TY - JOUR
AU - SAITO, YURIKO
AB - It is generally agreed that the prime mover of contemporary consumerism is aesthetics. However, today's consumer aesthetics often leads to decisions and actions that have negative environmental consequences. By taking apparel industry, represented by fast fashion, as a quintessential example of this problem, I argue that aesthetics can no longer claim immunity from environmental considerations—there needs to be a paradigm shift for consumer aesthetics. A proposed new environmentally minded consumer aesthetics promotes a paradoxical role for material ephemerality in enhancing an object's longevity, and it places importance on the personal connection with an object's story, as well as our engagement with the material world more generally. I. AESTHETICS VERSUS ENVIRONMENT The relationship between environmental ethics and aesthetics has become controversial in recent years. There is a growing recognition that our aesthetic taste, preference, and judgment have far‐reaching environmental consequences. More often than not, aesthetics seems to work against environmentally sound attitudes and practices. For example, popular nature aesthetics sometimes becomes an obstacle to protecting nature. Built environments and structures that contribute to sustainability, such as wildflower gardens, wind turbines, solar panels, and buildings made by reusing discarded materials, are often criticized for creating an eyesore.1 Sustainable consumer products are also considered aesthetically inferior, although this negative judgment is context‐ and people‐dependent.2 Examples include “plain brown biodegradable dresses and unbleached ‘Eco‐Tees’ made of stiff, cardboard panels of recycled cotton tinted with environmentally sensitive dyes; … non‐toxic formaldehyde‐free woolen pajamas,” and “[h]emp shirts, rattan furniture, unbleached paper, wood‐pulp walls, and wheat‐board cabinets” (Harris , 181–182 and Hosey , 28, respectively). The aesthetics of these objects is characterized by one critic as “anti‐aesthetic, a cult of penitential discomfort,” while in 2010 Forbes magazine announced that “Eco‐fashion conjures up images of burlap sacks” (Harris , 181 and Hosey , 28, respectively). The problem with such aesthetically unappealing products is that, except for die‐hard environmentalists, average consumers tend not to purchase them, thereby creating waste. One critic points out that “a drab, wrinkly garment may be left unsold on the store shelf, and waste all the resources that were invested in the creation” (Thiry , 26). She continues that the Global Organic Textile Standards that set the sustainability standard for textiles may help “make an initially more environmentally friendly fabric” but “it doesn't take into account the preferences of consumers” (Thiry , 26). The Editor‐in‐chief of British Vogue thus insists that, for sustainable fashion to be successful, “it needs to be able to hold its own aesthetically and stylistically,” because “[t]here will always be some people who will make their choices on the basis of the sustainability and general ecological footprint of a brand, but many more judge clothing on how it looks and feels” (cited in Minney , 179). The consensus among environmentally concerned thinkers and designers, therefore, is that “a problem with the ecological movement in design has been its tendency to downplay the role of aesthetics in favour of ethics” (Sadar and Chyon , 116). The initial intention of adding sustainability ethics to design resulted in a virtual replacement of aesthetics with ethics, according to Hosey (, 5). With consumer products, this conflict between aesthetics and sustainability is increasingly dire. For example, Virginia Postrel cites a consumer's declaration—“[a]esthetics … is why you buy something”—to argue that today's consumer culture operates on “the aesthetic imperative” (Postrel , 8). Another critic points out that “[w]here style was once seen as merely a form of embellishment, it is now seen as essential to ‘rhetorical ploy to promote consumption’” (Duncum , 126). Production of goods is accordingly geared toward satisfying consumers’ aesthetic appetite or desire, whether for personal fulfillment or, perhaps more commonly, projection of a particular persona through possessions. The design profession thus tries to satisfy this aesthetic imperative in today's economy by putting “a major emphasis on product appearance” (Walker , 7, emphasis added).3 This aesthetic appetite is insatiable. As Gernot Böhme points out in his discussion of aesthetic economy, “[t]here are no natural limits to presentation, glamour and visibility,” unlike satisfying basic needs, which is subject to the law of diminishing marginal utility (2003, 73). As a result, industrial production is always accelerating, along with consumerism and its negative consequences (78). Furthermore, this never‐to‐be satisfied aesthetic desire is exacerbated by the consumers’ pursuit of the new, the novel, the fashionable, and the up‐to‐date in the object's appearance.4 Edmund Burke has pointed out the problem of short‐lived and perpetually diminishing attraction of novelty (, 29). Of course, today, this aesthetic desideratum is orchestrated by the industry, but it has been internalized by consumers so that yesterday's “new” style is no longer attractive. In the past, the industry strategy for selling products was planned obsolescence regarding functionality. Today, it is a well‐known secret that obsolescence is “perceived” or “aesthetic,” consisting merely of a