Is Shopping like some sort of Civilized, Sophisticated Modern Day Equivalent to the Hunting and Killing We did Way Back in Time, Like the 1960s?

Shopping for food?

We killed all of the wild animals?? Holy fuck…where have I been?

Wait, the 1960’s is way back in time?

Umm…“Way back in time” is fighting works little turd bird. The 60’s gave you freedoms you didn’t even know you wouldn’t have had and oh christ this is why I quit fluther in the first place

Wow. We weren’t civilized in the 60’s?

Shopping (consumerism) is promoted in many ways by very clever people armed with a great deal of anthropological and psychological knowledge about how to manipulate people. Read Vance Packard’s “The Hidden Persuaders” as a start on learning how few of your purchasing decisions are really your decisions.

if you’ve ever been to abercrombie when they’re having a sale, you can certainly see the parallels between hunting in the ‘olden days’ and shopping in modern times…

Maybe now is the time to start!

Made me laugh.

If we’re talking about hunter-gatherer societies, remember that in almost all cases, men did the hunting and women did the gathering. If anything, shopping appeals more to women, on average, and it is really more a gathering thing than a hunting thing.

Women and men do their shopping differently, anyway. These are stereotypes and generalizations, but, on average, they are accurate. Women like to go in and look around, even at things they haven’t gone in for. Men go shopping for a specific item or items; they find that item, and buy it, and get out as fast as they can. Even in shopping, there is a hunter and gatherer difference.

I don’t think shopping is a hunting equivalent, although I do think men and women take different approaches to it that are influenced by historical sexual differences in behavior. Men still hunt. There are tv shows about guys going to hunting farms in Africa and doing bow hunting. It’s kind of fascinating in a sickening way, how they shoot these wildebeests and the guide congratulates the hunter about his kills. Of course the guide will compliment the sucker client. They want return business, don’t they?

I’m pretty sure “the store” and “the restaurant” were around in the 60’s, I think your time frame is a little off.

@daloon

But is that still true even for things that guys are interested in?

I mean, I love all types of shopping including everything from clothes to electronics, but take my dad for example. He doesn’t like shopping for clothes or anything like that, but when it comes to electronics, he can spend an hour or so in an electronics store like Fry’s just looking around.

That’s an interesting observation, @DominicX. That does seem much like gathering behavior. Well, maybe that’s also where you got your gathering behavior—just applied to different kinds of things???

Except now the hunting mainly done by females for therapeutic purposes. Most guys I know hate to shop..this may be an age dependent observation. Most people are just bored with staying home, I surmise. Shopping is really an effortless mindless pursuit, plus you get a good little outing for free. If you think everything, like me, is really just unnecessary clutter then you will just move on to a new boredom reducing vehicle.

My husband has learned to distinguish between shopping and hunting. When you shop for a red sweater, you look at every red sweater in the mall and come back and buy the first one. (Men usually hate shopping.)
when you are in a hurry you hunt for a red sweater and buy the first one that fits the bill. Men and women get in a lot of unnecessary fights because they are not BOTH clear on the objective of the quest.