over-STUFFed
POST: over-STUFFed
| Topics: |  Zero Waste Movement |
I'm reading a couple good books now: MADE TO BREAK – Technology and Obsolescence in America, by Giles Slade, and WASTE AND WANT – A Social History of Trash, by Susan Strasser. I haven't finished either book because I read about as slowly as I blog, but they both chronicle the evolution of consumer society as we know it. Slade's book (so far) looks at how marketing, particularly in the auto industry, shaped consumer habits, while Strasser (so far) focuses on the minutiae of household waste in the 19th century and the ways in which just about everything was re-used and re-purposed. If you think you're good, read that book and you'll think again! Housewives back then saved every useable bit of string or thread, even rescuing bits from garments they were re-sewing. And yes, there was a time before disposable feminine hygiene products...
But seriously, consumption... sure we have to eat and most of us buy our food and other basics. But unless you live in the boonies, I bet you have to resist the urge to buy stuff just because you can. It's kinda like alcoholics or smokers trying to quit: it's a bitch, 'cos the ads are everywhere, and huge, too! The rugged Marlboro Man alone on his horse, in the middle of nowhere, lighting up; intoxicating liquids backlit and photographed slithering over ice cubes and luscious red lips; those too-perfect tits bulging out of Victoria's Secret cups all over Times Square, and you know that even if you buy in yours are never gonna look the same, but you do anyway.
Sigh . . .
As I fondle my stuff and think about overconsumption, it dawns on me that old folks have another word for it: dusting!
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Posted by Leila Darabi on August 8, 2009 9:25 am
I really loved Waste and Want because, even though it focuses on the US, Strasser really gets to the core of the historical dilemma: no, we don't HAVE to live the wasteful lives we do today, just one or two generations back our families created far less waste. And they weren't even dirty hippies or counterculture about it. They called it canning. And rag bags. Mending. Tune ups over replacements...
I'm very interested to hear what you think of Made to Break. I haven't read it, but disposable consumer culture and how to combat it is exactly where I hope every trashy conversation leads.
L