Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • It's Only The Modern That Ever Becomes Old-Fashioned

    Uploaded by

    Oana Wana
    2K views1 page
    This document discusses Oscar Wilde's quotation "It's only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned." The quotation refers to how modern inventions and technologies are designed to become obsolete quickly through planned obsolescence. Products are constantly being updated with minor improvements to encourage frequent upgrades and purchasing of new items, even though older versions still function. This concept of the modern becoming outdated was less common in the past when items were crafted by hand to last longer without constant updates and replacements.

    Original Description:

    Original Title

    It's only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Report this Document
    This document discusses Oscar Wilde's quotation "It's only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned." The quotation refers to how modern inventions and technologies are designed to become obsolete quickly through planned obsolescence. Products are constantly being updated with minor improvements to encourage frequent upgrades and purchasing of new items, even though older versions still function. This concept of the modern becoming outdated was less common in the past when items were crafted by hand to last longer without constant updates and replacements.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    2K views1 page

    It's Only The Modern That Ever Becomes Old-Fashioned

    Uploaded by

    Oana Wana
    This document discusses Oscar Wilde's quotation "It's only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned." The quotation refers to how modern inventions and technologies are designed to become obsolete quickly through planned obsolescence. Products are constantly being updated with minor improvements to encourage frequent upgrades and purchasing of new items, even though older versions still function. This concept of the modern becoming outdated was less common in the past when items were crafted by hand to last longer without constant updates and replacements.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    " It's only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.

    " -
    Oscar Wilde?

    My teacher has given me homework to paraphrase this quotation in a speech which should be about 3
    minutes long. What am I supposed to talk about?

    AnswerSave

    "It's only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned." - Oscar Wilde?

    Favorite Answer

    Basically, the line is talking about how everything that has been made in recent times has been made to
    last only a short time - what people refer to as "planned obsolescence." Before the industrial revolution
    came about, back in the day when things were done piecemeal, by hand, per unit, each one was crafted
    to unique specifications and designed with the craftsman's honor and reputation at stake. If his suit of
    armor fell apart while the knight was jousting, then that smithy would lose a fair amount of trade, if not
    his life, for doing such poor and shoddy work. When men began using machines to assist them with their
    building of things, such as automobiles and the like, the fact that these contraptions would break down
    all the time became an accepted norm, as did all other inventions and tools and such that man built
    using these machines to aid them, instead of building them from scratch and by hand, like they once did
    decades before. We have since become a world who has grown used to expecting things not to last, to
    expect all these modern devices we now buy to have to be replaced every year or so because of
    malfunctions and breakdowns and such.

    And now, even more recently, the reason has become not that things break down but that they are
    made obsolete, or so manufacturers want us to believe. The reason being they come out with products
    that are so very similar to last years model, yet have this minor improvement, this small upgrade, which,
    apparently, we cannot live without. Their advertising makes it seem as if last year's product is now
    hopelessly old-fashioned, and we have learned to buy into this thinking. This is where our grandparents
    and great-grandparents thinking greatly differed from ours - most held onto their electronic items until
    they finally died on them, just because that was how things were. Only then would they have purchased
    a new item. Of course now, if we decide to hold onto the older item instead of upgrading, it's going to
    break down in the next year or two anyway because its so shoddily manufactured but if we wait, then
    we can get the even more updated version once our older version actually breaks down.

    You might also like