Sternheimer and Videos
One quote that really struck me from Fox’s, Leonard’s, and Sachs’ (2007) video was that “stuff moves through a system from extraction, to production, to distribution, to consumption, to disposal.” I liked this quote because with many things we do not think about the full picture of where it comes from. Take technology for example. All we worry about is the new and improved product getting in our hands. We never think about the process it goes through to get there. I think it’s interesting that this person dedicated their time to finding the missing variables in materials economy. I did not know there was a term for throwing away things that still work. This term is perceived obsolescence.
The Story of Solutions by Leonard and Sachs (2013) brings up an interesting point about how as an economy we spend money on all of these things to get more money instead of spending money on something better. However, in order to spend money on better things, we have to change the goal of the economy. People are not comfortable with change, so it will make this task very difficult.
In chapter 9, Sternheimer (2013) states that “advertising is an easy target to blame for our culture of consumption” (p. 255). I am a little confused by this. Does she mean that the blame should be directed somewhere else? If so, what or who are we blaming? I feel like the media is completely responsible for shaping society. First of all, the media does not even fully reflect everyone in society; moreover, people do not have the knowledge of how to deconstruct media. The goal should be to educate society on media instead of always throwing the blame at it. In chapter 11, Sternheimer (2013) states “claims maters actively work to raise awareness of what they see as the pop culture problem, which occasionally rises to the level of a moral panic” (p. 273). The real problem is people mindlessly consuming media without a question as to what it really means. We blame the media for all of the problems in society because it’s easy to point the blame at someone and call it a day. No one wants to talk about the underlying causes of these problems, but it’s time that we start talking about them.
