Tue, 7 May 1996 20:41:56 -0700 (PDT)
Carisa Kluver (kluver@u.washington.edu)

I joined this discussion group recently because of my interest in the voluntary simplicity concept as a movement for social change. I am a student at the University of Washington getting my master's in social work and am working with several other students on a project that focuses on the ideology of simple living as a way to liberate our society from consumerist consumption, the work and spend cycle and the growing emphasis on quantity of money over quality of time.

My attraction to this group stems from it's emphasis on how to teach simple living, especially in communities that are already living simply involuntarily. What I have found in my exploration of the topic, though, is that the 'movement' is really just individuals gathering together in small community groups or even in isolated families. My sense of a social movement requires a conscious collective action and explicit questioning of the social structures (i.e. consumerism, capitalism, etc.) that have caused the social problems in the first place. Is there an organized 'voluntary simplicity' movement out there?

Carisa Kluver, student
University of Washington

On Fri, 3 May 1996, Steven Garrett wrote:

> >Is this list still active? ...
>
> Well....sort of. We have had some difficulty in sustaining (no pun intended)
> a dialogue. I wanted the topics to revolve around curricula, research, and
> practices of sustainable living and frugality that would assist educators in
> enhancing and starting educational programs.
>
> Perhaps some folks wanted to join this list talk about their own and other's
> lifestyles to reflect on their own practices and learn new methods. Or
> perhaps there are not enough folks teaching about sustainable lifestyles to
> make this topic viable. Or perhaps those educators don't have computers ;-)
>
> Anyway, if you or others on the list have some ideas on how to either
> promote this list or focus the topic - I would love to hear from you.
> frugally yours,
> Steven
>
> p.s. My family was featured in our local paper (The News Tribune circ.,
> 370,000) on Earth Day as a family that is trying to live a sustainable life
> - complete with a family portrait digging in our garden. I guess they needed
> a family that was doing things that any other family could do as opposed to
> the types that you always read about in papers who were stockbrokers and now
> live on $6,000 a year.
> **************************************************************
> Steven Garrett, MS, RD Voice: 206-591-7180
> WSU Cooperative Extension Fax: 206-591-3165
> 3049 South 36th, Suite 300 E-mail: sgarrett@wsu.edu
> Tacoma, WA 98409
> **************************************************************

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Previous message: Michael Yount: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"
Maybe in reply to: C. Kluver: "voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Sat, 11 May 1996 12:03:02 -0700
Bill Arthur (barth@northernnet.com)

Michael Yount wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I had a similar experience when trying to locate groups in the
> Pacific Northwest which are interested in permaculture--there are
> dozens if not thousands of people interested in the subject, but
> they appear separate formally. Since returning to the Northwest
> a few weeks ago, I've met or heard of several different people
> who are developing permacultural forest systems on their property here
> in the Palouse. This leads me to two questions--what skills
> are used in living frugally, and what would the benefits be
> to having simple living formalized, either as an organized
> movement, or through educational classes?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Michael
> yount@csf.colorado.edu

Living expensively is an organized movement -- very well funded with lots of players. Living frugally has lots of involuntary players, but neither organized nor well-funded. In fact, if given the choice many of the current frugal livers would doubtless defect to the "other side." A practical benefit of living frugally = brings your life more in balance with the planet's sustainable resources. An "ethical" problem with not living frugally = In United States particularly, we consume many times more than our neighbors. Long term, maintaining this skewed comsumption gradient requires use of force and subterfuge against others.

Some concerns: there are many different notions of frugality. What indices are viable as a "process guide"? Use a bicycle instead of a car...is this possible in your life? Grow your food and can it...is this "frugal" in your situation? Developing climate for learning (and approaching learning) frugal living skills needs to include ways to shift deeply embedded values and cultivated appetites. Implementing frugal living as organized movement only possible when resources that enable frugal living can be shared among groups. Maybe a good starting place would be to work out a consensus on how frugal living -- as strategic skill set -- supports a value system that addresses comprehensive issues...such as those involving permaculture, community empowerment, etc.

Bill
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Previous message: Bill Arthur: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"
Maybe in reply to: C. Kluver: "voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Mon, 13 May 1996 21:50:23 -0400 (EDT)
Joe & Ellen Hecksel (jhecksel@voyager.net)

Hi all:

Personally, I find it difficult to reconcile "organized" movements with the freedom of thought and action that my brand of frugality requires. I find the society of consumption to have an underlying current of coercion. Try NOT hiring Kemgreen in a posh suburb. The days of the posse are not dead.

