The Clothesline Question

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Science and technology have become the dominant faith in our society. Questioning the tenets of this creed automatically becomes heresy. I hadn’t reinvented the clothesline—I recently discovered the Laundry List, a clothesline support group that calls its newsletter Hanging Out. But I realized that a line stretched across the backyard had the potential to undermine assumptions the economic system depends upon—namely, the willingness of consumers not simply to desire the new but to consign themselves voluntarily to hard labor in order to acquire it. To question this commitment to technological change, to ask whether we’ve calculated the true cost of our faith in the machine, is to raise the unpleasant thought that some of what we call progress might be little more than an elaborate con job. And people don’t like to admit that they’ve been had.

Has technology really made us happier and healthier? Are we fully conscious of what we have sacrificed for comfort, convenience, and a steady supply of cheap consumer goods? Has progress really kept its promise, or are we literally invested in—our economic system dependent upon—maintaining that illusion unquestioned? Line drying as an act of defiance against a soulless, machine-made culture? Perhaps it’s time to unite behind what the Laundry List calls the Right to Dry, not just because it’s radically simple, but because it’s simply radical.

Nicols Fox is the author of several books, including Spoiled: Why Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It (Penguin, 1998). She lives on an island in Maine, prefers a hand coffee grinder, and hangs out clothes year round. For information on the donation-based newsletter Hanging Out: Box 189, South Royalton, VT 05068 (www.laundrylist.org). This essay is reprinted from the books magazine Ruminator Review (Summer 2003), which covers a wide variety of literary, cultural, and political topics. Subscription: $14/yr. (4 issues) from 1648 Grand Ave., St.Paul, MN 55105.

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