cosmetic change that rarely improves functionality.5 As a result, consumers are caught in the frenzy of purchasing new products. Most consumers are buried in “stuff,” sometimes characterized as affluenza or stuffocation, and whatever is not burying us at our home is accumulating in the ever‐burgeoning domestic landfills and dumping grounds in developing nations.6 In the United States, this rampant consumerism is vividly illustrated by “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” following Thanksgiving Day, which marks the beginning of the buying frenzy leading up to Christmas. Although no particular day is designated, back‐to‐school shopping in late summer is also reflective of this consumerism. Parents feel pressured to dress their children with the newest styles of clothes; last year's clothes, even if perfectly fine, are obsolete and children wearing them could be teased, or worse, bullied, for looking unfashionable. As indicated by the back‐to‐school fashion, the apparel industry, which created the phenomenon of “fast fashion,” is the quintessential example of the conflict between aesthetics and environmental concerns (although the problem is prevalent in other industries, such as those for automobiles and high tech gadgets, in particular smart phones). For this reason, the rest of this article focuses on apparel industry as a representative of consumerism. The speed with which a garment becomes aesthetically obsolete is accelerating. According to one account, “Nowadays, it's a different silhouette every couple of months! Fast‐fashion brands are bringing out new products daily and it causes a lot of pressure to keep up, as well as having an extremely negative effect on the environment through the manufacturing process and the amount of waste ‘disposable’ fashion causes” (Minney , 89 and 113). To keep up with this aesthetic demand, factory production, outsourced to the developing nations, has to accelerate its output, jeopardizing the workers’ safety and well‐being. Both developing nations’ governments and factory owners are caught in a bind and are forced to relax regulations for working conditions and minimum wage because the companies buying the garments can always take their business elsewhere. Just as Marx identified the cause of the proletariat's plight as the industrial‐capitalist system itself, today's problems associated with the frenzied pace of production is a systemic issue that cannot be solved by appealing to governments or factory owners. In addition, today's economic system hides the true cost of production, because the cost to the environment, human health, and safety, characterized variously as spillovers, side effects, intangibles, diseconomics, disamenities, or side conditions, are externalized.7 As a result, fast fashion products are relatively cheap and they become almost like disposable items. In short, “our behaviour and our buying habits have created and sustained social inequalities and environmental destruction—all in the name of fashion” (Minney , 99).8 The current garment industry is the second‐worst offender of the environment, next to the oil industry (Minney , 17 and 165). Here is a list of various costs, most of which are externalized, incurred by the garment industry: (1) resources used to produce raw materials; (2) resources used in the manufacturing process, water being the most significant; (3) toxicity of many dyes and finishes used on the fabric; (4) fabric waste that results from the manufacturing process; (5) resources needed for packaging and transport; (6) resources used for caring for the garment, such as water, detergent, and electricity, often accompanied by environmentally harmful substances, such as optical brightener, chlorine bleach, and chemicals used in dry cleaning; (7) ever‐expanding domestic landfills and dumping places in developing nations; (8) health effects on consumers whose garments are treated with toxic dye and finishes; and, last but not least, (9) violation of factory workers’ human rights, the most notorious and tragic example being the 2013 garment factory collapse in Bangladesh resulting in 1,135 deaths, which was preceded by a 2012 factory fire with 112 deaths also in Bangladesh.9 Environmentally minded professionals in apparel industry have come up with design solutions, including non‐toxic but aesthetically appealing textile dyes, garment pattern cuts that do not create any fabric waste, wider seams to allow users to adjust a garment's size, and recycling systems, including thrift stores, swapping programs, and the like. Despite these improvements, however, the environmental problems of fast fashion do not seem to have abated; if anything, they seem to be worsening.10 II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE AESTHETIC AND THE MORAL In light of the many ways in which consumer aesthetics seems to work against sustainability, what are we to do? One strategy is to denounce any role that aesthetics plays in consumers’ lives and tackle the problems exclusively as an ethical issue. This position can be interpreted as a version of aesthetic autonomism which is primarily concerned with separating the moral content of art or the moral character of an artist or a performer from the aesthetic merit of a work of art. After all, aesthetics is concerned with the sensuous surface of the object. However, while it is true that the core of the aesthetic is the object's sensuous surface, its perception almost always involves cognitive considerations related to the object. By now I believe