Here are a few more things that are really dumb to value:
Pearls, really? Aren't they just like condensed sand?
Again, animal skin? As in what covers our carcass?
Ugly fabric swathed into bundles.
I may not have a real quick answer to why we like things, why we value them (besides connecting us to other people, which was the point I was trying to get at in the last post. One more note on that: consumerists might argue that the reason we buy anything at all is to make us feel part of human community, more on that later). Here's what I can offer right now, a little historical perspective:“Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.”
-Old Testament, Genesis
So, why exactly we gift and value I can't explain, but I can say that this notion that we express ourselves that way and that we have always been invested in the value of goods is pretty clear dating back to at least the Bible, and jeez would I like to get my hands on a coat of many colors.
