Sweating and Shopping

Being a Mac user invovles it’s own subculture, one to which I happily belong. As a member, I keep track of all news that is Apple…it’s as reflexive as watching CNN when I get up in the morning. So this whole scandal about the iPod sweatshop in China was a little disturbing to me.

For about an hour or so. And then I let it go.

Now, Apple is of course investigating, and states that it refuses to do businesss with anyone who pays their workers so little for such a ridiculous amount of hours. A commentator of CNN mentioned that if this was such a big deal to us, then we should check the labels of most of the items that we buy to discover that they are “made in China.” In fact, one commentator stated that it was better for those workers than living in abject poverty, which would be their only other option, and wrote it off as a cultural difference. That sort of passed through my information filter, and I let it go.

But last light I became pretty upset with myself for letting it go.

I’m an American, and therefore materialistic. The best of us, the American who is the least tied to material possessions, is still pretty bad when compared to other cultures. We’re also pretty wealthy, and, as my fiance described it a few days ago, we have a “ridiculous amount of stuff.”

I’m also a guy, so I like my toys. A lot. I’m really into the latest technology. Of course, I have an iPod. Almost never leave home without it.

And so, because I’m an American, and a guy, and I like my stuff way too much, I let this go, because I’m much more concerned about having the stuff I want (which somehow gets twisted into “need”) than I am about the (alleged) degradation of human lives and dignity that it took to get me my stuff in this twisted supply and demand culture in which I make my home. I’m much more concerned with working up a sweat shopping than I am about the sweat shops that may have spawned the precious stuff that I think I have to have. The people who made the stuff…they’re numbers, not names.

I’ve haven’t been an activist since my high school days. But this could make me one again.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.