To Hallmark in a hand basket

By Joseph Gauger
Collegian Editor
February 13, 2008

Just in case your bank account has recovered from the last consumer holiday back in December, this week gives you another opportunity to feel bad about yourself if you don’t go to a store and buy something (nevermind how you feel if you happen to be single). In an incomparable boon to the greeting card industry, millions of Americans will respond to immense social pressure and buy their sweetheart a card printed with saccharine poetry in flowery script, dripping with fake sentimentality.

Since our youngest days, we have been conditioned to participate in a holiday which is faker than Festivus. Remember those little cardboard Valentines they made us buy when we were in elementary school? As if children needed another excuse to be petty and exclusive, elementary school teachers devote valuable class time to passing out scraps of pink paper with the Rugrats and Scrappy-Doo on them. Don’t feel like writing all your classmates’ names on Valentines and taping chocolates to them? Well, prepare to be ostracized. Do we train our children to show honest affection for the people they care about? There’s no holiday for that. Hallmark doesn’t make its money from originality and thoughtfulness.

I’m far from alone in deploring the commercialism of Valentine’s Day, but I will go even further. It is not a holiday which has been corrupted by capitalism. V-Day was spawned by capitalism. Don’t expect to hear Charlie Brown asking Linus van Pelt what Valentine’s Day is all about. Yes, there is a story behind this holiday. But its presence as a major cultural phenomenon exists only in the context of encouraging holiday-related purchases. Prior to its establishment as another fiduciary obligation, this holiday didn’t exist in any form recognizable to us. Every aspect of it is contrived. Every Valentine’s Day custom is without legitimate basis. There is no room to apologize for the holiday, no upside to emphasize.

Return to the example of Christmas. It may be the biggest shopping-fest of the year, but commercialism has not robbed it of all of its meaning. Peace on Earth? Generosity? Redemption of the human race? Don’t look to Valentine’s Day. You’ll only find manufactured affection and overpriced chocolates. Many families can manage to salvage genuine togetherness on Christmas; finding sincere romance can only mean getting as far away from V-Day as possible.

If there is any holiday our society can do without, it is emphatically and unequivocally Valentine’s Day. It is a testament to the commoditization of our emotions and our capitulation to the culture of conspicuous consumption.

gaugerj1@lasalle.edu