I loved the Leiber piece as well! There was so much that I felt was a jumping off point rather than a conclusion, if that makes sense? Ex. the rise in teenagers who want to be extremely well off financially could be a lack of 'deeper' values, but it could also be attributed to a changing sense of 'enough' based on economic conditions (growing up in the rust belt, seeing a decline in union protected labor, witnessing the 2008 crisis, etc. etc.) I'm thinking here about a piece I read recently about it being less possible to be 'frugal' when expenses like housing and healthcare are so extreme (https://michelleteheux.substack.com/p/you-cannot-out-frugal-this-economy)... if you witnessed struggle, food on the table comes first, then maybe you can figure out the 'deeper values' stuff later. I used to teach the Carter piece to high school students and they always resonated with it, which makes me think that teenagers are caught in a cultural tug of war on the issue.
Leiber also frames the failure to shift our materialistic ways as a problem of individuals not wanting to change. There's no question that there's plenty of corporate resistance to change, but I wonder what degree the failure to shift is the result of intentional individual resistance versus a failure to fully understand the stakes (obviously aided by media outlets and misinformation campaigns) or uncertainty of how to get involved? I've been at Earth Day community events where if you ask "How can I get involved?" people don't have answers beyond "Sign this petition." It seems like we have a multi-pronged problem: 1) People who don't realize the negative impacts of [fast fashion, fast furniture, forever chemicals, microplastics, etc.] and 2) People who have a vague awareness that something is bad, but lack the know-how or easy access to change. This might also be the category that is scared about what change looks like ("If they stop fracking, do we still have jobs?") or "no one around me is sacrificing, so why should I?". It seems like these are the categories that are probably far larger than people who are entirely willfully resistant to making different decisions. And the question of the century is how to reach them.
I've been thinking about this speech all week. Loved that Ron Leiber piece in the Times.
I loved the Leiber piece as well! There was so much that I felt was a jumping off point rather than a conclusion, if that makes sense? Ex. the rise in teenagers who want to be extremely well off financially could be a lack of 'deeper' values, but it could also be attributed to a changing sense of 'enough' based on economic conditions (growing up in the rust belt, seeing a decline in union protected labor, witnessing the 2008 crisis, etc. etc.) I'm thinking here about a piece I read recently about it being less possible to be 'frugal' when expenses like housing and healthcare are so extreme (https://michelleteheux.substack.com/p/you-cannot-out-frugal-this-economy)... if you witnessed struggle, food on the table comes first, then maybe you can figure out the 'deeper values' stuff later. I used to teach the Carter piece to high school students and they always resonated with it, which makes me think that teenagers are caught in a cultural tug of war on the issue.
Leiber also frames the failure to shift our materialistic ways as a problem of individuals not wanting to change. There's no question that there's plenty of corporate resistance to change, but I wonder what degree the failure to shift is the result of intentional individual resistance versus a failure to fully understand the stakes (obviously aided by media outlets and misinformation campaigns) or uncertainty of how to get involved? I've been at Earth Day community events where if you ask "How can I get involved?" people don't have answers beyond "Sign this petition." It seems like we have a multi-pronged problem: 1) People who don't realize the negative impacts of [fast fashion, fast furniture, forever chemicals, microplastics, etc.] and 2) People who have a vague awareness that something is bad, but lack the know-how or easy access to change. This might also be the category that is scared about what change looks like ("If they stop fracking, do we still have jobs?") or "no one around me is sacrificing, so why should I?". It seems like these are the categories that are probably far larger than people who are entirely willfully resistant to making different decisions. And the question of the century is how to reach them.