it is well‐established that the aesthetics of art includes the cultural‐historical context, techniques used by the artist, the artist's oeuvre, and symbolism and allusion, all of which are extra‐sensory but inform the perceptual qualities of the object.11 Similarly, one could claim that Allen Carlson's scientific cognitivism has given a foundation for environmental aesthetics, despite the controversies regarding whether science should have exclusive relevance and significance. One may worry, though, that these cognitive considerations are value‐neutral in comparison with moral considerations. Yet the case of art forgery should remind us that the moral judgment of the object's origin compromises our aesthetic experience and resultant judgment. More broadly, can we maintain the same aesthetic judgment of an object's appeal once its environmental cost becomes evident? Is it true that, once we become aware that the objects were made “in a third‐world factory under dismal conditions,” that what gets affected is only “our moral judgements of the objects … but not our aesthetic judgements of their beauty,” as Jane Forsey claims (, 186)? The answer, I submit, is no. A classical position of aesthetic moralism regarding consumer products was given by John Ruskin. Writing at the dawn of industrial capitalism, he was concerned with the social and environmental ills resulting from this mode of production. Ruskin put forward what some commentators call an “aesthetic critique of capitalism,” instead of the Marxist ideological critique: “For Ruskin, … beauty was not only about the appearance of our products but how they were made of what materials, under what conditions, and for what price; in short, it was an all‐out aesthetic system of values” (Brouwer, Mulder, and Spuybroek , 8–9). For Ruskin, “the life surrounding the object is aesthetically related to the life of the object itself” (Brouwer, Mulder, and Spuybroek , 9). Today's morally and environmentally minded everyday aesthetics introduces another layer of aesthetic considerations to the usual version of moralism by emphasizing the aesthetic harms resulting from industrial production. For example, David Orr proposes a rather radical definition of beauty by claiming that we need “a higher order of beauty” that “causes no ugliness somewhere else or at some later time” (, 185 and 134). This can be regarded as an aesthetic version of the well‐known statement by Martin Luther King, Jr., so that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” becomes: “Ugliness anywhere is a threat to beauty everywhere” (, 3). Applying this rather stringent requirement for beauty to our everyday aesthetics, Jonathan Maskit calls for “the aesthetics of elsewhere” that incorporates the aesthetic devastation of elsewhere—such as a pit mine, a logging site, or a factory floor—into our aesthetic judgment of everyday objects (, 92–107). Accordingly, the initial aesthetic appeal of a garment diminishes once we consider the ugliness and other negative aesthetic values of byproducts of its production, such as a polluted river, a burgeoning landfill, a collapsed factory building, and the disfigured face of a factory worker.12 In short, as Stuart Walker states: Most contemporary products are not expressions of delight, nor are they manifestations of love. It is difficult to feel delight when we know our products are causing enormous environmental devastation. (, 37) If, in its design and manufacture, the associated environmental, ethical and socio‐economic issues are ignored, then the object can become symbolic not of beauty but of ugliness and harm. (, 59) I join all these thinkers in questioning whether the aesthetic value of an object can have immunity from human rights violations and environmental devastation, even though these harms are beyond our perceptual grasp. We need to reassess our current consumerist aesthetics that is divorced from environmental consequences. In short, a paradigm shift regarding consumer aesthetics is in order. But why is it important to involve aesthetics in encouraging sustainable consumer practices? Cannot we nudge people toward more sustainable purchasing decisions and life styles by appealing to their sense of ethical responsibility? The exclusive appeal to the consumers’ sense of duty may accord with Kantian ethics. However, I hold that Schiller's aesthetic education of man is more helpful and realistic, because sensibility can be a powerful motivator for our decisions and actions. If aesthetics has been a formidable enemy of sustainability as shown in Section i, then it seems to be a missed opportunity if we do not harness this power and redirect it by changing the paradigm of what constitutes aesthetic value in consumer products. David Orr offers a contemporary version of aesthetic education: “we are moved to act more often, more consistently, and more profoundly by the experience of beauty in all of its forms than by intellectual arguments, abstract appeals to duty, or even by fear” (, 178–179, emphasis added). Similarly, design practitioners point out that “beauty … has the power to provoke desire and motivate action. Artefacts and environments that move us are those for which we care, and are more likely to protect” (Pam , 116). Sustainability as an environmentally minded practice thus needs to be supported by psychological sustainability that is possible with positive experiences, such as beauty and pleasure. A paradigm shift of consumerist aesthetics that I, along with other thinkers, am proposing thus