A do-it-yourself sociological exercise for anyone with a car and a couple of hours to spare, and who is curious enough to open their eyes to a glaring paradox, an egregious phenomenon, a deceptive peculiarity, a quiet spectacle of hushed dismay, but one that speaks volumes about our toleration of poverty and deprivation, and the delusional manner in which we assign value, worth and meaning, to needful things. This field study comes in two parts.. STEP 1: visit the Salvation Army Thrift Store located at Michigan Avenue & Central Avenue in Detroit. Spend a little time there, surveying the types of items sold there, and their condition, to whom they are being sold, and for what purpose they are bought, keeping in mind that these are donated things, discarded things, given by people who had no more need or want for them. STEP 2: Upon exiting the store, set out immediately to the Salvation Army Thrift Store located on 4th Street, just east of Main Street, in Royal Oak. Spend a little time there, surveying the types of items sold there, and their condition, to whom they are being sold, and for what purpose they are bought, keeping in mind that these are donated things, discarded things, given by people who had no more need or want for them. And ask: Why the discrepancy in the quality of what is offered? Why such disproportionate pricing? What assumptions are made that lead to such blatant inequity in aesthetic privilege? What meanings do we assign to things, that justify their segregation and dissemination into separate social-economic strata? How is it that we live in the same society, but have such antithetical definitions of needful things?
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 22:14:22 +0000
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