Anyone who thinks that Mall of America is just a big mall probably also thinks that the Grand Canyon is just a big hole in the ground.
- Mall of America advertisement
I do not own one of those T-shirts inscribed, on bosom and back, "Shop 'til you drop." I did consider peddling one that would read "Buy 'til you die," but decided my market would be minimal. Which all goes to show that I have an ambivalent relationship with consumerism. I find the buying and selling in which I participate to be both loathsome and seductive.
One way for me to understand this ambivalence toward my consumer self and society is to explore my relationship with the Mall. The Mall functions as a magnifying mirror in which I can see the buyer and seller in myself and my society reflected and enlarged.
When I refer to the Mall, I am not speaking about "mall" in a generic sense, inclusive of the 38,000 shopping centers dotted across the United States. Nor am I speaking of a Platonic ideal of Mallism. When I say the Mall, I am talking about the largest mall in the United States--the Megamall, Mall of America--located in Bloomington, Minnesota, a mere 20 minutes from my front door.
Having grown up in this country, I have learned to pay little heed to claims insisting that products or inventions are "new and improved," or "bigger and better." Thus, I did not think I would be surprised, shocked, or intimidated by Mall of America. I was wrong.
The Megamall is big. Overwhelmingly big. 4.2 million square feet big. In comparison, South Coast Plaza, a large mall in California, is 2.85 million square feet. The Megamall includes more than 40 women's apparel shops, nine night clubs, 14 movie screens, and more than 40 restaurants. In the center of the Mall is Knott's Camp Snoopy, the world's largest indoor amusement park. This 7-acre park features more than two dozen rides and attractions, including a roller coaster and flume.
DO I FIND SUCH a place loathsome or seductive? Well, both. The Christian ethics I internalized during 16 years in parochial schools taught me that the "good life" was not one of luxury but of sacrifice. If I didn't have the strength to give up my life, like Christ, then at least I could give up my worldly goods and become a missionary. And if I didn't have the guts for that, then I had better share what I had with the poor. Buying more than I needed wasn't a girlish foible. It was a sin.
I have also been taught by well-meaning friends that there are both intelligent and foolish ways of consuming. Perhaps they are correct. But what concerns me has nothing to do with intelligence. What I want to know is whether there are moral ways of consuming. The dictionary defines "consume" in the following ways: 1) to destroy; 2) to spend wastefully; 3) to devour; 4) to absorb completely. One hundred and fifty years ago, consumption was a disease, not a way of life.
However, I like things that are new and clean, untarnished and whole. I like appliances that work and shoes that fit. I love to buy presents for my kids (who, in a sense, are simply extensions of myself). Lately I have been thinking a lot about my old aluminum baking pan. It's warped, crusty, and indented with doggy teeth marks; although it works fine, I want a shiny new Pyrex one. As my daughter's teen-age friend asked, "If you have the money, what's wrong with spending it?"
Nothing, unless spending money fills you with the desire to spend wastefully and to excess. Unless spending money allows greed to control your imagination. Unless spending money causes you to confuse wants and needs. When microwaves, answering machines, and televisions begin to feel like necessities, something is wrong. When 10 percent of the world's population is using 40 percent of the world's resources, something is wrong. When the sky above Big Sur is brown, something is wrong. A fourth grader once confided in me, "If I didn't have a TV--no kidding--I would die."
I believe that when I spend to excess (which I often do), I am acting out of greed, and greed is a dangerous force. It is manipulative, cunning, and frequently gets its own way. I'm easily deceived by greed. It leaves me feeling helpless and out of control. A writer friend returned from her first trip to the Mall and could muster up only one word to describe it: "Scary." Greed is scary.
Of course the gigantic proportions of the mall are designed to trigger our greedy impulses. The larger the shopping cart, the more a shopper will put in it. The more distance a shopper travels in a store, the more he/she will buy. The more items available to the shopper, the more items he/she will carry to the cash register. Since the Mall opened on August 11, 1992, more than $1 million in 10 and 20 dollar bills has been spewed out by its eight automatic teller machines--each week.
BUT IT'S MORE THAN the mega in the Megamall that scares me. It's Camp Snoopy. For me, the word "camp" conjures up happy memories. A camp is a place where one eats, sleeps, swims, sings, learns about self-reliance, and builds friendships. But Camp Snoopy isn't a camp. It's a place where people ride.
The employees of Camp Snoopy wear cute, unwrinkled scout uniforms: khaki shirts, khaki shorts, and khaki caps. The uniform looks much like the one worn by Leisl's Nazi boyfriend in The Sound of Music. It might look adorable on a Cub Scout or in a Charles Schultz comic strip, but on the buxom matron who sold me roller coaster tickets, it looked foolish and degrading. In all fairness, I must add that she appeared pleased with her job.
In addition to the misleading name and its paramilitary cuteness, Camp Snoopy is an extravaganza designed to promote rash spending. When I take my kids to the local amusement park once each summer, I go with a carnival attitude: This only happens once a year. So what if the hot dogs cost too much or the souvenirs are outrageously priced. When I hear a roller coaster grind and whiz over my head, I feel a twinge of childlike recklessness. Who cares about money?
