"Excess Disguised as Less"
Print's Akiko Busch reflects on the tendency to hide extravagance in "minimalism," hiding complex and expensive new projects behind a mask of simplicity.
To minimize surface clutter, everything was sheathed in lacquered white fiberboard. Even the refrigerator and dishwasher were behind flat cabinet doors.We touched on similar issues earlier this week after the U.N. Climate Change Summit, which underlined for me the importance of being always mindful that old, wasteful, inefficient things aren't always worth replacing. The total lifetime cost has to be balanced, including the materials cost for the new, more efficient—or in this case more cleanly-designed—product.
This clean aesthetic was, in fact, a blatant subversion of the very idea of minimalism--a study in extravagance disguised as pure economy. Twice the amount of surfacing material had been used on the appliances than was needed, and twice the amount of effort would be required to open them every time they were used.
Busch again:
Take the VivaTerra catalog, which comes from an eco-friendly retailer that donates a dollar per $75 order to the Trust for Public Land. But the friend of mine who gets its catalog has received two in the past month, and wouldn't it make more sense anyway, she asks, to donate her $225 to the Trust rather than spend that amount on a handbag made from candy wrappers "headed for landfill"?The optimal scenario would be for every thing we take out of the planet to be recycled. It's daunting, but we live in a closed system. (At least until we start farming asteroids.) It's also unrealistic to expect that we won't create any waste at all, but I am sure that we as individuals have more incentive not to buy things than companies have—even "green" companies. In thirty years our landfills and junkyards are going to be heaped with "green" trash and non-functional Priuses. Perhaps there are ways we can stop building disposable goods and can start building and buying artifacts, items that can be used for generations.
Probably not!
Excess Disguised as Less [BusinessWeek.com]
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Great article, and an important issue that I am glad to see discussed. My only question is why does it take the horrible bogeyman of Global Warming to spur such discussions? Completely ignoring the issues of Global Warming, environmentalism, and sustainability, there are still plenty of valid, and immediate, reasons why compulsive consumerism is a major issue for our society. On a very personal level, I think people should focus on how much of their income, and time, they throw away on shopping for, buying and replacing disposable items. For example, looking straight into the great American blind spot of the auto industry, people have barely driven their car off the lot before they start trying to figure out what their next car is going to be.
I honestly wonder how much creativity and productivity of our generation is lost because people are spending energy that might be channeled into creative endeavors, instead into trying to figure out which hot new product they are supposed to be buying now. How many people, instead of having a hobby, just shop on eBay, and read gadget blogs? How many people, instead of creating something, just sit around hoping someone will come out with it as a product, so they can just buy it?
Instead of talking about responsible purchasing in terms of eco-guilt, and what it will put in landfills, and how it will effect the planet we live on in a few centuries, why not talk about how you can make your life better today by thinking about how you spend your money, and what you are really getting for your dollar? It is all well and good to worry about the world your grandchildren will live in, but how about thinking about how you can make the world you live in better right now?
Well said, Joel. It's so refreshing to find a gadget-head who not only has an environmental conscience, but also has a good grip on what really works and what's just marketing phooey. I can't tell you how sick I am of things like the Green Festival, which tout environmental justice but in the end just look like an excuse for people with disposable incomes to show off how green they are by buying more stuff.
And there's nothing "green" about organic chocolate sold in California when the cacao comes from Ghana, the milk comes from Argentina, and the bar is made in Switzerland.
Sustainability and an efficient use of resources is, of course, a good thing.
But I've always found this argument - "wouldn't it make more sense anyway, she asks, to donate her $225 to the Trust rather than spend that amount on a handbag made from candy wrappers "headed for landfill"?" - incredibly fallacious and bogus.
Yes, of course... and we should all wear, only, perhaps, sack cloth and eat a fine rice gruel. Everything else would best be focused back on the environment and the poor.
But that's nonsense, because our monkey gene ensures we all like the shiny, cool toys [Boing Boing GADGETS, after all] and the choice isn't "Can I buy something neat?" or "Can I do some good?" it's "Can I buy something cool [I would've bought anyways] and still do some good at the same time?"
Here's a great example: the "Crude Awakening" event at Burning Man, in which untold amounts of fireworks and petrochemicals were burned to "dramatize the worshipful relationship and dependence modern man has toward oil."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWGx0PhDGlU