We live in what most people will acknowledge is a disposable society these days. We think nothing of throwing anything away, no matter what it is. A two year old computer is now obsolete, so out it goes to the landfill. Batteries don't work? Into the trash. All of our televisions will soon be unable to cope with HDTV signals coming in without help, and I am certain we will see an onslaught of them trucked into landfills across the country.
At this rate, we will soon have added another layer to the earth's crust. Geologists will call it Plasticus Fillitup, and future generations will no doubt marvel at how a layer of plastic could have formed just under the surface of the earth. It will probably be a whole new discipline of study.
Our culture has engaged in this disposable embrace for some time, of course. Ask about having any electronic item you own repaired, and you will find out pretty quickly just how little opportunity there is to reuse nowadays. Even pets are considered just a temporary commitment by too many people - here today, inconvenient tomorrow, so out they go to fend for themselves, or off to a shelter and good luck and goodbye.
We have now seen extremes of this throwaway attitude with the recent dropping off of teenagers in Nebraska, where parents at wit's end came from all over the country to dump their children on the state to deal with, because they simply don't know what else to do, as if the kid is an unwanted pet or an old refrigerator. What does that say about us as a society, if we place so little value on anything, that everything is on the throwaway list, including our children?
You are no doubt wondering what got me started on this jag. Well, it is the annual ritual of putting up the Christmas lighting display outdoors, which sets me off every year. This year was no different. What IS it with twinkle light manufacturers that makes them think you should be willing to buy 15 sets of new lights every single year? Because that is the quality with which they appear to be made.
It is infuriating to spend money every single year replacing light strings that you bought just 12 short months ago, and which do not make it through even one season, it seems, without half or more of the strand simply dying on the vine, literally. I realize they have a fiduciary duty to their stockholders to make money, but isn't there at least some responsibility to their customers, too, to produce a product that lives longer than an average house fly?
I was armed for battle this year, ready to revolt the poor quality lighting situation by boycotting the entire exercise, when I was stopped in my tracks by a daughter bent on having cheerful lights to greet her at the door when she arrives home from work. There is only so much pressure a person can take, and that just wasn't worth it.
So off I went to the nether regions of my house to find the recalcitrant lights, and see what could be done. Which was, in brief, not much. Shortly thereafter, my annual pilgrimage to Walmart commenced, following the star, or at least the twinkle lights, to once again festivize the exterior of my home for other people to enjoy.
Thus it was that AS I was putting up yet another new string of lights, pulled from the packaging moments beforehand, the blues and greens went out on me. I was not a happy consumer, standing out there in the cold, throwing the string around like a lariat come to life, trying to show that recalcitrant strand who was boss. I eventually got them going again, [for now, anyway,] but I have no illusions about their longevity, after the initial outage incident.
There is a larger issue here for me. I believe that we are stewards of the earth, and that God has left us to our own devices with rather strict instructions that we were to have dominion over the whole of the globe. [Although I notice there is no mention of dominating the universe, something which gives me pause.] With dominion comes responsibility, and I think we have fallen down on the job rather spectacularly.
I recently viewed a program about archaeologists excitedly excavating an ancient site. My own personal reservations about disrupting the eternal resting places of the dearly departed aside, it is pretty interesting stuff, because you can find out a lot about people from excavating their living spaces a few centuries into the future. Not surprisingly, the thing they were most excited about was the finding of the ancient equivalent of a landfill, because it held a mine of information about the culture that threw those objects away.
I wonder what a 31 century archaeologist would think about our culture, based on what is in our landfills. They will give a wealth of information, I have no doubt, because they are full of the plastic and metal articles that will be the gifts that keep on giving for hundreds or even thousands of years. But what will that information say about us as people? As stewards of the earth? Or even of our own civilization?
I shudder to imagine their reaction on finding what we have casually thrown away, still there a thousand years from now. I wonder how many CD's there will be, how many CRT monitors, stoves, refrigerators, televisions.... The list is long, and growing daily.
And while we think that we have fully documented our lives and our civilization, and everything will always be known about us and our culture, it is illusion. The reality is that it can all be wiped out in one catastrophic incident, and the archaeologists of the future may know only what they find. I don't know about you, but I don't think some broken appliances and millions of strings of twinkle lights are going to say much that is worth knowing about us.
The whole throwaway attitude rather ironically reminds me of my mom, who, having been raised as a depression child, has the motto, "Never throw anything away. You just never know when you will need it." She saves everything, and her house is a treasure trove of stuff that you might need some day. My mother was a green thinker long before it was the trendy thing to do. She has reused, and reworked, and redone things as a way of life, her entire life, and she knows how to make things last.
She has fixed things that other people wouldn't even think about saving, like her bread maker, which has gone on years longer than it's expected, or projected, life span. She doesn't believe in buying something new when you can make do with the old. She puts function ahead of form on a regular basis. [Except for me. I am totally form, completely dysfunctional most of the time, and she puts up with me anyway.]
I am genuinely wondering if the current recession will change the long held habits of the buying public, which has never seen a sale it can't exploit. The roots of this recession run deep through the fabric of our society, I believe, and go to the heart of how American companies have done business over the last 25 years or so.
The short term benefits have consistently trumped the long term viability of almost every company in business today. That is a way of thinking that consumers seem to have embraced with enthusiasm, since there is no demand for products that last, but rather, a rush to the stores to buy new with such zeal that we will literally trample the person in front of us to get the latest gadget or trinket. Even if it costs someone else their life for us to do so.
This is a method of doing business that cannot, in the long haul, be sustained. Companies today are bought and sold on the basis of what you did for me today, rather than what the long term prospects may be. Even profitable is not good enough any more for the rampant investment from overseas, and American companies are consistently dismantled for under-performing, even as they post positive profits.
So, in getting back to the tale of the twinkle lights that set off this little rant, I had two strings of lights on which I simply refused to give up, mom-style. [She probably has strings of lights she is using that are older than I am, and if she can persevere, so can I. She is my role model, after all. I would say she is my idol, but she is a Minnesota Lutheran, and wouldn't be comfortable with that kind of fuss.] Both strings were new last year, and are the expensive kind with the controls that will allow you to have them do a variety different lighting schemes. In my view, there is no excuse for strings of lights that won't work for two consecutive years, and I was going to make them work, whatever it took. Thus, I spent all day Sunday pulling the little lights out, replacing, testing, until in the end, partial success.
One string of those lights is currently on my bushes outside, twinkling merrily on high, at least for today. The other string has been relocated to an undisclosed location, the details of which are a deeply guarded secret. We won't talk about those right now. Suffice it to say, they have not seen the last of me. I have my moral victory, and justice will be served.
