I saw the future at Wal-Mart…
Whether you are ready or not, it’s coming
In a last-ditch effort of desperation, my girlfriend and I will sometimes find ourselves walking into a Wal-Mart. This doesn’t happen often as we try and avoid Wal-Marts like the plague, but when it does, we momentarily convince ourselves that we had no choice, which is usually followed by a quick spell of displacement of our identities — as if we were refugees unwillingly entering someone else’s country. H.G Wells’ The Time Machine comes to mind.
I believe these boorish supercenters represents everything that is wrong with our current state of capitalism — that is another topic. But because of their power and position in said system, they are good places to go to see where our unabashed cut-throat-William Burroughsesque-sell the customer-to-the-product style of thinking is headed.
Of course, one of the most common arguments in favour of the supercenter I often hear, is, “go somewhere else.” That is fair — for now. The more perceptive people may have noticed the slow and painful demise of our retail industry, which on the surface, is taking shape in the form of malls closing all over the United States.
Just like Wal-Mart will come into various communities (sometimes two at a time) and will slowly seduce the lowest common denominator of our society…
