are some reflections in it to what you've written about here. Cheers!

[IndieFaith]

Speaking of contemporary spaces of sanctuary some of the articles on the Colorado church shooting are a little unnerving as to the direction of church concepts of sanctuary. My most recent post quotes at length an interesting AP article on it.