People who want to theorize post-consumerism fail because they fail to identify a strong positive-valence, positive-feedback alternative to "convenience" as a driving attribute of material life. Behavioral attribute, not value/virtue. "Clean" or "environment friendly" ain't it.
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This is really interesting and very relevant to some discussions I’ve been having with friends in the #transitiondesign community.
I fully agree that transition from consumerism/capitalism to someting more sustainable can’t be solely based on virtue, sacrifice or enforcement.
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However, I don’t believe we only consume to maximize the attribute of convenience. Thus, the challenge is more complex: to find (and play with) as many alternative postive-valence, positive-feedback attributes as the ones that currently keep us consuming.
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I think it's the main one. To the point that it trumps other ones when there is a contest (eg. people going to a foreign country and eating at McDonalds rather than deal with the inconvenience of figuring out interesting local options). Convenience is code for "least resistance"
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I think it’s the main one in something like “western capitalist modernity.” Arguably, it doesn’t always/everywhere has been or will be like that.
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Yes that was my implied scope... and it's spreading to the rest of the world because of lack of alternatives. Middle-classization = convenienceization.
In China, it's already the dominant ethos of WeChat. In India it's getting underway in a big way.
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