I’ve never understood the appeal of diamonds. Even before I learned about the many, many social and environmental problems with the diamond industry, I always found diamonds to be kind of boring. What was the big deal when you had sapphires, emeralds, rubies, or other stones that were equally shiny but actually had some color to them? You might say I appreciated diamonds on the same level as a piece of paper with glitter glued onto it. The ADD part of me would think, “Ooh, shiny!” for about five seconds, and then I’d move on.

Of course, that was before I found out about the diamond industry. Now that mild indifference has been thoroughly replaced by rage and disgust. I don’t even feel as strongly about factory farms, or child labor in clothes manufacturing, because as destructive and needlessly cruel as both those systems are, at least food and clothing are necessities. No one ever needs a diamond. Period. Even industrial uses for diamonds have been taken over by synthetics. I cannot comprehend how spending an inordinate sum of money for something glittery on your finger is somehow worth the cost of war, terrorism, genocide, and environmental devastation.

That’s why I’m so excited about this new movie hitting theaters today, Blood Diamond. Yes, the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana have been begging Blood Diamond star Leonardo diCaprio to use his money and influence to help them get their land back from Debswana (as previously discussed here, here, and here), and he hasn’t done a damn thing. But we’ve known for a long time that Leo’s an asshole, and on the whole, this film will do far more good than Leo’s silence will do harm. How do I know that? Because DeBeers is freaking out. And any time a giant, evil, previously-assumed-to-be-all-powerful corporation is freaking out over a movie, you know that’s a movie you’ve got to see.

Granted, it’s not all about Blood Diamond. I think this film is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. A brief glance at the Wikipedia page on conflict diamonds gives you a good idea of how public awareness of conflict diamonds has exploded lately, from the 2002 James Bond movie Die Another Day to Kanye West’s 2005 hit single “Diamonds from Sierra Leone.” The diamond industry has been trying to dodge the bullet by publicizing their new “Kimberley Process,” which they claim virtually ensures that no blood diamonds get on the market. But as RealDiamondFacts.org points out, “Participating countries belonging to the Kimberley Process claim that rough diamonds originating within their borders are not directly used to finance rebel militias. There is little to no oversight for these ‘recognized’ governments, and often little incentive for governments to claim otherwise. Some estimates say that up to 30% of the rough output of some diamond mines is smuggled out illegally.”

In my article Ancient History, I said: “[O]ne of the last truly sustainable cultures on the face of the earth is being destroyed so DeBeers can overcharge you for shiny rocks. And we call them stone-aged. An era in which genocide, war, and oppression is funded by an insatiable greed for pretty-looking rocks is far more worthy of the term ‘Stone Age’ than one in which humans lived in egalitarian tribes. Perhaps we should refer to that one as the ‘Human Age.’ Because whatever age we’re living in now, it’s nothing if not inhuman.” (I’m going to ignore the fact that nobody paid any attention to what I thought was a pretty clever play on words and keep the metaphor running, readers be damned.) Could we finally be looking at the end of the Stone Age?

Okay, so maybe the entire diamond industry won’t collapse overnight. (Though that would be wonderful.) But the collective weight of all this media could cause the diamond to lose some of the luster it gained from DeBeers’s overbearing advertising campaigns. When more people catch word of what the diamond industry has been doing, they might investigate diamonds a little more and find out other interesting tidbits. Like the fact that diamonds are actually quite common as stones go, and would be nearly as cheap as dirt if DeBeers didn’t keep going around digging up every mine they could find before someone else did and either locking up the diamonds in wearhouses or shoving them into the sea to keep them artificially scarce.

People might even find out that a diamond is a terrible investment, as it becomes utterly worthless the instant it’s sold. Or that the much-touted “four C’s” of diamond quality—cut, color, clarity, and carat—were arbitrarily invented as a way to convince consumers that the flood of small diamonds coming in from Russia were just as nice as the larger diamonds that DeBeers didn’t have as many of. Maybe these hypothetical people will even consider the environmental destruction that diamond mining wreaks. (Really, this whole brouhaha about “conflict diamonds” versus “ethical diamonds” only makes sense if you just care about humans’ well-being, and also if you don’t include various forms of poisoning and cancer among your humanitarian concerns.) However it might happen, it would be nice if DeBeers could be reduced to just your average, run-of-the-mill evil corporation, competing in the global marketplace just like everybody else instead of, you know, dictating an entire culture’s concept of what love and marriage should be.

So how do we help end the Stone Age? I’m conflicted. On the one hand, DeBeers is also terrified of synthetic diamonds (which are exactly the same as mined diamonds, only flawless and much cheaper), so it would obviously help to buy those instead of mined diamonds. But as concerned as I am with the palpable damage the diamond industry does to the world, I’m just as concerned with the less tangible, psychic damage DeBeers has done to our culture, particularly our culture’s idea of love. DeBeers invented the concept of the “surprise her with a diamond ring already in hand” marriage proposal, and ever since then, men have felt undue pressure to make their proposal grand and romantic, women have been put on the spot and made to either accept or reject a proposal they didn’t even have time to talk about with their partner, and all too often the man picks out a ring the woman would never have chosen for herself, resulting in a lingering feeling of guilt. (And if you don’t believe me, check out a wedding planning message board sometime.) Buying a synthetic diamond engagement ring won’t do a thing to fight that. It also won’t do away with the depressingly common materialist idea that the bigger and fancier the ring is, the more he loves you.

Is it hopeless to wish for an end to that kind of thing? Will materialism, like the poor, always be with us? After decades of fighting fur’s glamorous reputation, animal rights activists finally got fur sales to plummet during the early 90’s - only to rise back by 2004 to the height they’d reached in the 80’s. Is it really possible to totally deglamorize a status symbol that quickly?

I have no idea, but at least I can say with pride that I, personally, am not contributing to the diamond industry. And if not supporting an evil industry is all you can do to fight it, well, you do what you can. Meanwhile, I recommend seeing Blood Diamond (in theaters now!) and indulging in any other movie, book, or CD that blasts the diamond industry, and of course helping the Bushmen, even if it’s only by spreading the word and sending them supportive e-mails. (Though if you have any cash to spare, seriously, ’tis the season for giving.) Myself, I’m doing my part to keep my jewelry box (I know I have one around here somewhere…) diamond-free. Although I have been considering buying a cubic zirconia ring. I’m thinking of wearing it on my middle finger…