My kids loved Camp Snoopy. Perhaps I shouldn't be upset by its subliminal messages. Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.
I THINK THE MALL IS AMERICA'S last frontier. I don't mean the America of the disenfranchised, but rather the one we learned about in our eighth-grade history books. This America holds dear the "New World" and "the frontier." It's exciting to imagine ourselves not as couch potatoes, but as courageous adventurers or curious explorers of uncharted lands.
In 1961, JFK inspired Americans by claiming that outer space was the "new frontier." George Bush tried to persuade us that the New World Order was just around the corner. (Although Bush was describing a world order that would be new, his statement also implied an order that would be imposed by the New World, i.e., the United States.)
But in 1961 only a few of us donned our anti-gravity suits; in 1992 even fewer of us could imagine what the president's New World Order would look like. Most of us followed the bobbing astronauts and the Desert Storm pilots on TV, and then drifted slowly out to the malls.
In those eighth-grade history classes, I learned about some of the forces that developed the New World and the frontier. One was a spirit of curiosity and adventure. The Mall invites us to follow in the footsteps of men like Coronado and de Soto, Cartier and de La Salle. The cover of a promotional brochure for Mall of America reads, "Discover the New World....A world you've never seen before...a world you will explore and enjoy."
Another force that drove many people to the New World was the desire for wealth. Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola looking for the golden palaces of Kubla Khan. The London Company Charter directed the settlers of Jamestown to look for treasure, and the eight founders of the Carolinas expected to make fortunes from their large grants of land.
Obviously the Mall was created to make money. And the lavish interior was designed to give shoppers the illusion that they are part of a highly profitable enterprise. In America anybody can (supposedly) get rich. At the Mall, surrounded by beautiful material goods, anyone can experience the illusion of wealth.
Religion and exploration often wandered hand in hand across the New World wilderness. Columbus had been instructed to find gold and convert the natives. A 1500 drawing by Juan de la Costa shows Columbus striding into the new world with the baby Jesus on his shoulders. Father Marquette, explorer and priest, preached sermons as he sailed along the Mississippi with Joliett.
Although the Mall does not allow soap box preachers or leafletting missionaries, religion has--not surprisingly--marched onto its premises. One Sunday morning in August 1992, 6,000 people gathered in the rotunda of the Mall to worship (or perhaps I should say "worshop"). "All hail the power of Jesus' name," they sang, as neon lights flashed around them and a group of screaming kids zoomed overhead on a roller coaster.
Another important aspect of frontier life was "taming the wilderness." This meant making it safe and habitable, perhaps even comfortable and enjoyable, for settlers. It meant transporting European cultures and lifestyles to the New World. Unfortunately it also meant destroying the natural landscape and the human landscape as well. For many settlers, the indigenous peoples of the New World were part of the wilderness that needed taming. Native peoples were either eliminated, like the Taino Indians of Hispaniola, or "removed," like the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears.
The Mall is the tamed wilderness extraordinaire. Shoppers there don't get chilled or sunburned. A highway billboard for Camp Snoopy advertises it as the only amusement park in the world where you don't need umbrellas or bug repellent. At the Mall, shoppers are safe and comfortable, protected not only from the ravages of nature, but from pesky humans as well. The Mall of America is a garrison surrounded by a concrete moat of highways, approachable only by on and off ramps constructed specifically for Mall access. Inside, shoppers are protected from the "undesirable" elements of society, such as drunks and bag ladies.
The conquest of the New World and the settling of the frontier are controversial issues, full of both blessed and horrific events. But viewed in even the most negative light, the development of our nation was filled with passion and risk. A trip to the Mall involves no emotional or mental expenditure, only a willingness to spend money. The Mall is not just a symptom of our consumerism; it is a perpetrator of it. It creates illusions of adventure and freedom for the sake of profit. These illusions widen the gap between rich and poor, dull our senses, and numb our moral imaginations.
I LOATHE THE MALL because I despise the values it perpetrates. But I am also willingly and frequently seduced into participation in those values. Every day I behave like a consumer and act with a consumer mentality. My goals, however, are to make my actions and beliefs more consistent; to be vigilant about my own greedy impulses; to live a generous and more simple life.
I wish I could say that I position myself on the side of simplicity and generosity, that I give homemade Christmas gifts to all my friends. But that would be a lie. Half the time I can't even remember to carry my canvas shopping bag from the car into the store. And although I buy sweat shirts for my 7-year-old at the second-hand store, my 14-year-old recently talked me into buying her a $65 pair of Guess? jeans.
The Megamall will probably not go away. And my daughter will probably remain furious at me because I refuse to take her there a second time. On the other hand, I've been thinking some more about that "Buy 'til you die" T-shirt. If you'd like to purchase one, please send your size and color preference and a large check.
Ricki Thompson, teacher, writer, and happy consumer, was a member of the Community of St. Martin's in Minneapolis when this article appeared.
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