needs to have a two‐prong approach. One prong is to develop what Kate Soper calls “an anti‐consumerist aesthetic,” the kind of aesthetic in which “the commodities once perceived as enticingly glamorous come gradually instead to be seen as cumbersome and ugly in virtue of their association with unsustainable resource use, noise, toxicity or their legacy of unrecyclable waste” (, 579–580). However, this negative aesthetic approach, if pursued alone, would promote a kind of asceticism, sucking the fun and pleasure out of life, and may prompt public resistance and rebuke because its preachy approach is guilt‐inducing (Steiner , 8–9). Thus, we need the second prong of sustainability aesthetics: what Soper calls “alternative hedonism” (, 571).13 This involves identifying aesthetic qualities that can render sustainable goods attractive or appealing, and in short fashionable. For the rest of this paper, I will explore three promising ingredients for sustainability aesthetics that are frequently proposed by design scholars and practitioners: longevity and ephemerality; the association of story; and a more engaged interaction with the material world. They are worth exploring because of their philosophical content, as well as for their practical implications. III. SUSTAINABILITY AESTHETICS FOR CONSUMER GOODS III.A. Ephemerality and Longevity Today's accelerated pace of aesthetic obsolescence makes fashion short‐lived. As we all know, fashion comes and goes, because “the new” is a moving target. However, this ephemerality is merely perceived or forced, as consumers discard perfectly wearable garments with no damage or wear and tear simply because they are considered outdated. There is another sense of ephemerality. Every material object is subject to the inevitable process of aging. The newness of mass‐produced objects usually consists of a smooth, polished, glossy, shiny, and perfectly uniform surface with precise design. Somewhat barren and sterile, these qualities of newness generally do not tolerate signs of aging and use that are indicated by marred, scruffy, drab, or dull surfaces with rips, tears, dents, and scratches. The intolerance toward signs of aging renders objects “prematurely aesthetically obsolete” (Walker , 87). To address this issue, designers concerned with the longevity of their products often use materials with rough, variegated, and irregular surfaces and some decorative patterns that are able to “absorb wear and tear in ways that do not detract from the overall appearance of the object” (87).14 However, such design strategies assume that signs of aging and use need to be made inconspicuous or, better still, invisible. That is, there is an implicit aesthetic imperative that the appearance of an object be kept as close to the original as possible. Consider, for example, the practice of repair. Alison Gwilt () points out that traditional repair of clothes requires invisibility, so that, for example, darning a sock uses the same‐colored yarn or thread and adding a patch to hide a hole or a rip requires the same colored fabric and thread to blend in with the garment's fabric. A visible indication that the object was damaged in some way and was repaired is considered aesthetically inferior to the appearance that hides damage and repair, not to mention the undamaged appearance.15 Ultimately, our obsession with keeping the surface as close to the original state as possible is motivated by the presumed aesthetic superiority of the appearance of permanence (that denies any signs of change). But an attempt at maintaining the longevity of an object in this way is doomed to fail because, no matter how skillfully repaired, material ephemerality is inevitable. Instead, paradoxically, facilitating longevity of an object is possible only by accepting its ephemerality. This requires embracing and making a creative use of the signs of ephemerality by incorporating from the beginning signs of change. For example, if prominent patches and stitches around them are made a part of the original design, later signs of repair will be integrated into the overall design. In this regard, we can gain some insight from the Japanese practices of repair. Consider kintsugi, an art of repairing cracked pottery with visible filling, sometimes with gold. Similarly, fishermen's coats are constantly repaired with added patches to the point where almost every part is replaced (this mode of repair was born out of the necessity of making do with available materials, similar to quilt‐making in the American South).16 These repaired objects are sometimes exhibited in museums today because of their stunning aesthetic effects. They also illustrate the paradox that only by allowing and accepting changes and ephemerality and by working with such changes creatively can the object's longevity be assured through aesthetic appeal. Furthermore, another assumption underlying our attitude toward consumer products is that a new product must be completely and perfectly “finished” at the point of purchase and its condition needs to be frozen, so to speak, which of course is not possible. While being spatial entities, material objects also exist in a temporal context. We generally neglect this temporal nature of material objects’ existence, which tends to discourage us from not only embracing their vicissitudes but also from actively interacting with them. Stuart Walker points out that “most products demand passive acceptance by the user; there is little or nothing to be added or contributed by the user. Even the