The Silence of Things

Somewhere in the Industrial Age, objects shut up because their creation had become so remote and intricate a process that it was no longer readily knowable.

Or they were silenced, because the pleasures of abundance that all the cheap goods offered were only available if those goods were mute about the scarcity and loss that lay behind their creation.

Modern advertising -- notably for Nike -- constitutes an aggressive attempt to displace the meaning of the commodity from its makers, as though you enter into relationship with very tall athletes rather than, say, very thin Vietnamese teenagers when you buy their shoes.

It is a stretch to think about Mexican prison labor while contemplating Victoria's Secret lavender lace boycut panties.

The objects are pretty; their stories are hideous,

So you get to choose between an alienated and ultimately meaningless world and one that makes terrible demands on you.

Most consumers prefer meaningless over complicated, and therefore prefer that objects remain silent.

To tell their tales is to be the bearer of bad news ... against shrimp, against strawberries, against gold, and on and on.

It's what makes radicals and environmentalists seem so grumpy.

Rebecca Solnit, Alternet, 21 July 2003