To think for ourselves

One of the issues that define the current society from what they were 30 years or more ago is the acceptance of built in redundancy, things that will need to be replaced in a relatively short period of time or as in the clothing industry, where things are not bought to last for reasons of changing fashion and therefore the price is the critical criteria not the quality for the clothing to last.
This relatively new market phenomena has led to clothing being manufactured in poor countries such as Bangladesh with outcomes such as the dreadful loss of life in one of their 'sweat shops' when the building collapsed even though the owners were warned of the danger.


The solution of course is in the hands of the purchaser if the working conditions are not of interest either of the government in which the terrible labour practices are condoned or of the companies outsourcing the manufacture. Only the purchaser can really effect the market. 
I have a range of shops and products that are on my "verboten" list and even if I am denying myself something I feel the ethics associated with doing business with these companies is a price I'm not willing to pay.
It is of course only a drop in the ocean and my statement is never heard or felt in the boardroom of the company I am boycotting but never the less I continue not to buy certain products.
Is this foolishness or does it mean that in the only way possible, by withholding my purchase I am identifying with a higher aspiration.
People these days, bombarded as they are with so much information and offers have become malleable to suggestion and seem influenced so much by "others". The footing on which we made our "own" decisions has been taken over by "group think". Our lives are at the disposal of the add man with his conduit into our homes and our lives through the television in the corner.
How many hours in a day are we bombarded with a 'buy signal'. It feeds into our subconscious to such an extent that we would have difficulty recognising the real from the artificial. Is it any wonder that a the moment of any important decision as we are bombarded with conflicting claims as to the truth our own common sense is waylaid by the influence of "others".
To see our way through this cloud of static, this distortion of fact and fiction, we have to blind side the media, at least that part which is so obviously trying to sell us a product. It doesn't mean we are not at risk of swallowing the propaganda which lies outside the section set aside to advertise a product and that we must always be on our guard against the news story which has been concocted by people with an other hidden story to tell. But if we are willing to seek out a number of sources and piece together our own approximation of the truth we will have fulfilled our special position in and amongst other sentient beings, that of using our minds for what they were designed for. "To think for ourselves".