Annie Leonard, a proponent of sustainability and critic of the consumerism and maker of the sensational short, The story of stuff. The movie is about the governments, companies and the households approach to massive consumption and how it affects the natures resources.
According to Leonard this superfluous consumption puts our planets future at risk of running out of resources. The whole 20 minutes is indeed convincing and really made me reflect about my own situation, even though I wouldn’t count myself as a materialistic person. I believe that on some level you get direct or indirect affected by new things in commercials. It’s hard to sometimes reflect on why you need this high-tech mp3-player or those new sneakers, you just get very tempted to buy them for some reason. To stimulate our perceived obsolescing we need to shop and keep up with fashion turns and people around us. We believe this is healthy for us. We become happy through shopping spree and using these products a limited time. But this happiness is most times just temporary. In time we’ll need something new to stimulate our feeling of insufficient possessions.
Leonard also mentions the meaning of prolonged happiness. Sometimes you don’t realize the things in life that’s important, like friends and family. To get accepted you don’t need show of with a new car, especially not in front of your friends. Of course, having a lot of money and the ability to buy nice things is great, but not the most important part in life. To feel good you need friends who accept you for your personality and not the all the new stuff you own and that can’t be bought in any way.
Another interesting thought worth noticing in the movie is the affect of keeping the price low. Who is really paying the price? Considering the planet perhaps, but not to forget, the production workers. To keep prices down, employees in third world countries must make sure to keep the costs down as well. The squeezing might lead to lower standards, sickness among workers and child labour. We must be willing to sacrifice our prices for the right to welfare.
