Adherents may choose simple living for a variety of personal reasons, such as spirituality, health, increase in quality time for family and friends, work–life balance, personal taste, financial sustainability, frugality, or reducing stress. Simple living can also be a reaction to materialism and conspicuous consumption. Some cite socio-political goals aligned with the environmentalist, anti-consumerist or anti-war movements, including conservation, degrowth, social justice, and tax resistance.
Motives
Voluntary simplicity consists in seeking happiness in appreciation to improve the true "quality of life". It therefore opposes the economic and social mainstream discourse in 21th century which tends to consider technical progress and development of consumption as improvements in quality of life. The philosophy of life is born from the view that consumption does not bring happiness and increases alienation.
More precisely, several motivations are possible.
Ethics
Some proponents of voluntary simplicity advocate a return to "real wealth", opposed to material wealth. These real riches can be especially social and family life, personal fulfillment, spiritual life, osmosis with nature, etc.
It offers another way to happiness. Precursor of the concept [ref. required], Henri Bergson wrote "This is beautiful, this is not to be deprived, or even to deny it is to not feel deprived." Moreover, the French philosopher wrote in the last chapter of his latest book The Two Sources of Morality and Religion a diagnosis of overconsumption "Never, indeed, the satisfactions that new inventions bring to old needs do not determine the humanity to remain there; new needs arise, as imperious, more and more numerous. We saw the race for well-being go faster, on a track where crowds of increasingly compact rushed. Today is a rush "(1932). Voluntary simplicity is intended as a solution to this craze for consumer products that Bergson anticipates. As precursor of this current, he specifies the conditions of realization of this ideal as follows: "the future of humanity remains indeterminate, because it depends on it". According to Bergson, it is therefore necessary to bet on an education that allows both to understand the impact of our consumption through scientific knowledge and to develop our taste for objects that truly promote our personal fulfillment.
Criticism of Materialism
In simple life, care is taken to question one's own behavior in terms of consumption, possessions, and relationships for meaningfulness and necessity. An excess of ownership, due to pursuit of social status and prestige, is considered to be a hindrance and a burden. It avoids consumption for entertainment or as a mere pastime and buys instead targeted. There is a clear distinction between pure desire and genuine necessity. The lifestyle is characterized by the fundamental attitude of owning fewer things so as not to unnecessarily burden oneself and the environment with their acquisition, payment, care and disposal. Leisure enjoys a high esteem. In the simple lifestyle, it seems unreasonable to trade life for money to take possession of things you do not need, or spend working hours to consume more with their income.
Criticism of fast pace and overstimulation
Defenders of a simple lifestyle criticize an overweighting of money and possessions, as well as the fast pace of today's times, which were often accompanied by sensory overload. This also includes overstressing people through work (work compaction) and deadline pressure. The mass media are accused of taking people's time for their own thoughts and their sense of enjoyment.
The subjectively experienced quality of life is in the foreground - beyond a superficial hedonism limited to materialistic consumption categories. This materially deliberately reduced lifestyle sometimes has ascetic traits.
Economic
Increased consumption leads to increased financial needs and therefore to extra work to get them, which can generate, conversely, displeasure in some people (lack of time for oneself, stress, poor health, dependence on money, etc.). In this context, voluntary simplicity philosophy can not rely on the consumer theory in microeconomics, the indifference curves marking the different trade-offs between surplus labor and surplus consumption, or between pleasure induced by consumption and that induced by free time (family life, physical activities, entertainment, etc.).
Some proponents of voluntary simplicity believe that, in the consumer society, one devotes one's time to earning more and more money to meet the growing material needs that will never be met because of their constant renewal. such needs being prompted by advertising. In this perspective, the pursuit of happiness through consumption is therefore an endless race that voluntary simplicity approach prefers exit.
Ecological
The voluntary simplicity states that consumption and growth have negative impacts on the environment and its supporters fear the imminence of the ecological crisis. It therefore advocates limiting the consumption of material goods in order to slow down the destruction of natural resources.
Taking the typical example of refusing to own a car, the money saved can be reinvested in a bicycle, train tickets or car rentals when this is essential. And so have the same benefits as the personal possession of a passenger vehicle at a price ultimately identical and with a lower overall ecological impact.
Other motivations
In some cases, the "voluntary" simplicity would in fact be met, but then assumed and considered as a way of reasoning its consumerist desires.
It can also be considered as a posture taken to build a brand image, like the intellectual who refuses television and displays his contempt for advertising and consumption.
Be that as it may, beyond these moral judgments, the result is the same: a certain moderation profitable to the common well-being (like the "Pascal faith": "we have nothing to lose".)
History
Religious and spiritual
A number of religious and spiritual traditions encourage simple living. Early examples include the Śramaṇa traditions of Iron Age India, Gautama Buddha, and biblical Nazirites (notably John the Baptist). The biblical figure Jesus is said to have lived a simple life. He is said to have encouraged his disciples "to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics." Various notable individuals have claimed that spiritual inspiration led them to a simple living lifestyle, such as Benedict of Nursia, Francis of Assisi, Ammon Hennacy, Leo Tolstoy, Rabindranath Tagore, Albert Schweitzer, and Mahatma Gandhi.
Simple living has traditions that stretch back to the Orient, resonating with leaders such as Zarathustra, Buddha, Laozi, and Confucius and was heavily stressed in both Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian ethics. Diogenes, a major figure in the ancient Greek philosophy of Cynicism, claimed that a simple life was necessary for virtue, and was said to have lived in a wine jar.
Plain people are Christian groups who have for centuries practiced lifestyles in which some forms of wealth or technology are excluded for religious or philosophical reasons. Groups include the Shakers, Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, Amana Colonies, Bruderhof, Old German Baptist Brethren, Harmony Society, and some Quakers. There is a Quaker belief called Testimony of simplicity that a person ought to live her or his life simply.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau strongly praised the simple life in many of his writings, especially in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750) and Discourse on Inequality (1754).
Secular
Epicureanism, based on the teachings of the Athens-based philosopher Epicurus, flourished from about the fourth century BC to the third century AD. Epicureanism upheld the untroubled life as the paradigm of happiness, made possible by carefully considered choices. Specifically, Epicurus pointed out that troubles entailed by maintaining an extravagant lifestyle tend to outweigh the pleasure of partaking in it. He therefore concluded that what is necessary for happiness, bodily comfort, and life itself should be maintained at minimal cost, while all things beyond what is necessary for these should either be tempered by moderation or completely avoided.
Henry David Thoreau, an American naturalist and author, is often considered to have made the classic secular statement advocating a life of simple and sustainable living in his book Walden (1854). Thoreau conducted a two-year experiment living a plain and simple life on the shores of Walden Pond.
In Victorian Britain, Henry Stephens Salt, an admirer of Thoreau, popularised the idea of "Simplification, the saner method of living". Other British advocates of the simple life included Edward Carpenter, William Morris, and the members of the "Fellowship of the New Life". Carpenter popularised the phrase the "Simple Life" in his essay Simplification of Life in his England's Ideal (1887).
C.R. Ashbee and his followers also practiced some of these ideas, thus linking simplicity with the Arts and Crafts movement. British novelist John Cowper Powys advocated the simple life in his 1933 book A Philosophy of Solitude. John Middleton Murry and Max Plowman practised a simple lifestyle at their Adelphi Centre in Essex in the 1930s. Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh championed a "right simplicity" philosophy based on ruralism in some of his work.
George Lorenzo Noyes, a naturalist, mineralogist, development critic, writer, and artist, is known as the Thoreau of Maine. He lived a wilderness lifestyle, advocating through his creative work a simple life and reverence for nature. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Vanderbilt Agrarians of the Southern United States advocated a lifestyle and culture centered upon traditional and sustainable agrarian values as opposed to the progressive urban industrialism which dominated the Western world at that time.
Thorstein Veblen warned against the conspicuous consumption of the materialistic society with The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899); Richard Gregg coined the term "voluntary simplicity" in The Value of Voluntary Simplicity (1936). From the 1920s, a number of modern authors articulated both the theory and practice of living simply, among them Gandhian Richard Gregg, economists Ralph Borsodi and Scott Nearing, anthropologist-poet Gary Snyder, and utopian fiction writer Ernest Callenbach. E. F. Schumacher argued against the notion that "bigger is better" in Small Is Beautiful (1973); and Duane Elgin continued the promotion of the simple life in Voluntary Simplicity (1981). The Australian academic Ted Trainer practices and writes about simplicity, and established The Simplicity Institute at Pigface Point, some 20 km from the University of New South Wales to which it is attached. A secular set of nine values was developed with the Ethify Yourself project in Austria, having a simplified life style in mind and accompanied by an online book (2011). In the United States voluntary simplicity started to garner more public exposure through a movement in the late 1990s around a popular "simplicity" book, The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs. Around the same time, minimalism (a similar movement) started to also show its light into the public eye.
