I was reading the latest issue of Bon Appetit yesterday. It had a feature called "Eco-Chic" which contained recipes for a multi-course dinner and suggestions for how to serve it. The focus of the piece seemed to be more on the serving dishes (bamboo plates, petrified wood platters) than any sort of eco-ness in regards to the actual food (which contained two meat courses and numerous out-of-season ingredients). Clearly, the "Chic" was the subject and "Eco" the modifier. Something about that title bothered me, and I spent the morning pondering it (as I awkwardly transplanted a clump of chives).
Things that are chic are, by their very nature, transient. Hipness, coolness, chic are intrinsically fleeting, insubstantial. Maybe jean jackets will make a comeback, but right now--ugh. Of course, evolving and revolving style has been a part of human civilization since the beginning (so you're still using stone arrowheads? How quaint), and it makes no sense to bemoan that.
That conflation, that linking of hipness to environmental awareness, that rubbed me the wrong way. Of course, it's good for people to find ways to make and sell and buy things that are less destructive to the environment. It's good to get the Braindead Media Industrial Complex involved in a positive way. I'm not about to stand in the way of every honky in a Prius who wants to serve hors d'oeuvres on a bamboo plate, but what happens when this particular trend runs its course? We have treacherously short memories in this country. What happens when our callow news cycle gobbles up the last dregs of inconvenient truthery, and we're left right where we started? What's more substantial to the human race than the planet upon which it stands? Maybe making environmentally responsible decisions shouldn't just be cool, it should just be life.
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