How an encounter with a turn-table can reorient your world view

Source : “‘Broken Heart'” by ImNotQuiteJack is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Remember Fonzie hitting the juke box? Or the Tardis landing in the wrong place (or time)? What about the Millennium Falcon’s warp drive going kaput? All are symbolic of our past experiences we’ve had with technology, and more specifically, the products we used to own.  But times have changed, and so too have the products that we buy. They are different than they used to be, so much so, that we now all but ignore them. And this indifference comes at a great expense to our civilization, and we need to look into the past to understand how we’ve got it all wrong.

I’m no audiophile by any stretch.  To me, ‘four bars’ is the minimum requirement for a good pub crawl. But I like music, and so I bought a turn-table recently. You see, I had come into possession of a collection of old vinyl records, their aesthetic, smell and the artistry of their covers engulfed me in a deep swell of nostalgia. So, I played them, and after a time, I knew this purchase was duly justified. But soon after that, another feeling swept over me, one I hadn’t expected, but one I am both relieved and also saddened to remember. For it was clear, that in order to enjoy the turn-table, I must have a relationship with it. And that’s a microcosm for our place in society today, in that we tend not regard or even think about our products much anymore, and it’s not a good thing.

My turn-table calls the shots and wasn’t afraid to tell me so. Walking anywhere near it, gives it the ticks. So, I tip-toe around it, and it reciprocates by playing its tunes smoothly. It’s also stubborn, deliberately playing songs in unerring order, and when a song plays that I dislike, I must bite my tongue, and hope the next thing out of its mouth resonates in my discriminating ears. In addition, there is the set-up too. I synch its pants with the drive belt, but not too tight, or with any wrinkles in its placement, else its platter won’t move properly. And the records, like little babies, must be tucked carefully into their sleeves, but not before they are cleaned with a soft cloth, lest any dirt mar their delicate skin. And the needle, well! It’s the most precocious part, like fine horn-rims to the visually impaired, the player, can’t do much without them.

A turn-table is like a child.  I could negotiate with it on some things, like leaving the cover open if I wanted to, placing it anywhere in the room too, or even choosing the record I wanted to hear. But on the major things, I had to do what it demanded, and there were a fair number of demands.

And it reminded me, that just decades ago- the world used to be like this. Our relationship to products of yesteryear was entirely different. It was more akin to a friendship than today. Why?

Things were engineered to different standards compared to today. In relative terms, they were more expensive to buy and more expensive to repair. And they tended to break down far easier too. As a result, we had to care for them.

It’s why we gave our cars nicknames, calling to them when they were faltering, urging them on with desperate pleas to persevere long enough to get you safely to the next stop (Come on Betsy, that a girl. Just get me to the next gas station. I know you can do it!), or gently patting their fenders while speaking lovingly of their loyalty after a lengthy, untroubled road trip. How many of us were saddened when we sold them off, or retired them to the junk yard, all the while remembering the trials and trips we had had together. The cars of today are much more reliable. We don’t ask them to do more than we expect because they mostly honor their end of the bargain. And so, we take them for granted. Like that fern in the corner that grows despite your sporadic watering regimen, there’s no need to coax or cajole it, and hence, no need to interact with it, and less of need to name it as a result.

For these reasons, Replaceable Consumerism is at the cornerstone of our society, and it’s clear there are negative consequences to this impulsive behavior.

Today, things are made inexpensively, and are engineered for convenience. Compare the iTunes or Spotify experience to that of what I described above. With these, you can load hundreds of your favorite songs at a go, play them with no skipping, without the lengthy set-up, and further, the music can follow you wherever you go, with no regard for any bumps or nudges. An upward march of progress, right? Maybe yes, but there’s an appreciable impact to our society because of this change in our relationship to the products we use.

Firstly, we tend not to repair things like we used to. We simply replace them. Partly because things tend to be more electronic vs mechanical, and thus less repairable by nature. But more so, there exists a plethora of inexpensive products to replace the ones that have broken (or ones that we have tired of). And the urge to replace them is greatened by a product design principle that has sits above all else – planned obsolescence, as Oxford Dictionary defines as :

A policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of nondurable materials.

For these reasons, Replaceable Consumerism is at the cornerstone of our society, and it’s clear there are negative consequences to this impulsive behavior. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a notable example of these ill effects, and so to is the increasing magnitude of waste created by our voracious need for the newest mobile phone or other technology. According to a UN study, less than 20% of the world’s electronic waste is recycled!

Secondly, it has insulated us from needing to grow and maintain networks of friends or acquaintances that have skills needed to fix things. I recall my father sending me to a neighbor to fix a lawn mower blade I bent (long story), or routinely seeing him across the street with another fixing their cars. I’m convinced much of the social networks people maintained had a certain utility at their core that had more to do with an insurance policy of sorts, should one need someone who can fix (insert need here.) This reduction in human contact can’t be good either.

In short, our techno-charged society has created products that require less maintenance and care and are more able to meet the needs we intended for them. And also, at the same time, often are throw-away, impossible to fix and easily replaceable. Our relationship to these products has changed as a result. We don’t notice them as much, don’t appreciate them like we used to, and as a result has increased our consumeristic tendencies while reducing the size and diversity of our social networks.  According to the BBC, there is a growing counter culture forming against this trend. Called ‘Right to Repair’ movement, countries like the UK have introduced legislation that would force manufacturers to supply spare parts to enable to repair of electronic products.

In our increasingly digital world, take time to connect with your analogue side. Maybe it’s a classic turn-table like mine, a Singer 201, or even a Commodore 64. Whatever it is, learn to appreciate its temperament and tolerate its idiosyncrasies. Maybe then you’ll appreciate the newer stuff surrounding you and hold on to them a little bit tighter – and longer too,

Cheers

BG