I am loath to trade coercion for coercion. I believe that morality is a quest that is personal in nature and most authentically arrived at via meandering. To me, it is more of a path thing than a destination thing. I sincerely believe that we would be cheating people of something valuable if we set ourselves up as the "queen bees" of the frugal-living-socially-responsible club.

Combining frugality and walking gently on this earth has some real "land-mines" for issues. How do you propose grappling with issues like abortion, allocation of resources, allocation of oportunities, tax write-offs for children (having more that the politically- correct quota of 2 is a major driver for frugality for some of us), balancing the cheapness of an old beater (car) with the cost to the environment in terms of pollution and fuel consumption? The issues are endless. I don't know how you could come up with a platform that would not alienate at least half the list. And where would you find the people with the time to hammer out these issues?

Frugal people are not frugal because they want to work less. Making your own soap (for instance) is way more work than putting in an extra hour at work and buying it. I think I am into frugality because I find the kinds of work with tangible end-products to be more gratifying.

Joe and Ellen Hecksel

-We do not own our "toys". Rather, they own us. -Lee Stauffer
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In reply to: Michael Yount: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Wed, 15 May 1996 17:51:59 -0700 (PDT)
Carisa Kluver (kluver@u.washington.edu)

I'm not sure what the benefits of 'formalizing' voluntary simplicity are, but I think that the real impact needed from a reduction in consumption and increase in community interdependence can only be found in a collective movement. If we all make individual choices about consumption we may impact the global environment somewhat, but it will only be a drop in the bucket.
At the core are the materialist values that are manufactured and maintained by commercials and other media encouraging people to spend, find personal satisfaction and identity in products, and isolate themselves from others by competing for goods and jobs. If we don't question that at the core of a 'movement' (which implies collective action), we are just reducing the pressure without changing the structures in society that caused the problem in the first place. An excellent book I've been reading that explains this much better than I can is Juliet Schor's "The Overworked American" published in the early 90's.

Carisa

On Fri, 10 May 1996, Michael Yount wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I had a similar experience when trying to locate groups in the
> Pacific Northwest which are interested in permaculture--there are
> dozens if not thousands of people interested in the subject, but
> they appear separate formally. Since returning to the Northwest
> a few weeks ago, I've met or heard of several different people
> who are developing permacultural forest systems on their property here
> in the Palouse. This leads me to two questions--what skills
> are used in living frugally, and what would the benefits be
> to having simple living formalized, either as an organized
> movement, or through educational classes?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Michael
> yount@csf.colorado.edu

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Maybe in reply to: C. Kluver: "voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Thu, 16 May 1996 11:53:33 -0700
Steven Garrett (sgarrett@wsu.edu)

First piece of business: Darryl, I would like a copy of the article about the Merck Family Foundation for funding our local efforts.

I don't know about other communities, but the NW is getting together the beginings of what some might call a collective movement. The New Roadmap Foundation is located in Seattle. There is a group called Sustainable Seattle that is mobilizing for collective education. And I am part of a new group called The Center for Sustainable Living in Tacoma/Pierce County. Also in Portland OR, NW Earth Institute is organizing discussion groups in workplaces.

It seems ironic to me that any collective movement happening now relies on the forces that are working against sustainable living to a large degree namely the media and private industry.

Our media in the Puget Sound regularly runs articles on frugality and especially about media darlings: people who had high paying careers who have pitched them to live the low environmental impact lifestyle. Yet look at all of the advertising that they rely on for the money to run the articles. All of which is scientifically designed to get you to buy things that you did not realize that you needed before you saw that ad.

Also many social marketing messages rely on the capitalization of corporate foundations to get the message out. We are more fortunate when we can get goverment money for education outreach - that way we are not concerned about biting the hand that feeds us.

It is also worth pointing out that pollsters have assured us that frugality is in the top ten trends of the 90's. So organizations such as Sustainable Seattle can hopefully use that energy to get the message out and perhaps even organize local discussion and support groups.

I also want to comment on the Hecksel's point about the various philosophies that compel folks toward frugality. Point well taken: *frugality is not the same as sustainablility.* there is tremendous overlap, but the drivers are not the same so the outcomes are often different. How many babies a family has was a great example of that. This listserve will, confusingly enough, discuss both philsophical standpoints and add clarification where necessary. frugally yours,

Steven

**************************************************************
Steven Garrett, MS, RD Voice: 206-591-7180
WSU Cooperative Extension Fax: 206-591-3165
3049 South 36th, Suite 300 E-mail: sgarrett@wsu.edu
Tacoma, WA 98409
**************************************************************

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In reply to: C. Kluver: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Thu, 16 May 1996 17:34:13 -0600
Michael Yount (yount@csf.Colorado.EDU)

Carisa,

If frugal people formed a movement, what would you foresee as some specific changes that would indicate the success of the movement? How would frugality or simplicity reduce the competition among people for employment, for example? And what substantial alternatives could the movement offer to the materialist lifestyle?

If isolation is an issue, it sounds as though the simplicity movement would have some goals in common with the communities movement.

Thanks,

Michael
yount@csf.colorado.edu

:}... I think that the real impact needed from a reduction in consumption 
:}and increase in community interdepence can only be found in a collective
:}movement. If we all make individual choices about consumption we may
:}impact the global environment somewhat, but it will only be a drop in the
:}bucket. At the core are the materialist values that ...
:}                                  .... media encouraging people to spend,
:}                                                   ...., and isolate
:}themselves from others by competing for goods and jobs. If we don't
:}question that at the core of a 'movement' (which implies collective
:}action), we are just reducing the pressure without changing the structures
:}in society that caused the problem in the first place.
:} ....
:}
:}Carisa

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Previous message: C. Kluver: "Organized Movement for the Frugal"
In reply to: Michael Yount: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Fri, 17 May 1996 21:41:17 -0700 (PDT)
Carisa Kluver (kluver@u.washington.edu)

I see the specific changes that would indicate success being far ranging as any gradual but major cultural shift in values would cause. For one thing, the kind of poverty we have might be lessened, especially as communities learned to tap the resources within the people themselves. As people with the means to purchase mass goods that they don't need or even really want stopped conspicuous consumption, then there would likely be more of the basic needs available to people in poverty. This is a pretty indirect and unstable effect though.
More certain is that people would be happier with what they have (at all class levels). We consume more than twice as much per capita as we did forty years ago, yet continue to feel like we don't have enough - and that's across every class, even the poor have twice as much in income and goods (controlled for inflation even) than they did 40 years ago! (The Overworked American, p. 109)
As for competition among people for employment, I think it is necessary to wed the idea of simplifying your time to the idea of voluntary simplicity. With our minds so cluttered with stress and our hours so filled with work, we are only half alive, culturally deprived (and I don't mean 'high' culture but culture in the anthropological sense) and unable to spend time with the people OR things we have around us. So the push needs to be for a shorter work week, which would create more jobs and employment for those currently under or unemployed. Employers would need legal incentive to reduce hours though, like cutting the cap on Social Security wages they must match for overtime, requiring benefits to be pro-rated, etc.

Now you got me started - sorry this was so long.

Carisa

On Thu, 16 May 1996, Michael Yount wrote:

> Carisa,
>
> If frugal people formed a movement, what would you foresee as
> some specific changes that would indicate the success of the
> movement? How would frugality or simplicity reduce the competition
> among people for employment, for example? And what substantial
> alternatives could the movement offer to the materialist lifestyle?
>
> If isolation is an issue, it sounds as though the simplicity
> movement would have some goals in common with the communities
> movement.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Michael
> yount@csf.colorado.edu

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Previous message: C. Kluver: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"
Maybe in reply to: C. Kluver: "voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Sat, 18 May 1996 13:13:51 -0800
Darryl Caldwell (darrylc@foothills.eznet.com)

My 2c.

Benefits: More leisure time or time to pursue personal or community-oriented interests. The need to compete in the work place can easily be replaced by individual pursuits that aren't tied to money. Financial independence opens up a job for someone who may need it more.

As for alternatives to a materialistic life, there are plenty of social, environmental, artistic, intellectual, and spiritual questions to keep us busy. Materialism is deceiving because it isn't so much the things that are important, it's the _desire_ to have more that gets us into trouble.

>If frugal people formed a movement, what would you foresee as
>some specific changes that would indicate the success of the
>movement? How would frugality or simplicity reduce the competition
>among people for employment, for example? And what substantial
>alternatives could the movement offer to the materialist lifestyle?
>

Darryl Caldwell Oikiasuchou School

___________________________________________________
The Practice Hall: http://www.nesc.k12.ar.us/ph_stuff/ph.html
Myth & Martial Culture 

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Maybe in reply to: C. Kluver: "voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Wed, 22 May 1996 22:13:21 -0800
Steven Garrett (sgarrett@wsu.edu)

A while back I mentioned some specific institutionalized movements in the NW USA that were designed to move our society toward sustainable living using various educational models.

This seems to me to be a practical way to get a movement going. Also what we are doing plus the other internet we sites and discussion lists add to some momentum. Maybe because I am an educator - I see education as the main route toward building a more sustainable less consumer-based culture.

Do others have ideas about other routes towards changing our culture? I think maybe we can come to some agreement on a vision of what the outcome might look like - but getting there is the trick, no?

steven

Steven Garrett e-mail: sgarrett@wsu.edu
County Extension Faculty Fax: 206.591.7180
WSU Cooperative Extension Voice: 206.591.7180
3049 South 36th, Suite 300

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Next message: Bill Arthur: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"
Previous message: Steven Garrett: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"
In reply to: Steven Garrett: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"
Next in thread: Bill Arthur: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Thu, 23 May 1996 09:19:32 -0600
Michael Yount (yount@csf.Colorado.EDU)

Steven & all,

Intuitively, it seems that most movements during this century have been directed toward achieving the needs and wants of the participants in the movement, or of people they represented, to overcome restrictions on those people. Does that seem a fair generalization? Wouldn't a simplicity/frugality movement be different in this respect? What would be the emotional fuel for such a movement on a larger scale?

People have occasionally asked me if I meant "schooling" when I used the word "education." I'm interested to hear how Steven and others have had the most success in teaching, and in what ways a frugal education might differ from conventional classroom lectures, &c.

Thanks,

Michael
yount@csf.colorado.edu
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Previous message: Michael Yount: "Re: voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"
Maybe in reply to: C. Kluver: "voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Thu, 23 May 1996 10:02:23 -0700
Bill Arthur (barth@northernnet.com)

Steven Garrett wrote:
> 
> .... Maybe because I am an educator - I see education as the
> main route toward building a more sustainable less consumer-based culture.
> 
> Do others have ideas about other routes towards changing our culture? 
> ....
> steven
> 

Agree education the main route to influencing change in consumerism. We must "consume" to live, but an issue is -- knowing what we know about the effects of unbridled consumption -- how does one balance consumption with (e.g.) sustainability of resources? Idiosyncratic frugality seems rather hedonistic and perhaps as undesirable in some ways as unchecked consumption...when it lacks consideration of possible negative effects on neighbors and the environment. Perhaps one place to start would be an examination of how, as individuals, families and other organized social units, we translate want into need in response to commercial propaganda.

There seems to be a primal directive that serves our survival but -- unmitigated by consideration of others -- can put consumption out of balance. Goes something like, "Legitimacy is a function of utility;" i.e., whatever gives me (us) greater power, convenience, etc., can become a legitimate objective. It's when our sense of utility is unchecked by an ethical reference or when that ethical consideration is overshadowed by the drive for personal advantage that consumption gets out of balance. Perhaps through education, we can develop a greater awareness of

(1) how our nature is easily bent toward "consumerism" and
(2) what we can do -- first as individuals, then as groups -- to put it back in balance.

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Maybe in reply to: C. Kluver: "voluntary simplicity as a collective social movement"

Tue, 28 May 1996 11:00:34 +1100
Lois Irwin (lirwin@ctc.ctc.edu)

Re: Michael Yount's comments. I'm new to this ballgame, but the way I envision teaching *frugal ed* to be different from traditional classroom is that, ideally, the student comes into the learning process with at least a question or an openness to think about their lives (family) in a different way and, eventually, the learning experience enables them to define some goals for change. The learning experience then might hopefully become more of a lab, enabling people to report in on their efforts over time and measure progress towards a goal.
As far as attracting people to a topic which, as you say, runs against the grain of "growth is good" and upward mobility, the audience I am most interested in are the working poor. So the question that keeps being posed to me is whether voluntary simplicity is a self-actualization effort by the middle and occasional upper classes and whether the philosophy can be adapted to people for whom it isn't voluntary. My thought is that the parameters low-to-moderate income people are working within are not voluntary, but the creativity they can bring to living well within those parameters is voluntary.
I think McKnight's community building teachings have a place in frugal living education, because as radical as it still may seem (so 60's), rebuilding the low-cost "services" provided in the past by the extended family, by creating connections between people around issues of child care, bartering skills, teaching one another/mentoring are a logical part of the teaching process. So those kinds of nontraditional activities join up with some traditional teaching efforts to create a whole.
And what's in it for folks? Again, since HALF of the working population in the second largest city of our state earn LESS than $15,000 a year, any teaching that can improve quality of life on a restricted income should be somewhat attractive to people. The place I have a little trouble with is the societal benefit of conservation and potential personal gain from such efforts (recycling, etc.) which otherwise seem to pose more additional work for people with no direct personal benefit. I can see it might be hard to attract busy working people to become students to learn in some of those areas.

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