Avoiding a Junk-Filled Christmas

As customers flood the stores to shop for the holidays, all of them will be dealing with the mounting challenge of finding something that isn’t junk. As writer Walter Kirn recently argued in a delightful rant on today’s consumer goods, nearly everything these days has noticeably deteriorated in quality, whether that be home appliances, clothes, office supplies, or new vehicles. Any reader would be able to relate, particularly with the small things: “The staples that won’t pierce five stacked sheets of paper. The matches that sizzle and smoke but don’t catch fire. The grocery bags split by the corners of the milk cartons whose inadequately [sic] seals leak drops of milk. The strangely short power cords on electronics.”

Why is this? Kirn goes through the reasons: lack of quality control in Chinese factories (it’s hard to expect much from sweatshop workers being paid slave wages), government regulations (the environment hates clean clothes and dishes), meeting economic demand (people like cheap stuff that doesn’t work). For his part, Kirn provocatively suggests that material goods, along with the people who bother with them, are going obsolete in the face of the rising digital future, concluding, “One wonders whose obsolescence is being planned, our products’ or our own?”

While there may be some grand plan afoot by the masters of the universe to create a techno-dystopia, it’s more likely that today’s lousier products are simply a reflection of today’s prevailing philosophy. As Kirn rightly puts it, “The world is going digital, we’re told.” Rather than interpret this as a sign that the human souls are going to be converted into computer data to live a virtual existence (like some Black Mirror episode), “going digital” in this sense means that people are migrating away from the world of fully-formed concrete things to the world of half-formed nebulous abstractions.

This trend is both good and bad. One great benefit is that digital technology has improved enormously in recent decades—indeed, they’re the only products that haven’t dropped in quality. As an older millennial who once relied on floppy disks, expensive PCs that regularly crashed and were subject to viruses, glacially slow dial-up internet, and video rentals at Blockbuster, I appreciate the things we have now in a way younger generations can’t. No one in my age-group should ever take for granted just how wonderful today’s laptops, smartphones, data clouds, high-speed internet, and streaming services are these days. 

It also happens to be the case that these are the few products still made (or at least designed) in the developed world. Americans might be willing to outsource the manufacturing of their coffee bean grinders, baby clothes, and wireless vacuum cleaners to low-skilled laborers in poorer parts of the world, but when it comes to their computers, they will make sure some well-paid professional engineers in Tokyo, Taipei, or Silicon Valley are behind it. 

Although this is great for the tech industry, this has been a major blow to nearly every other industry. This in turn has effectively created oligarchies of tech and finance overlords ruling over the pitiful masses—an arrangement euphemistically regarded as the “Knowledge Economy.” 

More importantly, this transition to a more digital world has led to a spiritual crisis affecting everyone. Matthew Crawford explains this in Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work. Narrating his own evolution from writing abstracts for academic papers to repairing vintage motorcycles, he notes how humanity has suffered from no longer handling and understanding their physical possessions. Not only is this evident in people’s helplessness when it comes to maintaining or even just buying new stuff, but it also shows in today’s widespread diminishment of creativity and intelligence. They never learn the practical fundamentals of assemblage, craftsmanship, or mechanical processes, which often translates to never learning the intellectual fundamentals forming definitions, using logic, or understanding context.

It’s not a coincidence that as material goods have dropped in quality—so have nonmaterial goods. This can be seen in today’s popular entertainment and art, formal education, and public discourse. Even though creators, teachers, and critics have all the resources to do their jobs well, they lack a knowledge of the fundamentals. Their respective products lack substance and depth, leading to a kind of shoddiness despite the high price tag associated with their work. 

This ranges from newer Disney films which are filled with shoddy plots, shoddy characters, and shoddy visuals, to Ivy League colleges which are filled with shoddy scholarship, shoddy leadership, and shoddy instruction, to today’s corporate news media which are filled with shoddy writing, shoddy reasoning, and shoddy motivations.

No doubt, the logical conclusion of a shoddified world is a shoddified humanity: cheap, superficial, and ultimately useless. This may be great for political elites wanting to rule over pliant sheep or corporate elites wanting to grow rich off mindless consumers, but it is a massive problem for the country as a whole. Human happiness is tied to personal excellence. This means that a society predicated on producing and consuming junk will lead to a society feeling like junk.

In light of this, Americans should take this season of gift-giving as an opportunity to instead cultivate excellence. That will mean spending more time (and perhaps money) on their gifts as well as devoting more attention to their literal quality of life. We know more stuff won’t make us happy, but better stuff could certainly help.

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