OPINION

Throwaway society

… The disposable cell phone is more than another absurd invention. It is another stone added to the foundations of our modern consumer culture. It is another product of questionable value which is based on the idea of a small paper object that is used once before it is thrown away for ever… On top of the fact that this new mobile phone constitutes a crude attack on what is left of our everyday use of the written word, it degrades our ordinary telephone communication into so much garbage. The disposable cell phone reinforces the idea of culture as a garbage dump, since all human actions result in the production of waste. And modern goods do not cease to be garbage even during the process of consumption. Trash is taken away in order to make room for more trash. Our culture’s defense against its own waste – which becomes visible only during garbage collectors’ strikes – is to generate yet more of it. And the dual action of consuming and dumping is spreading, as the modern consumer is not only the individual who consumes whatever the market dreams up in order to consume; the consumer is also an individual who takes less and less interest in investing. In the old days, men first made sure they survived and only then did they begin to accumulate in order to possess; they never threw away any of their possessions…

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