How to proceed after "Fridays for Future" | Culture | '
For months, especially young people around the world have been protesting against the climate policies of their governments. The Greens are experiencing unprecedented heights in Germany and want to prohibit mail-order companies such as Amazon from destroying returns. Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) takes up this initiative and announces a corresponding bill. Is the throwaway society really facing change?
‘: Mr. Ullrich, when did you return your last package?
Wolfgang Ullrich: Honestly, I personally have never returned a package. I order very little online, and if something does not fit one hundred percent, I will not send it back – but honestly not for environmental reasons, but rather for convenience.
At the moment it seems as if the social environmental awareness is going up. We discuss climate issues, the Greens are experiencing an upturn, and youth is protesting at Fridays for Future, Does that have a lasting effect on you?
Yes, because in considerable parts of the population, environmental awareness is increasing, albeit only partially. First air travel became the focus, now the return of the packages and plastic bags. Much of what has a similar impact on the ecological balance is not yet in the foreground, such as nutrition or heating. It is interesting that the debate is very much on the topic of consumption, the everyday small consumption habits, which are discovered as screws, with which one might be able to do something.
Sees social responsibility as a currency: consumption theorist Wolfgang Ullrich
We can also make our conscience easier with consumer choices by buying supposedly healthy things or fair trade products.
You have to be very careful, because of course it is suggested that you are particularly environmentally aware, if you do without a plastic bag or eat less meat. As you quickly ends up with the technical term "rebound effect": If you as a consumer has a good conscience, one means to be able to hit the strings once again, so sharpened: I have not returned a package for a month, now I may for times fly back to Mallorca. You think too much of what you save and behave all the more lavishly.
Conscious behavior is sometimes also in conflict: what is ecologically sustainable, does not necessarily have to be social.
It is always complex. Of course, I have good arguments to buy fair trade chocolate: I make sure that nobody is over exploited, and I may do something for the infrastructure in an economically weak country. On the other hand, I favor again crazy transport routes, ecologically it is so nonsensical. Personally, I have to decide again and again whether I have an ecological interest, a social or a structural one. We consumers are initially frustrated because we feel this insecurity.
In the Enlightenment would therefore help the industry?
Something has happened in the last ten years. My criticism begins when the manufacturers suggest that buying a product is all right again. I would wish for more honesty, maybe even that companies are a step more radical, with the good conscience something back – and with the bad conscience like to start a bit.
How do you worry about a company losing sales?
Carefree purchasing: Part of the returns is destroyed by the providers. That should change.
Of course, there is a risk, but a company can benefit from a better image and be at an advantage over competitors if it works with more honesty.
Environmentally conscious decisions have to do with the renunciation of consumers. We want to go on vacation instead of taking a train to the Baltic Sea every year, which is the self-image of affluent societies. Does not the necessary waiver compete with our individual requirements?
The question is how the waiver is coded and how it may even get the character of a reward. Strong brands that are almost cult status could make a big difference. Imagine, the next iPhone to hit the market is not just for money, it's just someone who can prove that he has not flown for the past two years or done 20 hours of environmental work in his community Has. The status symbol would be even more valuable than anyone who has $ 800 left.
This is exciting, but it sounds utopian, especially at a company like Apple, which is denounced because of its working conditions and relies on raw materials for its products, according to which children in Africa mine. Although everyone knows that, a new iPhone is cooler than not.
Yes, the topic of working conditions will be discussed more in the future. Precisely for this reason, companies need to think something out for fear of losing their image and status, and to demonstrate their social responsibility more strongly to the outside world. So I can already imagine that new business models with a second currency in addition to money could be established relatively quickly.
Are we socially willing to do without?
In all religions, we always have forms of renunciation which people have accepted or even found good. So the question is: who in our society today has this status that religions have had for a long time? Brands today are something like a substitute for religion, so they may have the power to make forms of renunciation socially acceptable or attractive.
Soon a picture of the past? Queuing ahead of the launch of a new iPhone
They also describe consumption with the terms lifestyle and identification. Just identification is closely related to brands and status symbols: I can afford the latest iPhone and feel culturally, because I can travel around the world. In the theory of consumption as substitute satisfaction, which fills a void in terms of content, consumers are badly convinced that they can not.
That's true. Outwardly I give signals through status symbols, directed inward, through certain consumption I can fill my life with meaning, structure it. But what is felt to be valuable and meaningful is far from fixed. So fresh and clean used to be new, the long use of items had a higher status. Thus a person showed that she had continuities in her life, was committed to traditions, and conservative in the best sense. Maybe patina will be worth more than the flawless one in the future – this time, however, because it signals that someone is environmentally aware and does not constantly replace things with newer ones.
However, the industry has long recognized that an expiration date promotes consumption: televisions do not hold today 20 years, with the mobile phones can not even independently change the battery, new apps you can not load even if the device is too old ,
Yes, that has clearly developed in recent decades. But I think that in the long run the critical public will not have to join in and at least have to rethink some industries. Of course, they then have to think about other business models in order to get the same profits. But if you take the eco and climate issues seriously, you will not get around.
The individual consumption behavior is a question of voluntariness. Do we need more concrete guidelines or prohibitions? If the parcel delivery and the return costs a bit, we may not order so lightly.
Presumably you are right, but you have to be very careful not to control it so that those who have more money continue as before without any major losses. People with less money have a lot to do without and may have even more limitations. But of course, legal regulations can be helpful.
With "Fridays for Future" one can get the impression that other topics are actually more important than possession and status, the protesters argue very reflected. Can this youth give us hope?
Yes, I'm optimistic. If these young people start-ups in a few years, they can decide what is important to them and how they want to work. Your goals can have an impact we can not even imagine today.
Wolfgang Ullrich was Professor of Art History and Media Theory at the Karlsruhe School of Design. Since 2015 he is working as a freelance author, from him appeared u.a. "Everything just consumption, criticism of the aesthetics of the aesthetic."
The interview was conducted by Torsten Landsberg.
ليست هناك تعليقات