Like all Barcelona culture vultures, I had resolved not to buy anything on Black Friday. In fact, following the moral guideline of this endearing sect, I had imagined myself strolling through the center of Barcelona with airs of moral superiority, admiring how the majority of alienated population crowded, forgetting patience and dignity, into the shops on Passeig de Gràcia. I had even rehearsed, poor me, some insufferably corny phrases like: "we Mediterraneans are a superior race, a tribe that celebrates concepts as important as changes in weather and the death of Jesus Christ; for us, it is an act of resistance to scorn the calendarization (ugh) of our lives according to the dictates of consumption." I had even thought of entertaining the reader with a three-and-a-half metaphysical disquisition on the historical transition from "Barcelona, posa't guapa" to the "Barcelona; the best shop in the world" paradigm.
As is well known, there is no possibility of ethics without some form of sin. Look at me right now, a frightful sight, typing this Punyalada in front of the computer after having betrayed myself because of those bastards at Mr. Hackett and my dear Paul Smith (30% and 20% off, respectively). It's not just the urge to save a few bucks by buying clothes. The tragedy is even worse: the British clothing brand, which fits my shoulders like a child's mouth to the nipple, gives me the illusion of walking like a Londoner through Barcelona and bestows upon me the airs of a gentleman who charges for items with one more zero than their real value. And what can I say about those such cute pullovers from the esteemed Smith, equally British, but with that New York cheerfulness that allows you to enter one of our cocktail bars and imagine that you might end up talking to someone with a minimum of interest.
I am a dreadful person, and not only for feigning an anti-consumerist morality that I often invoke (recalling that 70% of Western wardrobes are full of clothes we will never use) but ---an even more horrifying fact--- when I use Mr. Fred Perry or the adorable Évelyne Chetrite to convince myself that I live in another city with more glamour. What a grotesque imposture, what an abortion of a human being! Now all that's left is for me to soon, and on the occasion of the Christian holiday, mitigate my consumerist spirit by giving a book to all my relatives, with that absurd excuse that "at least, since we're buying, let it be a cultural product." What a load of crap, as if literature and ultimately the humanities lived in a paradigm very far removed from that of underwear and teacups! Fortunately, I still have the grace to be able to mock my own morality.
In fact, this putting ethics in parentheses is another of capitalism's great victories (and advantages). Buy like crazy, please do, it's not good for your health, but the dopamine of spending wonderfully revives one.