repair of a simple scratch or break is not invited and it would be difficult to achieve a satisfactory result” (, 118, emphasis added). Instead, he and others propose design that is rough, good enough, or unfinished, so that the users engage with them through what some commentators refer to as the “craft of use” (Fletcher, ). I will return to the notion of consumers’ active engagement with objects in the last section. III.B. Story Associated with an Object and Personal Connection Issues of longevity or durability, however, need to be addressed not simply as physical durability but also what some call “cultural durability” or “cultural sustainability” (Verbeek , 220). One of the drawbacks of today's global economy that supports an industry practice like fast fashion is the geographical and psychological distance between the consumers and the object's origin. This distance tends to make us not care about the object, except for satisfying self‐interested reasons like needing to get our money's worth and maintaining the object in a good condition so as not to compromise its effectiveness and functionality. We do not think about what (resources, energy, human toil) went into making the object; it is simply an object on the store shelf with no history or story to tell. One commentator laments that “there is no connection between the customer and producer. There is a lack of empathy. If you buy something from a fast‐fashion company, you don't know where it was produced. You don't know the living conditions of the producer” (Minney , 166).17 William Morris's warning issued more than a century ago is still relevant today: For to‐day the public, and especially that part of it which does not follow any manual occupation, is grossly ignorant of crafts and processes, even when they are carried on at their own doors; so that most of the middle class are not only defenceless against the most palpable adulterations, but also, which is far more serious, are of necessity whole worlds removed from any sympathy with the life of the workshop. (1967, 483) This problem of disconnect is what inspired the local food movement. The most common way of obtaining food from agribusiness, at least in the United States, alienates us from the production of food. The local food movement instead connects us closer to the farmers and farms that supplied the food, which tends to make us care, cherish, and value what we are cooking and eating. One may claim that such considerations have nothing to do with aesthetics and do not affect the aesthetic value of the object. But in the case of local food, knowing that the food was locally sourced from a farmer practicing sustainable agriculture inclines us to savor its taste and texture. This is in contrast to chowing down on fast food with unknown origin. Knowing the production process makes a difference in our experience of tasting, say, beef. We feel more connected to the food and such a feeling is bound to elevate its aesthetic profile in our experience. In contrast, people often become vegetarian not only for ethical reasons but also on aesthetic grounds after coming to know various harms done to the animals and environment: they can no longer enjoy the taste of meat. It is illuminating that many designers working on sustainable design emphasize the importance of the story behind the object's creation—who made it, and where and how it was made. I have already discussed the first prong of sustainability aesthetics: how the story of environmental harm and human rights violation associated with a consumer product compromises its initial aesthetic appeal. Here I am proposing the second prong to promote the aesthetic appeal of an object with a positive story regarding the object. One such example is a Dutch designer's one sheep project where several knit sweaters are made from one local sheep all identified by a number.18 A consumer wearing such a sweater cannot but feel connected to the sheep and this feeling of closeness encourages care and maintenance as opposed to treating it like a disposable item. One of the preoccupations of modern Western aesthetics discourse is the objectivity of aesthetic judgment. This is particularly important for the artworld operation because its very existence is premised upon the possibility of evaluating artistic merits. Although debates ensue about how to overcome relativism and subjectivity, personal associations with an object are the first to be disregarded for being irrelevant to the object's artistic value. We certainly do not expect an art critic to evaluate the artistic quality of a work of art based upon her personal connection to the work, or her childhood memories. However, what is appropriate and necessary for art aesthetics may not readily apply to everyday objects. Although we often do make aesthetic judgments on everyday objects, we also know from our lived experiences that personal associations have an impact on the perceived value of an object. Let me share a personal story, although it does not involve a consumer product. There is a hand‐knit sweater that I cannot bring myself to dispose of, although it has seen its day and I can no longer wear it because my mother made it when I was in middle school (an ancient history!). It is made with two different yarns, an orange one taken from my mother's sweater and a gray one taken from my old sweater, when both became worn out. My mother unraveled the yarn from each sweater and combined them to make a new sweater for me. Its appearance does not stand out in any way, nor