When you shyly respond, “OMG!” to the excited words of a kind classmate. where did you get that? “Shein…” is saying that you know full well that you shouldn't have bought it.What you're saying is that you're aware exploitationdangerous Chemical exposure, Theft of independent artist designsincredible overproduction, Lies about labor standards certification, Absurd lack of transparency, Mountains of waste exported to the Global South A report corroborated by forced labor That's what you spent making that nondescript Halloween costume you wore once. Still, you decide that your desire to wear it is greater than everything you've heard about the company. come.
Sure, other fast fashion companies (Zara, H&M, Boohoo, Fashion Nova, etc.) also employ substandard labor practices and pollute the planet, but Shein does it on a whole different level. in the past year, ZARA has posted 35,000 different items on its website. Shane had 1.3 million.
Yes, under capitalism, within America's auto-dependent infrastructure, we have a laughably bad minimum wage. union busting On both the right and the left, there are many exploitative industries and environmentally harmful by-products that ordinary people simply cannot opt out of. When idealistic wealthy people criticize others for not being perfect environmentalists, or assume that everyone has time to be a shopaholic, we should always emphasize the class perspective. be.
If you live in a remote area, don't have access to transportation or thrift stores, and, like many people, can't afford new name-brand clothes for work, you have to resort to choices you wouldn't otherwise make. It is easy to understand what must be done. , it's like shopping fast fashion. But we both know that many of our colleagues are not in that situation.
You're a college student who bought an iced coffee and Roots yesterday to pay your SkyVue rent, you're a college student whose parents are helping you pay for college without much sacrifice, you're a 20-minute free bus ride away from several thrift stores. If you live within the area, that excuse won't work. Neither do I. Sometimes poor ethical choices are actually within our control. It's embarrassing to think that because you're a college student it's okay to do business with human rights violators. You're bound to blush when you tell people where you bought your micro-trend crochet crop top. cannot be manufactured by machines. shame on you.
Our generation is experiencing a bathtub of institutional guilt in a righteous cynicism toward the systems and corporations that have visibly suffocated our planet and our loved ones since we were born. We have thrown out the baby of personal responsibility with the bathwater. That's an understandable reaction, but it doesn't move us all that far forward.
If someone criticizes your clothing retailer of choice and your knee-jerk reaction is, “There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism,'' you have misunderstood the adage. You're obscuring the reality that not only are there better options, but there are also better and worse options. Even if it is a system whose ultimate purpose is to extract labor value.
Learning how immeasurable harm governments, corporate monopolies, and the fossil fuel industry cause tends to drive people to the ground. Once you're depressed, it can feel impossible to make ethical choices. But from that initial feeling of helplessness, until I was completely given up on the ability to have any kind of impact and ended up giving myself a free pass to waste away on unnecessary crap made by people who deserved better. , it's a slippery slope. .
We owe ourselves and humanity some nuance.We should denounce big corporations that do huge lobbying on behalf of the United States. limping Invest seriously in alternative energy. We should all feel exhausted by the relentless pressure that capitalism creates to be vaguely superior and to outdo everyone else.
However, many young people talk about “institutions” as if they were an alien, abstract force that no one can touch, completely separate from humanity. Indeed, CEOs and generationally wealthy career politicians are in some ways so removed from reality that they may be akin to extraterrestrial beings. But the moment we begin to tell ourselves that we as individuals are completely powerless against the organization is the moment the organization wins. The moment your engineering major friend takes a high paying job with a defense contractor, the moment you tell vegans online that their diet is worthless. The moment I accepted UPMC occupy more and more of pittsburgh While paying employees pennies, Still taxed as a non-profit organization.
We are disillusioned with humans and organizations thrive on apathy.
But you do have some power. I really have it. It's more comfortable to use the understanding that wealth and greed have a powerful force to justify what they want to do, but deep down they know it's not right. It's wrong not only because your actions have only a small impact on others and the planet, but also because participating in more harm than is inevitable undermines your humanity. It keeps us from finding meaning in the world, from staying loyal, from finding satisfaction in even small accomplishments that improve people's lives. Refuse to resign.
If you are still stuck on the seemingly irrelevant aspects of individual behavior, practicing more responsible consumption – most simply, buying as few new things as possible – models mass resistance to the system. Think about how it can help you. Both require self-control and sustained persistence in the face of slow change. Both get us used to putting aside the desire to protect others.
I know it's hard to have discipline and hope in the face of climate catastrophe; funded by the state violence and impossibility Cost of living, but you have to try it. We cannot give up on each other, and those of us in the United States cannot ignore the incredible harm our choices are causing overseas. For college students who are privileged to make some choices, it's a shame that we don't justify our bad behavior by holding our hands to world affairs when it's not us who suffer the most under our system. It is morally obligatory. We can't be perfect, but we can definitely get better.
British philosopher Iris Murdoch believed that making moral choices was not as complicated as many of her ancestors thought. If we continue to rid ourselves of our clouded perception of the world and refuse to give in to selfishness, she argued, we will never have to ponder the right choice. She says, “If I'm properly present, I don't have a choice.'' If you're open to the realities of exploitation that characterize the clothing industry, which options should you choose when shopping for a new going-out top? You probably already know that. Please muster up your courage and try making it.
Livia Daggett is a political philosophy junior and double major author passionate about rethinking housing, justice, and social services. It took me about 18 hours to crochet a small present for her partner.