On the Sunday after a Saturday Christmas, stores are a-hoppin' with After Christmas sales and so I recall a conversation I had in Switzerland a few years ago. An elderly relative of T's asked if shops are closed on Sunday in America as most are in Switzerland, a land not known for religious fervor. "Sadly, no" I admitted, and my misgivings were not due to some hearkening back to the Blue Laws and Sunday Services of my youth. No, it just struck me that shopping, the recreational activity of capitalism, has trumped family values and wise personal growth in America.
Here's how I see it: Advertising tells us that to live is to consume and to consume formidably. Wanting and acquiring -- perhaps to the point of avarice -- provide a recreational activity and a sense of identity. And the message proclaiming as much is loud and incessant so that the kind of solitude that can awaken us to ourselves is not only difficult to come by, but is denigrated as suspect.
So we risk developing very little sense of ourselves independent of the things we possess and wish to possess. Merchants understand this and also know that Sunday is the day most of us can use the entirety of to pursue recreational capitalism.
But for years, merchants did not open their doors on Sunday. Blue Laws forbade it and even where those laws didn't exist, there was an understanding among locally owned businesses. Then . . . a few did start doing business on Sundays. This inspired competition to serve the customer on Sundays, too. Giant, national chain merchants opened without a bit of compunction, too, shamelessly forcing mom and pop operations to open as well or face the anxiety of not being open when the whole town is shopping for everything at Costco.
As a result, Sunday became a day to consume, not a day of rest, not a day for other civilizing activities like a big family dinner, picnics in the park, long walks, touch football, a good book, and, yes, going to Church or Temple. No, these civilizing activities were shoved aside.
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