'''Voluntary
simplicity is a lifestyle considered by its adherents to be a sustainable, ecologically sensitive alternative to the typical, western consumerist lifestyle. The term "downshifting'''" is often used to describe the act of moving toward a lifestyle based on voluntary simplicity.
Overview
People who practise voluntary simplicity act consciously to reduce their need for purchased services or goods and, by extension, their need to sell their
time for
money. Quite often, this means that people who practise this lifestyle must do many things for themselves, such as
gardening and
cooking,
sewing, and constructing or maintaining a home (
DIY). However, it is important to note that money is not the major reason to practise this lifestyle. Reducing consumer choice also reduces the stress and anxiety of decision making. People practise voluntary simplicity to improve their
quality of life in one of many dimensions:
psychological,
financial,
spiritual, interpersonal relationships, family, etc.
Roots
Monks in the
Middle Ages were possibly the earliest practitioners of organised lifestyles of voluntary poverty in
Europe, though the use of fasts of short duration is common in many cultures throughout history. 2500 years ago in
Asia,
Buddhism had already established a voluntarily simplified spiritual lifestyle.
The Luddites, a group of
English weavers who smashed automated looms during the industrial revolution, held similar views.
In
North America, religious groups including the
Shakers, Mennonites,
Amish, and some Quakers have for centuries practised lifestyles where some forms of
wealth or
technology are excluded for religious or philosophical reasons.
Henry David Thoreau, a
naturalist,
ethicist, and writer, is often considered to have made the classic non-sectarian American statement of this sensibility in his book
Walden.
From the
1920s to the
1960s, a number of fairly prominent modern writers (in English) articulated both the theory and practice of lifestyles of this sort, among them Gandhian Richard Gregg, economists
Ralph Borsodi and
Scott Nearing, anthropologist-poet
Gary Snyder, and
utopian fiction writer
Ernest Callenbach. The modern version of Voluntary Simplicity was named in the
1970s by the seminal book of the same title by
Duane Elgin. There are
eco-anarchist groups in the
United States and
Canada today promoting lifestyles of simplicity.
The
Green Parties have been much influenced by the above groups and often advocate voluntary simplicity as a consequence of their
four pillars or Ten Key Values. This includes in policy terms rejection of genetic modification and
nuclear weapons and other potentially hazardous technologies beyond human control.
Many with similar views avoid involvement even with
green politics as compromising simplicity, however, and advocate forms of
green anarchism that attempt to implement these principles at smaller scale than modern nations, e.g. the
ecovillage.
Electronics
Eliminating the role of
television in one's life is a dominant theme in many recent essays regarding simplicity. Writers of these essays see television both as a waste of time and as an implicit advocate of consumerism.
Advertising in particular seems to be regarded as an evil by most of the authors. Some see
community radio or
pirate radio as a viable alternative without the visual distraction; one can, after all, work while listening, but not while watching.
Computer addiction is also a subject of recent interest. Some see
computers as sources of instant
knowledge. Others see them as necessarily distracting from the local immediate people and places, and providing a form of false community called "
virtual community", which is all too often distracting from body, family and life as lived within same.
Electronics of all kinds require a complex industrial base and knowledge of
physics and
materials science, which may be part of a
military-industrial complex, and so may defeat some of the purposes of voluntary simplicity movements, or lead in the long run to other forms of domination.
References
- Voluntary Simplicity (1980), Duane Elgin, Order: ISBN 0688121195 — foundational text of modern voluntary simplicity movement
- New Age Politics (1979), Mark Satin, Order: ISBN 0440557003 — articulates a politics focused on voluntary simplicity and humanistic psychology; builds on two important Elgin articles from the 1970s
- Your Money or Your Life (1992), Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin, Order: ISBN 0140167153 — another classic voluntary simplicity text
- Affluenza (2002), John de Graaf et al., Order: ISBN 1576751996 — popularized approach to voluntary simplicity
Category:Social philosophy
de:Simple living
fr:Simplicité volontaire