Blog Number 8

The passage I choose from Life As We Knew It is when the family and their neighbor go to the stores and buy as much as they can.

The article that relates to the passage is this one. The article is about how 42 million people died in the bloodiest Black Friday on record. I know it is satire, but it shows that Black Friday is getting more and more hectic as the years go by. I have never participated in it, but I kind of want to so I can elbow people and get deals. Ha.

The relation between the passage and the article is that they both have people rushing to the stores, sometimes foregoing unwritten social rules to get what they want. In the book's case, the people were willing to spend as much as they needed to get things that they needed. In the article's case, people were trying to spend as little as needed to get things they wanted. In the book, the mom threw down money at the cashier and did not care what the goods costed, but in the article Black Friday patrons are there to specifically save money.

In the book people fight over goods in the store. It makes sense; lives are at stake. If that happened in real life you bet your butt that I would be duking it out with the elderly to get more food. In the article people are fighting over goods as well. However, there is not a need for the goods. The people fight because they can save money.

In both situations people's tribal tendencies come to the surface. In the first situation, EVERYONE needs to get food and supplies. That it is everyone engenders the fighting. If only one person needed to get food and supplies he would not go around fighting. In the article, EVERYONE is getting a good deal. If only one person got great deals, there would be no fighting.

When everyone has to do something, or there is some incentive, people's true nature comes out and violence happens. Boo violence.