I find it instructive, from time to time, to step back from the daily grind of politics, scandal, and war, to consider our basic humanity. It can be difficult to detach, and like any news junkie, it takes an odd happenstance to bring
such ruminating about. Earlier today, as I was digging through the closet in our spare bedroom/office, I was gifted with an opportunity of consideration.
We thought our dog might have gotten pregnant a couple of months ago, so my wife had put together a little birthing kit - towels, rubber gloves, scissors, string, etc. - and a little dietary scale I didn't even know we owned. I happened upon this kit as I was searching for a notebook I was sure I'd stashed somewhere in the area, and as I put the box containing the kit back on the shelf, a brand new t-shirt fell off the shelf next to me. I went to pick it up and put it back, and the weirdest thing happened.
Every year my wife buys me the same t-shirts for summer, for working around the house. Hanes, extra large, light gray, with a pocket. Every year, the same shirts (what can I say - I'm a boring guy). I guess she forgot to give me this one - the receipt tucked into the pocket said she bought it three years ago.
And it was so weird. When I picked the shirt up, the material felt, well, strange. It was like, thicker, heavier, better quality, or something. I thought about the little scale my wife had stashed in the puppy birthing kit, and I remembered that I had a brand new t-shirt - same brand, color, size, pocket - everything - she just bought me a couple of weeks ago, still un-worn, and folded in my drawer. So I weighed them both.
The brand new shirt weighed 8 ⅞ ounces. The three year old brand new shirt weighed 13 ⅜ ounces - right at 4 ½ ounces difference. And the old brand new shirt cost $1.12 less than the brand new shirt.
Now, I'm not simply picking on Hanes. But I believe what I've related above is common, and happening in lots of other products we buy.
Everything is getting thinner.
And if you think about what this means for our culture, I'd say those measly 4 ½ ounces missing from my brand new shirt are actually pretty significant.
It says we, as a culture, are willing to take less, for more. It says we, as a people, simply expect less. And it says we, as Americans, are conditioned to accept this.
So we accept thinner clothes, vehicles, washing machines, toasters. We accept lower paying jobs, higher and higher corporate profits, utterly corrupt politicians, rigged elections, broken/no health care/insurance, ever worsening living conditions. Our way of life, gets thinner, and thinner, and thinner.
I was kidnapped by my wife and forced to go shopping (that fateful trip when she bought me the experimental t-shirt a couple of weeks ago), and I remember thinking as we walked through JC Penny's looking for cheap jeans, how purposely shoddy things looked. Jeans are being sold pre-stained, torn, broken. It has become the height of fashion to look like you just stepped out of the gutter, like you've been wiping your greasy hands on your pants over and over. And I remember thinking, this isn't an accident, and it surely isn't just fashion.
So I put the question to you: Are we being conditioned for Third World living? If it is fashionable to look grimy, will true grime be as hard to accept, once the corporations and the wealthy finally gobble up the rest of what remains of our economy? Is this the life we should expect - bare necessities, quality non-existent, all of us working to feed some giant corporate machine's profit margins?