Downshifting – the Quality of Life in Voluntary Simplicity by Judy Jones




“We were all so completely focussed on making money. Increasingly she found her earnings, designer clothes and spending binges did not make up for the sheer stress of working and living in London . . . . It wasn?ft just the way she was working that got to Sarah – it was what she was doing. She was “selling something I didn?ft own to clients, who gave me something they didn?ft own”. Work became more and more meaningless . . . . Work and leisure, blended over centuries in family and village life were gradually de-coupled into distinct and separate entities. The umbilical link that tied people to the natural world and the rhythms of the seasons became ever thinner and more tenuous, as the business of working in towns and cities became more regimented, mechanical and enclosed . . . . the failure of material success and consumerism to compensate for the lunacies of corporate life.”

“This yearning for a simpler, more rounded life finds different expression over successive generations . . . . Its roots can be traced back over centuries through various religions and civilizations . . . . How do we describe these people who slip the net of mainstream consumer culture? . . . . In the early 1980s, the American Duane Elgin coined the term “voluntary simplicity” to describe a lifestyle choice that could be both sustainable and satisfying. Its tenets were frugal consumption, ecological awareness and personal growth. Change your life and you can help change the world. Anticipating the inevitable criticism, Elgin was careful to make clear the message he was preaching was one of balance, not poverty, and empowerment, not self-denial: “Poverty is involuntary and debilitating, whereas simplicity is voluntary and enabling,” Elgin said.”

“In Western societies, nurtured on the belief that more, bigger and faster are almost always better, the idea of living better with less was largely anathema . . . . For Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, the key to a richer, more meaningful existence lay in re-negotiating one’s relationship with money. In Your Money or Your Life, they developed a nine-step plan, which they followed themselves, to help others eliminate personal debt, achieve financial independence, and upgrade the quality of their lives. In America, and later in Britain, the word “downshifting” gradually gained currency as a shorthand to describe this process.”

“Market economies, as they are currently arranged, must perpetuate a culture of dissatisfaction, if they are to succeed. They depend on most of us feeling driven like lemmings to earn, spend and accumulate ever more money in order to feel better about our lives . . . . in terms of conventional market economics and political orthodoxy, the downshifter is something of a subversive . . . . Finally, one country at least – Sweden – has decided to tackle one of the biggest obstacles to downshifting en famille – pester power. It has banned TV advertising to children.”

“We still have a long way to go before we catch up with the Ancient Greeks” ideals of self-development through leisure, recreation and education for its own sake. The “golden mean”, they believed, lay between wealth and poverty. It?fs a long haul. But we have made a start.”

Full article at Resurgence Magazine

Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin

Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

Keywords : downshifting, voluntary simplicity, spirituality, personal growth, quality of life, consumerism, ecosocial crisis, television, advertisement, corporate life, work, overwork, leisure, time poverty
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Published::
4.11.07 / 10am
Category:
Democratic Democracy, Ecosocionomics, Life's Necessities, Man, Means, Paths, Ends, Spirituality
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