is it worthy of special attention by other people. The significance of such personal connection also explains why many mothers experience a clumsily made bead necklace that their children made for Mother's Day as a piece of precious jewelry. As Walker points out, “[s]uch an object will be valued despite any lack of skill evident in its creation,” because “its beauty lies in its meaning and the intentions it symbolizes and is part of its essential nature” (, 57).19 I believe that what may be dismissed as sheer sentimental attachment to an object in the objectivity‐driven discourse does have an important role to play in the sustainability‐driven consumer aesthetics. I should note that some memories and associations are more, or less, aesthetically relevant than others. As George Santayana points out, in order for an association to function aesthetically, there has to be what he calls “a union” or “a fusion” between it and the sensuous surface. But, the division between the sensuous and the associated memories is often so great that “so long as this division continues, the worth of the thing is not for us aesthetic” (, 120). A Mother's Day necklace may be one such example. However, for the purpose of cultivating longevity of an object in the hands of consumers, I would include associational and historical value as a part of sustainability aesthetics.20 It is also important to note here that the story regarding an object is ongoing; it does not stop at the point of purchase. It continues to accumulate layers of story by the history of its owner using it, altering it through repair or stylistic change, and possibly handing it down to the next owner. For this purpose, the aforementioned design strategy of leaving an object unfinished is effective in giving the object's owner a role of continuing its story. Such an incomplete and unfinished design, according to one writer, is “a suggestion, an offering, the first part of a sentence, a conversation for the user … to be picked up and continued” and “[s]omething that can be added to, adjusted, and changed” (Fraser , 378). This continuing story‐telling regarding an object cultivates a sense of “belonging, kinship and connection” (394). This sense of connection is particularly prominent with a multigenerational family, but it can also be experienced among friends and even total strangers through swapping and sharing. In this regard, although its shape is not suitable for today's active lifestyle, Japanese kimono provides a kind of wisdom. First, the making of kimono wastes no fabric as pieces are cut in straight lines and there is only one size for adults. Its length is adjusted when put on by a fold at the waistline secured in place by a sash. Furthermore, its construction is designed for easy disassembly and the fabric is also amenable to dyeing, facilitating the reuse of the fabric for a newer‐looking kimono that gets handed down through generations. Indeed, I have a few kimonos handed down from my mother that feature new colors and patterns. Overall, as one commentator remarks, such a practice of continuing a story of an object emphasizes the “life with a product” in addition to “[t]he life of a product” (Hosey , 107). III.C. Valuing an Object The reassessment of longevity, ephemerality, and personal connection discussed so far leads to a more fundamental re‐examination of our interaction with “things.” Today's relationship between consumers and products has become rather dysfunctional because of what Walker calls “a severe detachment from our material world” and “a lack of understanding and a devaluing of material culture” (, 53). We have become “increasingly divorced from an intimate connection with things”; we need “a creative re‐engagement with ‘things’” (54 and 53). Consumer products are a quintessential example of “It” in the I‐It relationship, contrasted with I‐Thou relationship in Martin Buber's () formulation. The I‐It relationship characterizes an unquestioned assumption in Western ethics that mere objects can be treated simply as a means to an end, with possible exceptions like a work of art, a national flag, a gravestone, a historically significant object or structure, and the like. It is precisely because of this assumption regarding objects that we have moral theories against treating humans (and today arguably non‐human animals) as objects. However, when it comes to typical consumer products, we assume that our treatment of them is limited only by possible violation of other people's rights to life and property. We as the owner of an object do not wrong the object itself if we destroy it, throw it away, neglect its care, and so on, because the object itself does not have a good of its own that is damaged by our mistreatment. Therefore, we feel no compunction if we discard a perfectly fine garment just because it no longer meets our aesthetic needs. There is nothing wrong with treating consumer products as disposable. This attitude is a product of the post‐capitalist society where, at least in the developed nations like the United States, those who are fortunate no longer have to worry about satisfying basic needs. The attitude of cherishing and getting maximum mileage out of consumer products has been replaced by indifference toward “stuff” except for satisfying our aesthetic needs. The Japanese ethos of mottainai (too good to throw away), embraced and advocated by Wangari Maathai, unfortunately never took root except in those who are already concerned about the ills of excessive consumerism. Alister McGrath