The Post-Modern Metaphysical Implications of Digital Printing on Screen Printing

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If one were to make the bold assertion that the printing industry is dead and that our own thrift and drive towards perfection has killed it, than one must first consider what it means to be a dead industry. For an industry to be dead, it must have been superseded by a newer and higher form of production. The spinning wheel killed the hand weaving of yonder, and that was in turn done in by the invention of mechanical spinning wheels and so on and so forth. The point is that although those industries try to carry on, they ultimately failed as our human spirit pushed off the shackles of conformity, tradition, and ignorance and reached forward out of the cave and into the light.
Many make the claim that this is what is happening to the screen printing industry of today. I aim to demonstrate that although perhaps traditional screen printing won’t be done for ever, digital technology is not the revolution that makes traditional screen printing obsolete. The fact of the matter is that digital printing is in its infancy and not going to overtake screen printing anytime soon.
The reasons for this edifying line of thought is that it choice brings along with it variety. In existential way, our valuing choice and independence has given rise to the prodigious amount of variety that exists and has made this choice the ultimate good. If everything is relative and nothing absolute, then the choices that arise give rise themselves to variety, the new ultimate good. This ability to choose for ourselves ensures that screen printing isn’t going anywhere. Because screen printing is still very cost efficient on order of twenty or more t-shirts, people will still choose to print in the traditional manner. People shall still purchase them because they are of good quality and produced at a good price.
This revolution will not come because digital printing does not allow for the exponential increase in production sometimes associated with an increase in technology. Once again our free will guarantees that screen printing is not leaving yet because people still save money on the t-shirts. This extra money is often, although not necessarily correctly, linked to an increase in happiness which is the ultimate drive for the individual. Thus one can see that the myriad of choices for printers helps in an economical way to give consumer choice and value which ultimately leads to their increased happiness all deriving from the ability to choose to use screen printers over digital printers. Thus choosing a traditional screen printer will make you happier and is the obvious choice for large orders of t-shirts.