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| quote: | Originally posted by Ek0nomik
What is your definition of a lot? Also, where are you getting this from? Another one of the easy things to say without backing up.
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my definition of 'a lot' is 'more than necessary'. i'm getting this from life experience
like was posted, the most 'green' thing one can do is to consume less
COR VERSION: fuck it, if it interests you, then you'll read it, if not, then fuck off and enjoy talking about gonorrhea or something
the terrible, gargantuan machine that is contemporary consumerist culture and 'integrated world capitalism' as Felix Guattari puts it (read 'the three ecologies') is the core problem here. We buy things, including green products, that we don't even need in the first place.
Why buy a prius when you can car-pool or use public transportation (for instance).
I get most of my ideas about sustainability as an architect, and my philosophy on that is that the most sustainable society concentrates in urban centers and reuses old construction rather than to create new construction. I extend this basic philosophy to products as well. The 'throw away society' that Alvin Toffler writes about in his book "Future Shock" is a major part of the problem here. When you are planning a building and determining its ecological footprint, it's not even about how much power it is going to use, or how much waste it creates (although it is to a degree of coruse) - you have to consider the ecological impact in construction of the building, for instance if you want to have an innovative curtainwall system that is only manufactured in seoul, and you are building in new york, then you're adding a ton of unnecessary energy cost to the project just for a superficial thing.
so basically, I think what is needed mostly is:
- a return of the 'local' society. local materials, local products etc. or else more virtual things.
- a new collective consciousness which stands in opposition to the integrated world capitalist craze which dominates the globe. the desire to consume, the institutionalized production of desire, soulless business practice, etc for more on what i am talking about, again read felix guattari's ' the three ecologies' and also herbert marcuse ' one dimensional man'.
- this one is more out there, but i think one thing that contemporary society really lacks is a deep spiritual connection to the earth. i'm not talking about macking with tree trunks in bolivia, but the story of human existence is an intimate relationship with the earth and its natural processes. indeed, nearly all world religions have their origins in simple observations of nature. basically, people are out of touch with the world around them and increasingly solipsist and self-important. read thomas merton - 'the seven storey mountain' and thomas berry - 'the dream of the earth'
- we use our increasing freedom due to automation not to gain time to do creative, artistic, philosophical, spiritual things, but instead to be even MORE productive and buy MORE things. there's never enough! with machines reducing the time it takes to do everything to achieve the same level of productivity, what do we do with our time? stalk on facebook? post youtube videos here on TA? watch porn? our new time and energy could be used in a way that benefits the world, not through making google adwords more profitable, but through helping us understand ourselves, one another, and our world. imagine that in the 2 hours or so people spend online in a day they instead took up something like painting, poetry, learning a foreign language, praying, hiking, etc...
i think certain 'green' products like hybrid cars are false idols. they don't fix the core societal problem, they only delude people into being satisfied with their supposed sustainable lifestyle. in fact what they are doing many times is making a fashion statement or jumping on a marketing bandwagon created by companies like toyota who are simply capitalizing on al gore's influence.
marcuse, in 'one dimensional man' talks about how modern companies manufacture desire and how this desire becomes the unilateral 'need' of everyone, regardless of class. he talks about how opposition and nonconformism is systematically undermined and turned into simply another facet of mainstream life by the machine of pop culture and consumerism. (eg people who 'do a little reading on buddhism' because it makes them feel more sophisticated and take yoga classes to meet people)
sorry for the mess
Last edited by nefardec on Mar-29-2008 at 18:17
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