Going Fast and Slow

Icarus, plate VIII from the illustrated book "Jazz" by Henri Matisse

We know the perils of fast fashion and how the pernicious practices involved prey on the desperation of impoverished people. Fast fashion is just one of many ways in which we’ve sped up the activities of our lives in the modern-day. Fast food would be another, cars, elevators, and on and on. Almost nothing we do today can be traced back directly to our ancestors except that which involves the most intimate activities of our bodies and emotions. Nearly all else is similar only in the intended end result or in metaphor.

Some efforts to run in the opposite direction of fast fashion, fast food, and all the other expediencies dive into a different deep end. Rather than indulge our desire for instant gratification and preservation of our wealth by purchasing on the cheap, attempts at “slow” fashion or “slow” food, not always but often indulge our desire for luxury, exoticism, and ostentation.

We tend to think that the only vice associated with food, for instance, is eating too much of it. When in fact, theologians also acknowledge things like eating food that is too luxurious, too expensive, or too exotic as a gateway to the sinful attachment to food.

When it comes to fashion, buying cheap clothes entangles one in a web of exploitation and entrenches the desire for instant gratification. And buying inordinately expensive clothing feeds our desire for luxury and ostentation--and likely still entangles us in exploitation.

A middle way would supply consumer habits, utilize the efficiency of modern technology, and commit to an ethic of non-exploitation. At the individual level, the middle way might be intentional choices with a few purchases we can feel good about. And as always, grace with ourselves considering the rising costs of everything and the lifelong journey to work on our hearts.