For the past decade I've been enamored with the idea of living more simply. Not merely reducing, but a radical reorganization that would shake my life to it's very foundations. Tiny houses, Simple Living, Doing more with less. Whatever, you call it I'm not alone in this dream.

photo credit Tammy Strobel

Those of us who share the dream of living more simply are often disenfranchised with the dominant paradigm of luxury, glamour and success. We are ready to kick our stuff to the curb and go live in the woods; anything to escape the exorbitant cost of living to maintain appearances that enslaves us to jobs we hate. The pie chart below shows the extraordinary weight housing, transportation and food have on our budgets.

from: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/americas-weird-enduring-love-affair-with-cars-and-houses/284049/

Poverty Appropriation as a Trend!?

"But, but, think of the people who don't have that choice, who are poor and can't get jobs that they hate to buy stuff they don't need" cries July Westhale in her article The Troubling Trendiness Of Poverty Appropriation. Of course, July didn't say that exactly, but in her article she dives into the new-to-me-buzzword "Poverty Appropriation". Go read it and I'll wait here for you...

But first! What she gets right...

photo credit Andrew Moir

First, let me slice out a big chunk of her article that I certainly agree with. Trailer park themed bars, white-trash costume parties, and the glorification of junk food in the name of irony is a pretty terrible thing. I loathe hipsters as much as the next red-blooded un-ironic American. Yet I don't think these are the same people who are trying to "Live Tiny", so they muddle her article with extraneous mud-slinging. I frequent San Francisco and I don't know anyone who's ever been to the Butter Bar, the white-trash themed bar, July mentions in her article. I suspect it's patrons are the same type of people who think that blackface is appropriate for Halloween. I'm not sure how these individuals tie into the premise of her article, besides as a wobbly leg to prop the rest of her argument up on.

“That must be nice. To have that choice.”

Tiny living is a radical downsizing movement. It's a complete shift of paradigm away from spend, spend, spend to spend, make do with what you have, and do without. It's not an easy choice, and a lot of people choose to live simply because they must. To them it doesn't feel like a choice rather it's a moral imperative.

To Know is to Act

When an individual becomes aware of the absurdity of the capitalist paradigm and confronts the cognitive dissonance, a choice must be made. To ignore the dissonance and resume the status quo or to act upon the knowledge they have gained by wrestling with this dissonance.

This absurdity takes the form of looking for meaning in our lives through our purchasing power, status, and possessions. The alternative view is that our gluttonous consumerism threatens the very environment which surrounds and supports us. Our lust for achievement tears apart cultural and social bonds and turns life itself (ours and others!) into a commodity for the market.

Westhale fails to consider this imperative. She fails to mention the civil rights and religious leaders who've taken up poverty as a means to escape an economic life intrinsically wed to violence and exploitation. Instead she globs onto the commodification that has occurred to the tiny living movement, the glossy photos of tiny houses and romanticized simplicity. This commodification inevitably sprouts up where there is any space to take advantage and make a few bucks.

...but is it really that bad?

From the February 2015 Issue of Country Living Magazine

I was head-over-heels happy when my mother's tone shifted from "You want to go live in the woods?" to "Oh my gosh, I got my Country Living magazine and it showed a picture of those tiny houses you are always talking about. I get it now". It took Cabin Porn to push her over the limits of common-sense that her child didn't want anything to do with success and simply wanted to go live in the woods and eat berries and sticks.

Thank God for Cabin Porn!

While it sucks to see your ideas sold to you by the very thing you are trying to dismantle, I get it July Westhale, but at the end of the day, I don't mind a little romanticism of the 'lifestyle'. We need to do everything we can to shift the paradigm from greed and consumption to living within the bounds of production as quickly as possible. The faster we can get people out of their materialist trance and into a more attainable and sustainable mode of existence, the better chance that we might have to survive as a species.

The paradigm shift towards simplicity is often accompanied by another shift towards more egalitarian modes of existence and subsistence, but Westhale never considers this perspective. This shift returns people to community, repairs cultural breakdown and restores connection and compassion with others. It brings people who were once separated by their stuff and their things into relationship with their neighbors who may not have had the same opportunity to acquire stuff and things!

These values are often inline with the traditional Utopian views. Living within your means of production means greater autonomy and purpose to your life. During the Golden Age of Science fiction, Utopia became urban construct, with glossy apartment buildings in dense urban centers where all of needs were provided and people were connected through common social values and goals. Those of us who sought out those glass and chrome prisons now turn our eye back to the antiquated Utopian ideal of Walden's pond. Cabin porn, of course, follows in our wake. Yet, living simply has nothing to do with cabins, or communes. It can happen any time and anywhere. It's a philosophy, not a trend.

"Because, let me tell you, there is nothing simple about being poor."

Westhale, comes from a background of poverty, she's right there isn't anything simple about being poor. Yet, living simply isn't simple. It isn't Cabin Porn. Simple doesn't necessarily imply easy. Such a vast reorganization of one's life to better align with their values require tough choices, hard labor, and discipline. It's rewards are worth it if you want to make an impact on the world around, if you want your economic choices to be an expression of your personal values, and if you want to decentralize 'stuff' from its altar and reconnect with the rest of humanity.