Vanity (un)Fair
For reasons known only to God and a harried data analyst, issues of Vanity Fair magazine have been arriving in my physical mailbox – a real magazine!
As I flipped through images of sullen-looking young people in expensive clothes, the game “Would you rather?” came to mind. It forces you to choose between two bad options , such as eating a small can of cat food or eating two rotten tomatoes. I created a new version that I’m calling Would You Rather: Vanity Unfair Edition. Here are some sample questions.
Would you rather have the Bottega Yeneta bag for $6,800 (it’s a clutch by the way!) or educate a child for half a school year?
Would you rather wear the Marni pants for $3,500 or feed a family of four for two months?
How about the Anita Ko bracelet for $9,975 versus cover the rent for five months?
And my personal favorite: take two of the Hermes limited edition lipsticks in Rouge Cinetique at $78 each or pay a personal care worker for a day. Wait -- don’t we have a shortage of personal care workers?
No one is actually choosing between lipstick and homecare, but at some level, we as a society are. While the rich and famous dangle high-cost baubles from their thin elegant wrists, children go to substandard schools and go hungry. There is a “let them eat cake” tinge to all of this.
I don’t fault the people buying expensive things. I fault the system that creates high profits for the few, while paying the many wages too low to feed and house a person. I like this quote from William Sloan Coffin Jr: “To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving.” (emphasis added)
It's the difference between volunteering in a poor neighborhood’s school and advocating for more equity in school funding. Both are valuable but system level action will press all of us to change our attitudes and change our structures that make and keep people out of prosperity.
(And, in case you were wondering, I would definitely take the two small cans of cat food. They look delicious in the ads!)
