Psychedelics of Plastics Pt. 2
Just Like in the Good Old Days
The Post-War era was a moment of great enthusiasm. Howling over the radio waves, Michael succeeded to Elvis who succeeded to James. The black berets of Civil Rights bloomed and shrivelled. Smallpox was officially declared eradicated. The deadliest conflicts in human history had come to their ending and the future looked bright. From the ruins of the ancient world, weapons had grown up, ready to put on a civil suit and start the recovery. Among them the many-faced plastic.
Ironically, plastic science began at the end of the 19th century motivated by elephant welfare. Looking for a substitute to ivory, an American inventor named Hyatt synthesised the first plastic out of cellulose. More than chess pieces and piano keys, celluloid’s versatility applied to virtually any object. But it was heavily dependent on the cotton supply that provided raw material. The true synthetic plastic would have to wait a couple of decades more in the belly of Science. A song of ring ring later and Bakelite was born. Known as the black suit of rotary dial telephones, this new plastic’s versatility became essential for industry manufacturers. Bakelite turned the world upside down. Brought to life with inert chemicals, it was a Frankenstein Creature ready to mingle with the living.
While Hyatt was losing his mind over the celluloid recipe, purple-clad activists were bartering the emancipation of women. They allowed a new workforce to enter the market, running from household chores to 9-to-5 office jobs and back again. Active life was unkeen to the frail silks of their mothers’ underwear. Modern women needed something indestructible and inexpensive enough to endure their hustling lifestyle. Right on time, Nylon emerged from the containers of mad scientists, earning its stripes in the aircraft. Meanwhile Plexiglas from aviation glazing was opening up dazzling possibilities for an architectural renewal. More and more would appear, creating a new kind of arsenal. If WW2 sent plastic flying in the skies, Cold War propelled it out of Earth, in spacecraft and suits, marking once and for all plastic’s omnipotence.
Silent Helps
Perfected through the decades, plastics have become essential to our lives, a prosthesis to enable the conquest of spaces. Together with Oil, they are the guardians of our Exponential Age. They have worked in the shadows like diligent nurses, smoothing out every little inconvenience. With the expected consequence of overprotected children. We have turned more impatient and prone to self-doubt. Not believing human’s ingenuity and Nature’s gifts to be sufficient to innovate. Today, it seems unthinkable for the components of a technology to fit together without the powerful joint of plastics.
Humanity’s pace is accelerating and elongating. We crossed the sound barriers riding oil-powered horses in a circus of unimaginable speed. Until recently distance has been the determinant of the human psyche. We have lived in smaller worlds where thousands seemed like an infinity. Fossil fuels have shaken the scales, and reshaped our experience of time. International transportation is far from trivial. Swiss people know it in their core; the mountains that are a national pride were also our most unescapable jailers. 150 years and 2 tunnels later, what took our ancestors weeks of toil and deadly dangers is but a mere drive. Thanks to planes and fuel engine, abroad is only hours of distance.
The Treadmill
In this re-engineered world where micro and macro merge in an unsettling way, everything is at one’s fingertips in a matter of minutes. Yet each step takes us further from what we need. Against all odds, we started running after time. So, between each hard-earned breath, we eat fast food, wear fast clothes, and ride fast cars. All of it to relieve ourselves from the fear of being left behind. Oil, in its terrible resourcefulness, comes with all sorts of plastic band-aids: light packaging, bags and cheap thread. And we, great optimisers, have made it disposable, eventually easing the burden of caring for little things. All that so we can focus our energy on the Acceleration. When asking ourselves: “What is a good life?” We ought not be surprised if our answer can only be articulated with the help of plastics.
