Part II: The decline of meaningful quality
This is a continuaton from part I (obviously). I’d recommend you read that before starting here as it lays the foundations down behind the topic being discussed. If you have already read it, enjoy Part II at your leisure.
With fast fashion, fast food, fast delivery, we’re constantly surrounded by expediency and conveniency. All one has to do is to take a quick look at the clothes from 25 years ago, and the ones they have now to find thtr the quality of products has decreased so dramatically it’s no wonder this isn’t on headline news; but this isn’t the main issue. What concerns me is what this represents. Our morals. The rapid decline of quality in our products is representing the decline in our society, where our priorities lie. The fact that we’re enabiling lower quality goods to be deemed as worthy of our attention and money is indicative in and of itself. It is with both parties that this probelm lies, the creator and consumer. The Arts & Crafts Movement explicitly extrapolates this. The craftsmans had to work wiht integrity, with truth to the material. They had to work this way because the items once created were a representation of ones character and morality, it held up your reputation to the world displaying what type of person you are. When working in this manner, it allows honesty to be at the forefront of everything you create, yet this has been superseded by profit and power. Walter Crane, a leading figure during the 1850s mentions the movement itself as a “protest against the turning of men into machines…against making the immediate market value or possibility of profit the chief test of artist merit.” With this in mind, we’re able to clearly see where we've gone wrong in our pursuit for development and progress. Arguably, we have regressed. Our shift in how and what we value has taken a down hill tumble and we’re not stopping. We base the value of a business or brand how quickly it arrives and encourage the machine driven process if that means we’re able to get our fix.
The product quality represents the quality of our morals currently, cheap and mass produced. We’re copying and pasting from the next person over without spending time in our minds or standing on the shoulders of giants to see what successful morals actually look like. We’re assuming the present and the future are the only maps we dare glance at and we only take a quick peek behind us at the past to remind us why we should never go back there. Racism, Sexism, Wars, Death. This complete black and white view of history will be our downfall. If we’re not able to conceptualise two contradictory notions at the same time, that the past has to be either full of good,or bad, then we’re destined to regress with no end in sight. Humanity has shot itself in both feet and now we’re just crawling, building on the empty empire of a so called technological revolution.
Our judgement on discerning whether an item is of good quality now depends on Tiktok reviews and videos, Amazon comments, and advertisement from celebrities who don’t care about us, and never will. We’ve become quick to judge or cancel anything that doesn’t fall in line with our preconceived notions, or challenges our fragile conceptions about the world around us. We’re stagnating. Social media has become a breeding ground for the development of obsessive mindesets and cultivates an extreme echo chamber, faciliating egos and corrosive behaviours. Not to say that social media, nor machines, are at fault here. They are merely tools that we have created in order to serve a certain function. It is the users who drive the car so to speak. We are in the drivers seat determining the course we take. We delegate our personal agency, or accountability, onto everyone but ourselves, blaming them for everything that is going wrong and might go wrong. It is just as much our fault as it is everyones. We are all to blame for demanding and feeding the monster of consumerism that crawls around the Earth.
Yet it can even be argued that chronic consumerism is the byproduct of a lack of purpose in society hence causing the decline in quality. We consider that society itself is collasping all around us, yet this isn’t anything new under the sun. Wars, pandemics, colonisation. All these things were a consistent part of history only until recently, with some even being considered a Holy journey and in the name of God and the King. Corruption within governments, monarchies, politicians, aristocrats - this isn’t anything new. However, what is new is that the small town square where the town criers would broadcrast have now been transformed into an extremely public agglormeration of opinions, facts, and news - also known as The Internet. The tables have been opened to nearly every player in the game and everyone is holding the talking stick. Misunderstanding breeds like the mice plague in Australia and we’re all trying to get our voices heard above the parapet. With constant noise, not just our voices, but the sounds of advertisement, marketing, “buy this” “eat me” “subscribe for only 9.99.”
This is not to say the machine is at fault, like the internet it is merely a tool in which to get a job done. Like aways, it is the user who defines the destiny of the tool and the role it will play; perhaps a function greater than it’s own abilities. Modernisation has allowed for tremendous developments within the West, basic amenities becoming more world wide and available for the common person. New technological discoveries allowed for less time doing housework and what was considered fundamental tasks, and thus allowed more free time to enjoy the higher pleasures of life. The washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, hot water, radiator etc.
Another movement needs to be reborn from the scaffolding of the Arts & Crafts, we don’t need to take every single principle, but rather the conepts and attitudes they held. Just as the Arts & Crafts movement was more of a set of principles against the mass machined produced goods and cheap wares, we need to establish a united movement throughout the world, against the bulldozing companies who seek to eat more then they can chew.
