I was listening to James Burke today on my way home and he pointed out that the modern embracing of change and instability is exactly that, a modern invention. Historically, indeed up until little more than 100 years ago (perhaps your grandfather's grandfather's era, if you are my age), a person died in pretty much the same world they were born in. Even such famous keyframes in human history, like the Protestant schism or the Copernican revolution, actually took quite a few years to sink in. Even the impace of Columbus's introduction of the New World to Europe really didn't get felt by most people for quite a while (unless you were one of the Native Americans who suddenly died from an exotic disease, I suppose).
But with the Industrial Revolution, things really began to take off, going faster every day. We've become so accustomed to changed, we've built our economy on planned obsolescence of the most powerful machines we've ever built and advertisers entice us with ads such as "Beautiful because its new." If it isn't cutting edge, we dont' want it. "It's so 80s" became "It's so last century" became "It's so last year." Retro used to mean a generation or earlier, but now you can go retro by wearing your high school fashions at your college graduation.
I wonder if we've become blinded by the new and shiny waiting on the horizon though. We've come to accept, check that, expect things to not last that we no longer manufacture anything of quality. We've turned into a disposable society in so many ways, with so many associated drawbacks that I don't really intend to go into here. Obviously though, without a quality and efficient system of recycling, we just eat up our resources faster and faster this way as well, ever accelerating down the roadway to an ecological collapse.
But redemption is ours for the taking, and it doesn't really involve any sacrifices at all. Instead of embracing the newest thing, we need to instead choose to value quality. How about innovation in efficiency and longevity? Innovation in making things last longer, stronger, cheaper, with fewer materials. We've moved halfway in the right direction, by turning our technological finesse to making things cheaper and easier, but we end up making things so cheap that we don't bother keeping them longer than a hangover. And sure, you can get 5 year lightbulbs and other assorted stuff, but why can't we come up with a car that won't break down, clothes that don't wear out? Or maybe we are trying to do this, and I'm just impatient.
Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I wonder if we shouldn't be emphasizing refinement of what we have instead of gladly playing along in a system of single-run product lines.
Posted by Nutrimentia at June 17, 2003 06:54 PM | TrackBack