The Brockovich Report

In history, they always talk about the pendulum swinging. First we go one way, then we swing back the other. Right now, we're still on the upswing. For years--forever maybe except for a little rebellious blip during the sixties--we have been a consumer society. Way back when our agrarian culture moved from the farms and toward the cities, the substance and spirit of being "successful" transmogrified. Forget actualization. Making it isn't really about developing who we are as much as it is about improving and increasing what we have.

I grew up in a house where if something broke, my father fixed it or had it fixed. If the television quit, we fixed it or did without. We didn't toss it out and run to the store to get a new one. No one of that generation did. Because products weren't built with planned obsolescence. They didn't have unibody plastic insides that couldn't be serviced; they had replaceable parts. They were intended to be archival--built to last. Things have changed. In a way, we are at the mercy of progress. Simply because robotic factories build fast in enormous quantities instead of slowly by hand--making our entire marketplace possible; and because technology changes so fast that we must toss out old devices to access the current thing; but also because we can only buy stuff that we are sold. And we are sold stuff that is expected to be tossed instead of repaired. Simply, products are made to be cheaper to buy than to fix.

I mentioned the buzzword last week: consumerism. Conspicuous consumerism. You know, keeping up with the Joneses. One upsmanship. Having the biggest house, the fastest car on the block. Our whole Horatio Alger rags-to-riches philosophy of life just wouldn't have the same oomph if we didn't get to show off the riches a little bit when we get to be a have instead of a have-not. Make that show off the riches alot.

We are all about shopping. I know because that's what the television tells me. And magazines. And the media.

Last week I was talking about this same thing. Shopping green is a good start--but in a sense, is it not an oxymoron? Because being green is not so much buying new stuff that happens to be organic and recyclable. It isn't so much about being a consumer. It's about being a "conserver." Remember conservation? As in people who repair what they have instead of replace it. As in conservation of resources. Recall the conservation movement: to protect plants, animals and habitats. Energy conservation: reducing energy consumption, and finding renewable resources.

How does all of this shopping we do fit in with the holistic philosophy of reduced consumption and smaller footprints?

The idea of conservation flies in the face of the construct our entire society, which hinges on consumers using up stuff that industry has to make more of. I don't want to put the cogs and wheels out of business; maybe the marketplace will keep chugging along until it finds the happy medium where new unbiodegradable pseudo-disposable-plastic-styrofoam-wasteful junk merchandise is replaced by high quality product that is intended to last. And of course, if industry will clean up after itself, or better yet, devise ways not to be destructive, then that's even better.

But still--buying green is a start; it is certainly better than the alternative. And I wonder is buying green the new gateway drug that will take us one day to a more balanced society? Only the swinging pendulum knows for sure.