observes that viewing things solely as “Its” exacerbates “an ethic of alienation, exploitation, and disengagement” (cited by Walker , 120). I am not proposing a quasi‐animistic view of objects that should curtail our handling them purely as “Its.” Rather, I am advocating a more holistic view of aesthetic value facilitated by the paradigm change of consumer aesthetics that will help us overcome the usual mode of regarding an object as a mere “It.” As pointed out by two commentators, “attention to aesthetics is important for sustainable design, as it heightens our engagement with our artefacts, resulting in greater longevity” (Sadar and Chyon , 116). Similarly, lamenting the loss of an Emersonian holistic ideal of beauty, Hosey claims that “today we judge things—buildings, objects, people—in isolation” and “a richer sense of beauty can create things with profound presence and resonance” (, 53). So, what if we develop a different attitude toward mere things? What if we seek a more personal and meaningful connection with what we purchase and use? What if we cultivate mindfulness and sensibility regarding “things” with which we interact daily? I believe that the traditional notions of aesthetics, such as disinterestedness and objectivity, are not appropriate in dealing with the aesthetic issues regarding consumer products. At the same time, aesthetics discourse should participate in the discussion of the environmental consequences of consumer aesthetics. Henri Lefebvre in his critique of the everyday characterizes the everyday life of most of us to be governed by “organized passivity” (, 10). In addition to passivity that characterizes our work life and leisure activities, he points out that “in private life, it means the imposition of consumption, since the available choices are directed and the needs of the consumer created by advertising and market studies” (10). Despite the freedom we exercise in choosing, purchasing, and discarding consumer products, we usually regard ourselves as passive receivers of objects already fashioned by the designers and manufacturers. Furthermore, we tend to think that our consumption occurs “in a vacuum,” and industry is more than happy to fill in this vacuum by providing both products and a fashion standard (Todd , 98). But, should we stay passive consumers by accepting the aesthetic standard manufactured by the industry for their profit? More fundamentally, are we complicit in disengaging ourselves from the material world because it consists of mere stuff, “Its”? Or can we become active citizens with responsibility for better world‐making not only through political participation but also by engaging with the material world actively, mindfully, and responsibly, through practicing the “craft of use”? If today's consumerism is fueled by aesthetics (and we have already seen that it is), it behooves us to ask what constitutes the aesthetic value of consumer goods, particularly in light of the various problems their production and aftermath cause. Truly beautiful objects should be valued, cherished, and cared for. Such objects should be able to enjoy longevity, and at the same time their ephemerality should be embraced as a way of contributing to their changing beauty. After all, the aesthetics of design is not just about its sensuous appearance but the facilitation of a certain relationship between it and the consumer. As Verbeek points out, “the meaning of aesthetics in design … comes to include not just style and beauty, but also the relations between people and products, and the ways in which products coshape the relation between humans and world” (, 212). The onus of cultivating a different relationship between humans and objects falls on both designers and consumers. The challenge to the designers is to critically examine heretofore unquestioned assumptions, such as the need for an object to be completed and finished at the point of purchase and to be maintained in such a finished state. They have to recalibrate their design strategy to encourage consumers’ interaction, connection, and engagement with the object. At the same time, the responsibility of the consumers as active citizens is to cultivate a different attitude toward the material world so that we experience an object in its wholeness and we care for it by continuing its story with our literal engagement with it, via care, repair, maintenance, and gifting. The aesthetics of sustainable consumerism, therefore, is not simply a matter of promoting specific sensory features of the object. It is more importantly a paradigm change about our relationship with the material world. 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OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Wallman , James . 2013 . Stuffocation: Why We've Had Enough of Stuff and Need Experience More Than Ever . New York : Spiegel & Grau . Footnotes 1. I explore these examples in Saito (, 69–72, 84–87; and , 93–114, 141–144). 2. The examples and references that follow are context‐dependent in that rattan furniture, for example, is aesthetically preferable to leather furniture for a beach house. They are also people‐dependent because Forbes represents conservative corporatists, while many youths and those who embrace counterculture find aesthetic values in the examples of sustainable consumer goods listed by Harris. I owe this point to Levi Tenen. 3. Much of design research is concerned with how best to appeal to consumers’ aesthetic appetite both for products and for the retail environment. I will cite representative examples: Hung and Chen (, 81–90); Mugge and Schoormans (, 469–484); Ahn (, 13–32). 