alt Hacker NewsMaybe, but really consumerism wasn’t a thing for most of history because almost no one had the money to decorate intentionally in the way we do today. The very wealthy did to varying extents. When we look at the past we always imagine ourselves to be the ones in Downton Abbey, but most people were lucky to inherit some furniture.
I would argue that the reverence for real wood and craft you espoused (and I share) is in part possible due to living in a consumerist society. For what it’s worth it is still possible to buy those same quality goods today, and certainly at lower cost . However, I would balk at paying the historical fraction of my income (or multiple if we go back to the 1700s), for a new bed.
In short cheap dishonest crap is what we ultimately want. It lets us focus our time and resources elsewhere
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A good depiction of the gritty realities and the meaning of material striving for the very poor in turn of the century farm life is the novel Independent People, by Halldor Laxness, an Icelandic nobel laureate.
My first exposure to this - tired of $40 particleboard bookshelves and tables, I went looking for solid wood furniture, reasoning it was fine to spend a little more for something that would last. I found it- and discovered humble, small tables were a months pay.
I don't want cheap crap, but I suddenly appreciated why we've moved away from tables that can support a car.
> because almost no one had the money to decorate intentionally
Poor people always decorated and still do. There is basically no larger human culture where decorations dont take a place. The only ones I can think of are small religious orders that dont decorate to deprieve themselves.
You go to any poor area and see dirt, mess, issues and people showing off decorations in their houses or on themselves.
> However, I would balk at paying the historical fraction of my income (or multiple if we go back to the 1700s), for a new bed.
It’s probably fine if you are going to use it for the rest of your life. Or you can pay just for the nails, and do the rest yourself.
A lot of online culture laments the modern American life and blames the Boomers for all of our "woes".
The 1950s - 2000s post war boom was a tailwind very few countries get to experience. It's funny how we look back at it as the norm, because that's not what the rest of the world experienced.
There's a reason everything in America was super sized for so long.
Things have averaged out a bit now, but if you look at the trendline, we're still doing remarkably well. The fact that our relatively small population supports the GDP it does is wild.
> Maybe, but really consumerism wasn’t a thing for most of history because almost no one had the money to decorate intentionally in the way we do today.
This reminds me of being a kid excitedly repeating the trope I’d just learned: “Back in your day it was nice because you didn’t need to lock your doors!”
To which she responded “Because none of us had anything worth stealing.”