The Devaluation of American Society...

...or why we need antique shops.

Once a month after spending a Thursday afternoon in Rogersville, my classmate Elizabeth and I volunteer at a free Christian clinic in Church Hill, Tennessee. Since our day in Rogersville ends around 4pm and the clinic doesn't open until 6pm, we have ample time to do things besides study. It just so happen that there is a large antique store next to the clinic and a bakery and deli across the parking lot. Now most of you might consider an antique store a "Junk Shop." I on the other hand find these as a great reflection of our society, a one-stop shopping place of American history you might say, and are a great necessity to our society.
Outside this particular shop are a variety of farm implements Inside one can find anything from 1963 issues of Life magazine and National Geographic to Victorian-era furniture and Art Deco spring-necked cat statues. The one thing you won't find, however, is a plethera of items from the last 20 years (except maybe an occasional lime green-headed Troll doll or a dust-covered Beanie Baby). Of course, you say, it's only been twenty years and these things aren't antiques. I'm convinced, rather, that you won't find these items because nothing in our society is meant to last anymore. You see, what makes an antique an antique is the value it holds, the feeling of nostalgia it brings to the owner, and the permanence of a memory from the past it renders.
Unfortunately, for the past twenty years or so, our society has been sliding down a slippery slope of depreciation of anything lasting. We have in effect become a disposable people. If you look in the antique shop, all the dishes were made of high quality china or other unbreakable materials. Even the lunchboxes were made of sturdy aluminum or tin. Today's equivalents? Paper plates and plastic bags. I don't think you'll find those in an antique shop anytime soon. We have become a society of "Cheap and Easy" of the "Here and Now." We buy the latest fad only to throw it away. We no longer need the "company china" because we no longer have time to prepare a meal and have company. We buy the latest fashion in bulk only to toss it to Goodwill at the next season of clothing. Working the good earth and eating its harvest has been replaced by a greasy bag of McCardboard Fries. Even our very substance, the relationships we share, are disposable. A ring symbolizes forever as much as that hula-girl themed bamboo screen hanging in booth #29 symbolizes beauty. If something doesn't suit our whims we toss it, sell it, move it, or replace it. Nothing is rare, special, or valued for we live in a society of the mass-marketed, over-produced, and plastered-on-the wall-everywhere advertisements. Our society is such a rat race of over-scheduled lives that we don't even have the time to contemplate the demise and devaluation of our society.
The next time you drive by an antique shop, before you write it off as a house of junk, remember all the nostalgia it holds and remember how it symbolizes an era when people actually had time to appreciate the beauty of a potter's craft, a well-made childhood toy, a Sunday afternoon dinner with friends, or the simple enjoyment of life itself. For now, will have to content ourselves with the cast-aways hidden among the thousands of antique shops across America.
Excuse me, I think it's time to go buy that hand-made quilt from booth #17 and the gaudy 60's vintage bright orange pyrex pitcher. Happy Antique Hunting!