The demise of Woolies is a sad day for the nation, at least in many folks eyes. The chain, famour for its pick and mix sweet selections, played a part in many people's upbringing. In my case I had a job sweeping the floors in Dunfermline's Woolies for about a year before the chance to play rugby for the school called again. Yet Woolies closure is a classic example of how capitalism has no place for emotional attachments which is why, in the end, it cannot truly meet human need as it suggests. For our humanness, our identity and our sense of belonging all revolves around our emotional attachments, our relationships and our sense of what matters in our memory of who we once were. The market will never meet our human needs, only some of our material ones and even then not always when we actually need them. Woolies death is a parable of why we need to do much more than find a new place to get our pick and mix....
Where we are and where we will be
The idea of Edinburgh is a combination of place, soul and symbolic leadership of a nation
Monday 22 December 2008
Where will I get my pick and mix now!?
The demise of Woolies is a sad day for the nation, at least in many folks eyes. The chain, famour for its pick and mix sweet selections, played a part in many people's upbringing. In my case I had a job sweeping the floors in Dunfermline's Woolies for about a year before the chance to play rugby for the school called again. Yet Woolies closure is a classic example of how capitalism has no place for emotional attachments which is why, in the end, it cannot truly meet human need as it suggests. For our humanness, our identity and our sense of belonging all revolves around our emotional attachments, our relationships and our sense of what matters in our memory of who we once were. The market will never meet our human needs, only some of our material ones and even then not always when we actually need them. Woolies death is a parable of why we need to do much more than find a new place to get our pick and mix....
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2 comments:
Beautifully put.
Woolies was the place where I always bought my CD singles (way, way) back in the day as it was cheaper for the first week. You can't put a price on the memory of picking up Lightning Seeds' Perfect or Tori Amos' Cornflake Girl.
(Well, you can... 1.99 for the first week and 3.99 thereafter but you get my point I'm sure)
Ian Dury and the blockheads single "hit me with your rhythm stick" is my earliest memory of a woolies record purchase... Oh I can feel my eyes misting over already!
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