4. The attractiveness of newness and novelty can be based strictly on the object's functionality without regard to its appearance. For example, a high‐tech gadget can boast added features without changing its appearance. In such a case, the newness is not an aesthetic value. However, as the rest of this paragraph shows, the primary attractiveness of new products today is their style and appearance often without any improvement of functionality. I thank Levi Tenen for raising this issue. 5. Aesthetics as a major factor in today's consumerism is also due to the aesthetics of the retail environment, as explained by Pine II and Gilmore (, 97–105), Böhme (, 112–115), and Pam (, 141–146). 6. “Story of Stuff” at https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-stuff/ gives a concise account of the environmental cost of consumerism. ‘Affluenza’ is the title of a 1997 PBS documentary that was published in a book format of the same title in 2001 (De Graaf, Wann, and Naylor ). ‘Stuffocation’ comes from Wallman (). 7. The problem of externalizing true cost is discussed by Hawken (). The film The True Cost (2015, directed by Andrew Morgan; Bullfrog Films) is helpful in exposing the true cost of today's global economy. 8. I should note that the aesthetics of fashion is also associated with other kinds of harm, namely aesthetic ideals for the human body, sometimes tragically displayed by malnourished fashion models, such as Isabelle Caro, a French model, who died in 2010. 9. The list consolidates many materials that informed my discussion in this paper. The problem of water use in growing cotton, including organic cotton, is discussed in Thiry (, 128). The wasted textile that ends up in landfills is discussed in Gwilt and Rissanen (), as well as in Minney (, 17). Minney also refers to the toxicity of textiles and its effect on humans (42). In keeping with the growing recognition that environmental harm cannot be separated from human rights violation, for the rest of the paper I include environmental justice issues (item #9) in the sustainability issue. 10. For non‐toxic dyes, see McDonough and Braungart (, 106–109). For examples of sustainable fashion design, see Gwilt (, 59–73) and McQuillan (2011, 83–97). For the increasing environmental problems despite the development of sustainable design, see Fletcher (, 22). 11. The best‐known works on the aesthetic relevance of facts about art is Arthur Danto's view on the artworld and Kendall Walton's notion of categories of art. 12. I have to admit that the aesthetic disvalues of these things are also morally based. Purely on the sensuous level, they are not necessarily aesthetically negative. 13. The same point is made by Pan et al. (, 53–66). Their discussion is supported by interviews with consumers. 14. The notion of longevity here is rather complicated, because in one sense the longevity of non‐biodegradable materials in the landfill poses an environmental problem. Positive longevity that contributes to sustainability is not so much the material durability but aesthetic durability that encourages the consumers to keep an object rather than discarding it prematurely. See Walker (, 179) on this point. 15. See Gwilt (). I shall put aside the aesthetics of grunge or shabby chic that highlight signs of damage and repair, primarily because it can be seen as a rebellion against the mainstream fashion correctness. Maybe such aesthetics can be considered mainstream particularly among young people, where wearing intact jeans is a form of rebellion. I thank Sandra Shapshay for this point. Another complication that I will not address is the possible problem of aestheticizing poverty in creating very expensive clothing items that sport rips and tears from the beginning. 16. See Rissanen (, 130) for an example. Also see Wallinger (, 336–345), which comments on the exhibit of such patched clothes held at the Portland Japanese Garden in 2010. I will explain the Japanese term, mottainai, in the last section. 17. See some specific examples of consumer products that encourage such connection in Fraser (). 18. See its description at http://christienmeindertsma.com/index.php?/projects/one-sheep-sweater-2010/. 19. Empirical research confirms that people's attachment to an object, whether furniture or household items, is largely a function of memories and experiences connected to the object, and it indicates that an object gains meaning for a person through interaction, whether literally (as in using a musical instrument) or imaginatively (as in family legacy or memory). See Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg‐Halton's research, cited in Verbeek (, 223). 20. I thank Levi Tenen for raising this issue. The distinction between aesthetic values and historical values is an important issue in aesthetics, in particular for restoration of art and the aesthetics of ruins. However, I will leave this discussion for another occasion. © The American Society for Aesthetics This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) © The American Society for Aesthetics
TI - Consumer Aesthetics and Environmental Ethics: Problems and Possibilities
JF - The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
DO - 10.1111/jaac.12594
DA - 2018-10-31
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/consumer-aesthetics-and-environmental-ethics-problems-and-9qSlV9w4e2
SP - 429
EP - 439
VL - 76
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -