Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement

CHAPTER ONE Voluntary Simplicity: A Cultural Movement

CHAPTER ONE
Voluntary Simplicity: A Cultural Movement P eople in the voluntary simplicity movement are concerned about environmental degradation, critical of conspicuous consumption and “careerism,” and dissatisfied with the quality of life afforded by full participation in mass consumer society. Simple livers, as participants in voluntary simplicity are often called, maintain that a voluntary simplicity lifestyle is more fulfilling for the individual, creates a stronger community, and decreases environmental damage. People in the movement believe that overconsumption is promoted by the dominant culture, which is materialistic, competitive, and destructive of the planet and human fulfillment (Elgin 1993a; Andrews 1997; Dominguez and Robin 1992). Simple livers say that there is no built-in or culturally established concept of “enough” in the dominant culture, which implicitly accepts a goal of working long hours for a wage under conditions that are often deadening and stressful. Dominguez and Robin and many in the movement maintain that work for pay for someone else is rarely fulfilling and undermines authenticity. They believe the economic drive for profit above all else promotes conspicuous consumption detached from any true measure of quality of life and long-term consequences. Participants in voluntary simplicity say they prefer to determine what is enough for themselves and earn only what they need to get by. 1 2 Buying Time and Getting By The voluntary simplicity movement offers ideology and techniques for arriving at a personal definition of what is enough and promises a more fulfilling life to those who consume in more sustainable ways, reduce clutter, and minimize activities they don’t find meaningful. Simple livers try to get by on less conspicuous consumption and less income from waged work in order to buy time for the well-being of the global environment, and for themselves to pursue more fulfilling and pleasurable activities. The alternative values and practices simple livers use to describe how they define voluntary simplicity provide insight into why these mostly educated, middle-class, white women and men ranging in age from their twenties to their eighties say they embrace voluntary simplicity, attend simplicity meetings, and seek to bring their use of money and time into alignment with their values. What Is Voluntary Simplicity? These are the accounts of some of the people in the movement about what voluntary simplicity is and why they practice it. Kevin, a rosycomplexioned , grey-bearded man in his seventies, who wears tan shorts and a T-shirt, fixes his intense blue-grey eyes full of a gentle kindness on mine and leans back against the wooden bench he and his wife Nita built into the compact basement apartment they share in the house Nita owns. He crosses his muscular arms across his chest and says, Well, the basic purpose [of voluntary simplicity] is to live more simply, live closer to the earth, and live simply enough so it takes very little to actually earn where you are so you can spend your time doing things you like to do rather than things that become the mandates that you do. I simplified my life, I stripped down, but I felt great, stripped down to my bike, had no money, but big deal. My security was not in my wallet, my security was in my head. And I found this was an easy way to live, the availability of just about everything was there no matter what you do. This is the way I’ve lived since 1970. Nita, her reddish brown hair parted in the middle and pulled back neatly into a bun at the nape of her neck, is a youthful sixty-two. She wears a white blouse and one of her own creations, a full skirt with intricate embroidery around the bottom. As she leans forward 3 Voluntary Simplicity over her knitting, eager to share why she practices voluntary simplicity, her dangling earrings sway gently. Her bright blue eyes and freckled face are as expressive of her strong feelings as are her words. She speaks rapidly and forcefully as she explains, One of the things I tell people [is], “I am founding mother of Over Extended Anonymous.” And I say, “If I was just doing things I didn’t want to do I would cut them out. But everything I’m doing is stuff I really want to do.” For me I think it’s being in a place that...