I never intended to post about the global recession, but a post over at Design*Sponge made me think.
TIME magazine printed a ‘reset’ button on the cover of their magazine with the title ‘The end of excess‘. This is music to my ‘slow’ ears as we continue to consume far more than the world can provide.
I am certainly not going to preach about overconsumption whilst I sit in my local Starbucks working on my MacBook with WiFi listening to Spotify on my iPhone after having just spent £26 in Muji on magazine filing, oh no. I recycle etc etc but am in no way ‘doing my bit’ as best as I could be, but this post is not about that.
Following WWII, the government sent public broadcasts asking everyone to go out and spend – there was no need to hide away anymore and ration supplies, the war was over. This was a desperate attempt to restart the economy. We still continue to consume at this massive rate, and the prospect of financial ruin is not stopping us. We don’t know any other way of living: Work, Sleep, Consume and repeat.
The Slow Movement started long ago and is popularised by the Slow Food Movement. Throughtout history, whenever there is a popular way of living, there will always be a counter-idea and the Slow Movement is one of these. I am a firm believer in the philosophy of ‘taking time to do something properly’, not rushing and compromising quality and avoiding mass production so that objects, food etc become commodities rather than covetable goods.
Mass production is making things cheaper and, over the years, has caused us all to have an unrealistic view on the cost of producing good-quality goods. Craft and handmade have become harder to sell because “I can get one cheaper from Ikea” or [complete with whichever mass retailer you wish here].
We used to fish using traditional techniques, but now we have the technology to know where most of the fish are and can trawl vast areas to get the most within the shortest space of time. Essentially, the game is up – we win. Humans have worked out how to destroy everything and have no issue in doing so.
Now, to get this post back on track and perk you all up, I am not suggesting we go back 100 years, because I wouldn’t be able to sit with my Starbucks and write this post to you on my shiny MacBook but we do have to think about how we consume. Like many of my posts, they are a guide to living better, with less, that lasts longer – an ethos that I owe to Vitsœ and Dieter Rams.
Next time you consider the cost of something as “too expensive” just consider how long you will have it for or how much more you will enjoy it over the mass produced version. That is all.
Now, back to my coffee.
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