Another Apple launch,another innovation – this time the loss of the headphone jack. But is built-in obsolescence and minimalism depriving us of the sheer delight of ‘things’, asks Aleks KrotoskiAnyone who’s ever watched toddlers playing in a sandpit knows that the concept of the death of the physical is vastly over-rated. These tiny tots the very manifestations of Freud’s self-obsessed, and filterless id will fixate on any worthless piece of plastic within their grasp,and will slice anyone who tries to approach near it. “Mine!” is the war cry of this generation (at least in their current, unsocialised guises). Physical objects are the simulacra of their mini selves, or ownership is their way of asserting control over their burgeoning sense of who they are. Like heck anyone’s going to consume that absent from them.
And yet there are predictions and bestsellers and trend look books that suggest that the future is not physical,but a clutter-free space in which we are surrounded by nothing but a handful of beautiful things.
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Source: theguardian.com