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I'm not entirely sure the best solution is to educate people on buying quality clothes. While that is important, I suspect that consumption isn't just due to sh

I'm not entirely sure the best solution is to educate people on buying quality clothes. While that is important, I suspect that consumption isn't just due to shitty clothes wearing out too soon. It's probably due to our culture of fashion trends and constant consumption and the "keeping up with the Joneses". If you go on fashion subreddits, you'll hear people talk about how you need to buy long lasting clothes, inevitably quoting that tired Terry Pratchett segment on boots^[1]. Except these same people have 10 pairs of long lasting boots! I don't know the answer because honestly, I do like buying new clothes. I do like changing how I look. I do like looking good. And I'm far from alone in this regard. Maybe instead of blaming the consumer, there should be some regulation on manufacturing clothing? Or some sort of carbon/pollution tax? A cynical take on this is that fast fashion companies are attempting to foist the blame onto the consumer, when really they're preying off a universal desire to look pretty and polluting the environment in the process. We should of course educate people on the impact of their choices. But telling people to stop buying stuff to make them look pretty is going against a very basic, very fundamental desire. [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-rich-were-so-rich-vimes-reasoned https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-r...

munificent 7y ago
> I do like buying new clothes. I do like changing how I look. I do like looking good. And I'm far from alone in this regard. I like eating cheesecake until I'm stuffed with it, but I don't because it's not good for me. Liking something isn't sufficient justification for doing it. Maturity means knowing when to heed your impulses and when not to. I understand that it's hard to scale that philosophy and solve a systemic problem, but I don't think we should just blindly accept that people are gonna do what they feel all the time. That desire to change how you look partially comes from a cultural value. You're surrounded by people doing that and showing you them doing it, and talking about how great it is. Change that culture, and I bet that desire would evaporate.
- _hardwaregeek 7y ago
  I agree that we should try to change the culture. But solely depending on having people act better isn't going to be enough. Especially since changing the culture of fashion would mean fighting celebrity culture, people's ingrained obsession with fashion and basically the entire concept of sex appeal. To take your example of cheesecake, it's perfectly fine to have a personal policy of self control. But if you extend that to the general population, you miss a few things. For one, perhaps there's a reason people are eating so poorly, such as food deserts^[1] or simply lack of time or money. Second, perhaps the fast food companies are acting in particular ways that can be deemed unethical. Personally I find the ways in which fast food companies market to children and feed on what's essentially a sugar and fat addiction pretty despicable and an underhanded tactic. But that's just me. Indeed blaming the consumer is a pretty common tactic. Keep America Beautiful is a famous example. The entire campaign was an attempt to foist the blame onto people littering instead of, y'know, the corporations producing millions of disposable items^[2]. And yes, stopping littering was a good goal. But it also distracts from the underlying problem: why are we allowing these disposable goods to be produced? With clothing we should be asking a similar question. Why are we allowing such terrible industrial practices, from the pollution to the child labor? [1]: http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defines-food-deserts http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defi... [2]: https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec...

munificent 7y ago

> I do like buying new clothes. I do like changing how I look. I do like looking good. And I'm far from alone in this regard. I like eating cheesecake until I'm stuffed with it, but I don't because it's not good for me. Liking something isn't sufficient justification for doing it. Maturity means knowing when to heed your impulses and when not to. I understand that it's hard to scale that philosophy and solve a systemic problem, but I don't think we should just blindly accept that people are gonna do what they feel all the time. That desire to change how you look partially comes from a cultural value. You're surrounded by people doing that and showing you them doing it, and talking about how great it is. Change that culture, and I bet that desire would evaporate.

_hardwaregeek 7y ago
I agree that we should try to change the culture. But solely depending on having people act better isn't going to be enough. Especially since changing the culture of fashion would mean fighting celebrity culture, people's ingrained obsession with fashion and basically the entire concept of sex appeal. To take your example of cheesecake, it's perfectly fine to have a personal policy of self control. But if you extend that to the general population, you miss a few things. For one, perhaps there's a reason people are eating so poorly, such as food deserts^[1] or simply lack of time or money. Second, perhaps the fast food companies are acting in particular ways that can be deemed unethical. Personally I find the ways in which fast food companies market to children and feed on what's essentially a sugar and fat addiction pretty despicable and an underhanded tactic. But that's just me. Indeed blaming the consumer is a pretty common tactic. Keep America Beautiful is a famous example. The entire campaign was an attempt to foist the blame onto people littering instead of, y'know, the corporations producing millions of disposable items^[2]. And yes, stopping littering was a good goal. But it also distracts from the underlying problem: why are we allowing these disposable goods to be produced? With clothing we should be asking a similar question. Why are we allowing such terrible industrial practices, from the pollution to the child labor? [1]: http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defines-food-deserts http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defi... [2]: https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec...