Checking In With Sal

JoJo: What are your not shopping rules?
Sal: I can buy food and toilet paper and sandwich baggies which are to Dotty as toilet paper is to me.

JoJo: How does Dotty feel about not shopping?
Sal: I don't think she's noticed. It hasn't really altered my activities. The only thing that has changed is that now I see things everywhere that I cannot buy.

JoJo: What's the most fun thing about not shopping?
Sal: Telling people about it and then having them tell me how wrong-headed it is.

JoJo: What do they say?
Sal: That it's unnecessarily extreme and punitive and puritanical and why not just try to do your part with moderation.

JoJo: What will be the first thing you buy in November?
Sal: Maybe a bottle of champagne to celebrate President Obama, except that's groceries so it doesn't count.

JoJo: Who are your stop shopping heroes?
Sal: Mom because if she needs pickles she makes pickles and if she needs jam she makes jam and if she needs a quilt she makes a quilt. On the other hand it's not Mom because she loves to shop in spite of these good habits. Part of me wonders about the ethics of ceasing to share my money in the marketplace because I have money in my pocket and there are people who need money in their pocket, so sitting on the money in my pocket feels a little selfish.

JoJo: Is it selfish even though you haven't changed your habits?
Sal: It's not like committing a sin, but the philosophy of saying I won't exchange my money for your wares feels like a selfish
philosophy. Before, when I wasn't buying stuff in the absence of a philosophy, that didn't feel selfish. A boycott is a different thing than when there's no need for a transaction.

JoJo: Who are we boycotting?
Sal: Everybody except people who happen to be selling something you eat or wipe your butt with. This is an interesting experiment but is it really the moral thing to do? Not everybody can sell food.

JoJo: I don't feel like I'm on a boycott. I think we're talking about three states of not shopping which are, in practice, the same: not buying anything because 1) you don't want to, 2) you're boycotting, and 3) you're examining your own attitudes and behaviors. Are the moralities different even though the actions are the same? Even if they are, the question of temporarily not giving money to "innocent bystander" merchants is dwarfed by the immorality of consumer culture: packaging waste, sweatshops, predatory trade practices, pollution, emissions, and crap ending up in landfills, for instance.
Sal: Yeah. That. What you said.