Comments for Hot "Stuff": A Viral Video Hits the Classroom »
Posted By JamesMarcus 7 months, 2 weeks ago in NewsOn Sunday the New York Times ran a story about Annie Leonard, who is fighting a one-woman crusade against excess consumption and waste. Her primary tool is a 20-minute video called The Story of Stuff, which has become a viral hit in classrooms since Leonard first posted it on the Web in December 2007. Six million people have viewed it on the filmmaker's own website, while the version on YouTube has clocked many more hits (it's hard to tell the precise number, since the film has been chopped up into segments and reposted by other viewers).
As the Times also notes, the film has its share of detractors, who argue that Leonard applies too broad a brush to industrial society. In the opening sequence, she does admit her own addiction to the iPod and various other consumer items. But her mea culpa goes no further. Capitalism itself is depicted as a bloated, top-hatted monster, like a more dastardly vision of the Monopoly Man. And Leonard's definition of what goes on in a factory is surely a little black-and-white: "We use energy to mix toxic chemicals in with the natural resources to make toxic, contaminated products."
In Missoula, Montana, one irate parent complained when the film was shown in a science class. As reported in the Missoula Independent Online, "The controversy began in October, when Kathleen Kennedy, a science teacher at Big Sky High School, showed her class The Story of Stuff, a 20-minute video about sustainability. One student's father, Mark Zuber, thought the video was biased and ill-suited for Kennedy's Wildlife Biology class, and lobbied the school district to take action against her."
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Spadecaller7 months, 2 weeks ago
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Thanks for posting this interesting piece. One thing for sure; despite whatever labels some people will attach to her perceptions and views of industrial society, they have merit and value that can benefit anyone with some degree of open mindedness.
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JamesMarcus7 months, 2 weeks ago
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Many of her points are hard to dispute--who's going to speak up on behalf of products that are designed to self-destruct within 18 months? Nor will mindless consumerism find many defenders. But without capitalism, she wouldn't have her iPod, nor the World Wide Web, which allowed her to reach many millions of viewers in just over a year.
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Beau78907 months, 2 weeks ago
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Yes, her depiction of corporations is a bit oversimplified, but as you say, it's hard to dispute the other points she brings up about business's role in polluting the environment and in stoking the inequities of the production/consumption cycle.
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To the larger issue of its use in education, the video gives kids a lot to think about that they probably haven't considered. A good teacher can spur discussion that gets them to think about the ideas presented and about economic philosophy on a level they can handle.
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JamesMarcus7 months, 2 weeks ago
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Oh, of course the industrial processes could (and should) be tweaked to avoid toxic materials. No argument there. I meant that it's hard to build a factory without raising capital, so that capitalism does tend to raise its ugly head.
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tehranchik7 months, 2 weeks ago
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I'm a capitalist James. I guess I'm a limited capitalist. Maybe there's another word for it. I think we can be capitalists and do things right.
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Bloated corporations don't fit into my kind of capitalism and that's where the limits would come in. Proportionate pay and benefits for from the profit and income of any company. The owner/ceo/employer would still have a sweet income but so would the employees. If the company has a bad year - everybody has a bad year. I know I'll get zinged to hell and back but it's a fair way to run things.
Products that are made to last (longer than 18 months) from materials that aren't toxic should be a goal of capitalism.-
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JamesMarcus7 months, 2 weeks ago
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Radiofreeeuropa7 months, 2 weeks ago
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I need to 2nd tehranchiks's thoughts. Despite being accused of not being a capitalist...I firmly believe in private ownership and capital as incentive. This to my mind does not allow for monopoly, bad citizenship on the part of corporations (yes I know some do charitable things as well). A corporation's only incentive is profit. A human being generally wants profits too but has consideration for other things that ultimately harm his or her self, family, or community. Corporations should not have the same rights (or in modern times more rights) as human beings. This came about when an underhanded clerk working for railroad interests (remember the robber barons...now they hide behind corporate logos) stuck it in a supreme court document. Unmitigated greed need not be tauted as freemarket capitalism, which incidentally can thrive without profiting on human necessity. Providing for the general welfare of citizens could include energy (in the N.E. we have old people freeze to death every winter when their utilities are cut off because they can't pay...in today's world this does not need to happen simply for a profit), Medicine...why on earth should insurance conglomerates dictate to Dr.s what treatments they are permitted to use or not? Why do we need them involved at all? Any look at big Pharma profits shows a ratio that makes no sense to anyone but the evil characters in Dicken's stories. Their excuse is research is expensive, but they don't sink much of a percentage of these profits into research, they did spend quite a bit on lobbying for a tax rate of 5-6% though...successfully. I'm of the mind, and I'm not poor (at least haven't been, this year may prove differently) that no one needs to make more than 250,000 a year in personal income, if they can, great! But you can afford to pick up more of the tab too.
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Anyway there are some things that probably should be run as public trusts not for profit, we probably would agree...at least the less obtuse among us, that police depts and fire departments...schools, etc. run pretty well this way (when fire depts were private, and they were in NYC at one time, they fought over who would be looting the burning house...the type of capitalism we don't want...Vulture Capitalism.)
Most developed countries have proven that medicine can be done this way too, we are so brainwashed by the slogans of the vultures that we resist the idea that not everything needs make a profit for speculators. That some services deemed as necessities should simply be publicly funded without need for profit being added to the cost. We should return to licensing Corporations state by state with their charters revocable should they not be good neighbors. -
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deathray7 months, 1 week ago
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unfortunately, t, capitalism doesn't work that way; despite claims of making durable products, corporations don't maximize profit that way. similarly, american comsumers are addicted to cheap and disposable, which, of course, is the point of the video.
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MRCOFFEECAKE7 months, 2 weeks ago
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Thank you. That's probably the best video I've ever seen for explaining how we're messing up our world.
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She left out how we go to war for these resources, enslave the unfortunate victims of simple societies and often use religion as our justification..
THAT would be another set of videos, but it all ties in. -
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MRCOFFEECAKE7 months, 2 weeks ago
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Thank you. That's probably the best video I've ever seen for explaining how we're messing up our world.
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She left out how we go to war for these resources, enslave the unfortunate victims of simple societies and often use religion as our justification..
THAT would be another set of videos, but it all ties in. -
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