Everything is Made to Break

While reading Made to Break by Giles Slade, I thought if I wasn't paranoid about the things we own and how big business conspires to get inside my head, then I would certainly be now. It is proven that businesses have thought out how best to make me feel inferior based on what I have and not who I am. The amount of money and time that they have invested to get into my head is astounding and what's even worse is that it works. I have happily joined the collective mindset and proven their psychological profile in order to create more profits for the business world. Every year, I update clothes that are not worn out, buy new toys when the previous have not been broken, and purchase things that are unnecessary based on advertisements or the pressure to stay part of the culture that has the newest, coolest, fanciest things. More recently, I shopped for a new backpack and other school supplies for my daughter, knowing well that her backpack from last year was perfectly functional but acquiesced because she wanted a new one to begin third grade. Thus, I realize that even 8 year olds, or especially 8 year olds, are targeted in this idea of obsolescence.

Bernard London and Aldous Huxley both used the same idea to create a non-fiction and fictional world to better illustrate this idea of obsolescence. London wanted government to intervene and set standards to make obsolescence part of the fabric of our country and Huxley fictionalizes what would happen if government did. Today's society is a combination of both, where laws are written to protect businesses and government is the greatest consumer and citizens follow along. "...a product's death date was exclusively a limit imposed externally by a committee of experts and then enforced as a social rule." (77) This is what happens today although it's not broadcasted to the populace. A group of experts somewhere determines what the hot new colors of a item shall be for this season and we are socially pressured to purchase the new thing. Then we are proud of the new thing that we purchase and subtly look down upon someone else who hasn't made that same investment to replace their item. I can think of many examples of this, but the one that comes to mind first is cell phones. How much do we frown when you see someone, usually older, who is using a giant cell phone that does nothing but make or receive phone calls? Isn't there a sense of disapproval that they haven't used their upgrade to buy a new one even theirs works perfectly for their use? But yet when you look at the big picture of our economy, and see the amount of debt that we each owe, and what the accumulation of useless goods contributes to that debt, does that help us as a country or hurt us? Is this the idea of American culture, to owe more than we make, to consume more than we produce, to want more than we need? If it is, we all are fulfilling this business model and it is making us a poorer country for it.