Reading Assignment #8--Slade's Made To Break pgs. 83-185

Good afternoon dear followers. This week we were asked to read pages 83-185 in Slade's book entitled, "Made To Break". Chapter 4, "Radio, Radio", is a dramatic retelling of the struggle between two influential men in the broadcasting industry. Advances in broadcast technology and the invention of miniaturization result in the first disposable pocket radios. Slade notes that at this point in history, “product life spans were no longer left to chance but were created by plan” (113). The invention of nylon, electronic calculators, the atomic bomb, and the resulting public backlash dominate chapters 5, "The War And Postwar Progress" and 6, "The Fifties And Sixties". To illustrate the sense of how public intellectuals were raising awareness of these issues, Slade draws upon the seminal works of Norman Cousins, Vance Packard, and Marshall McLuhan to provide additional context to the increasingly widespread cultural understanding of advertising and media use in planned obsolescence.

In my opinion Slade uses this book to deliver some jarring environmental statistics, which have the desired effect on the reader. What are we going to do with the ever increasing products of consumer technology waste? How did we get ourselves into this mess in the first place? Why is it that the typical individual is unaware of this looming global catastrophe? What is the corporate, consumer, and government responsibility in all of this? Slade does not provide concrete answers for all of the questions he raises, but he does provide an effective historical summary of planned obsolescence and relates it to a series of suggestions and inevitabilities that he sees technological consumer culture affecting. Slade seems to recognize that blame and finger pointing will be ineffectual in galvanizing people into action. He asserts that only through equal awareness and action from consumers, corporations, and the government will we be able to address this issue effectively. We shall see how the conclusion of Slade's book pans out.