Made to break...Made in China?America?Everywhere?

"We Haven't any use for old things here."   "Even when they Beautiful"   "Particularly when they're beautiful. Beauty's attractive, and we don't want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like new ones."-----Brave New World                   We live in a society where we want the latest everything. It has to look cooler, be faster at what it does, and it has to do things better then previous models or we won't buy them. But that is precisely why companies make things faster, cooler, and more efficient to get us hooked. Even when the newer products we buy tend not to outlast our older items that still worked in the longevity department. Unfortunately, this is our psychological obsolesence at work as we have become a nation of consumers. All we do is consume. In a sobering look at reality, Giles slade gives us a clear look into how our society has become a bunch consumers that indulge pride to stay up with the next in line in regards to the devices we use because in essence they define our culture status. His book, Made to Break really drives home this point upon American society. Even our government spurs it on, in 2009 everyone can recall the switch from analog to digital TV. Yet, what everyone does not realize is the fact that how many non-high definition televisions will make their way to landfills now. How many CRT televisions with their toxic lead glass tubes will pollute our ecosystems for years to come. No one thinks about these things until their too late unfortunately. Companies have gotten so good at their marketing and packaging of items that they scream "BUY ME!" in our general psyche. We awe at newest, fastest Ipad's, blackberries, and HD Televisions that we do even realize they will eventually fail us because they are not made to last. Why does it have to be a "key feature" on a phone or camera to be "shock-proof" or "water-proof?" Why can't they just be integrated features on all items? Why? Well the answer is easy, companies do not make money off of us when we do not buy new things. Look at Henry Ford, the man was self-made. He worked his ass off to eventually father in the industrial age in America. What is amazing about the guy was that he built a car called the "Model T" and he built it to last. The design stayed the same for a long time even when his main competitor General Motors was going through crap cars and changing cycles over and over to try and keep up with him. His ideals stayed the same, he felt  he was doing everyone a service to have a cheap, durable automobile that almost brought people to a certain level playing field while they were driving around. Giles Slade says in his book, Made to Break "Ford saw his car as a great social leveler, a democratic one-size-fits-all symbol of American Classlessness." Credit goes Henry Ford when he could have just reaped the benefits of making cheap cars and have people buy news ones with regularity but he didn't. That would eventually change though, because General Motors practiced that very ideal he refused. At the time they made cars that were not the most durable and their image suffered for it. It suffered until they realized how to make a crappy car that looked good. There is one thing about obsolesence that everyone should learn and its that psychologically most people will satisfy their egos when they can. So if that means trading in a "tin lizzie" as the Model T was affectionately called, for a car with all the trimmings and modern creature comforts but with less durability people would. In 1923, the first Chevrolet from General Motors came rolling off the line  that would look better then a Model T was mechanically inferior and was the first case of market "packaging" that would never be relinquished by companies the whole over. the motto: make it look good for awhile until it breaks and they will buy another as long as the new ones look good, go fast, and do a lot of things for the time being. Visual packaging of anything enacts within most people that psychological obsolesence. A man Giles Slade mentions in his book, saw this right away when these flagship companies (Ford and GM) in America were  dukeing it out for automotive supremacy with different philosophies. His name was Earnest Elmo Calkins. He stated when people saw that Ford was loosing ground to GM that there was more then meets the eyes here, he states "People buy a new car, not because the old one is worn out, but because it is no longer modern." He also goes on to state, "And so the Ford car was put out, and chugged along faithfully on all our roads./ The public laughed at it and christened it 'lizzie,' but bought and used it in increasing numbers, and Mr. Ford rested secure in his belief that he had solved one of the major problems of human existence and that there was nothing more to be done." Unfortunately, that same good-natured philosophy would bite him and teach him and everyone else who was not too busy staring at brand new shiny chrome that human beings once past the base instinct of survival and are preoccupied with the latest gadgets that do a bunch of nothing are quite superficial at times. Why else do we have millions of usable cellphones that become discarded because our "plans" tell us we are ready for an "upgrade" (not necessarily more efficient or powerful but it has a bigger screen and looks cooler). All those usable cell phones, guess where they go? Nope they do not become recycled like they do in Japan. They're thrown away, they are brought to the very same landfills where those big old lead-glass tube based CRT televisions go. Together they form a nice deadly alliance to mess up our ecosystems down the road. As Glade pointed out in his book, unlike the Egyptians who are marveled for the things they made to last our society will not be looked upon as fondly. Why should it? Why should we be remembered for our Declaration of Independence, our freedom, our democracy when we as a people will be leaving everyone pyramids of toxic trash and a messed up earth.