On my desk stands a miniature of an Easter Island moai, carved for me by a Rapa Nui craftsman. It’s precious to me, hewn from the same stone his ancestors used for the world-famous monoliths, textured with the tiny air-bubbles of millennia-old lava, and carrying memories of the friends I made on my voyage there.
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| The problem with our society is not that is values things too much but that it doesn't value them enough. |
On another level, however, it’s also an uneasy symbol of humanity’s precarious relationship with the material world – because the original 13ft ancestor statues were quarried in the Middle Ages with a fervour to match any modern production line. According to the dominant modern narrative, every family wanted one; more than 800 were carved and dragged into position using rope and timber, before somebody cut down the last mature tree on the isolated habitat. Ecological collapse ensued, bringing strife and starvation.
You would think that this blunt (if increasingly controversial) parable of unsustainable consumption would help me moderate my relationship with my stuff. But my mobile phone contract is nearly up, and here I am salivating at the prospect of upgrading it. My desktop moai frowns reproachfully: what kind of icon needs to be replaced every two years? At least statues endure.
Read the story from Aeon by Nick Thorpe - “The love of stuff.”
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