Practices
Reducing consumption, work time, and possessions
Some people practice simple living by reducing consumption. By lowering expenditure on goods or services, the time spent earning money can be reduced. The time saved may be used to pursue other interests, or help others through volunteering. Some may use the extra free time to improve their quality of life, for example pursuing creative activities such as art and crafts. Developing a detachment from money has led some individuals, such as Suelo and Mark Boyle, to live with no money at all. Reducing expenses may also lead to increasing savings, which can lead to financial independence and the possibility of early retirement.
The 100 Thing Challenge is a grassroots movement to whittle down personal possessions to one hundred items, with the aim of decluttering and simplifying life. The small house movement includes individuals who chose to live in small, mortgage-free, low-impact dwellings, such as log cabins or beach huts.
Increasing self-sufficiency
One way to simplify life is to get back-to-the-land and grow your own food, as increased self-sufficiency reduces dependency on money and the economy. Tom Hodgkinson believes the key to a free and simple life is to stop consuming and start producing. This is a sentiment shared by an increasing number of people, including those belonging to the millennial generation such as writer and eco blogger Jennifer Nini, who left the city to live off-grid, grow food, and "be a part of the solution; not part of the problem."
Forest gardening, developed by simple living adherent Robert Hart, is a low-maintenance plant-based food production system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables. Hart created a model forest garden from a 0.12 acre orchard on his farm at Wenlock Edge in Shropshire.
The idea of food miles, the number of miles a given item of food or its ingredients has travelled between the farm and the table, is used by simple living advocates to argue for locally grown food. This is now gaining mainstream acceptance, as shown by the popularity of books such as The 100-Mile Diet, and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. In each of these cases, the authors devoted a year to reducing their carbon footprint by eating locally.
City dwellers can also produce fresh home grown fruit and vegetables in pot gardens or miniature indoor greenhouses. Tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, peas, strawberries, and several types of herbs can all thrive in pots. Jim Merkel says that a person "could sprout seeds. They are tasty, incredibly nutritious, and easy to grow... We grow them in wide mouthed mason jars with a square of nylon window screen screwed under a metal ring". Farmer Matt Moore spoke on this issue: "How does it affect the consumer to know that broccoli takes 105 days to grow a head? The supermarket mode is one of plenty — it's always stocked. And that changes our sense of time. How long it takes to grow food — that's removed in the marketplace. They don't want you to think about how long it takes to grow, because they want you to buy right now". One way to change this viewpoint is also suggested by Mr. Moore. He placed a video installation in the produce section of a grocery store that documented the length of time it took to grow certain vegetables. This aimed to raise awareness in people of the length of time actually needed for gardens.
The do it yourself ethic refers to the principle of undertaking necessary tasks oneself rather than having others, who are more skilled or experienced, complete them for you.
Reconsidering technology
People who practice simple living have diverse views on the role of technology. The American political activist Scott Nearing was skeptical about how humanity would use new technology, citing destructive inventions such as nuclear weapons. Those who eschew modern technology are often referred to as Luddites or neo-Luddites. Although simple living is often a secular pursuit, it may still involve reconsidering personal definitions of appropriate technology, as Anabaptist groups such as the Amish or Mennonites have done.
Technological proponents see cutting-edge technologies as a way to make a simple lifestyle within mainstream culture easier and more sustainable. They argue that the internet can reduce an individual's carbon footprint through telecommuting and lower paper usage. Some have also calculated their energy consumption and have shown that one can live simply and in an emotionally satisfying way by using much less energy than is used in Western countries. Technologies they may embrace include computers, photovoltaic systems, wind and water turbines.
Technological interventions that appear to simplify living may actually induce side effects elsewhere or at a future point in time. Evgeny Morozov warns that tools like the internet can facilitate mass surveillance and political repression. The book Green Illusions identifies how wind and solar energy technologies have hidden side effects and can actually increase energy consumption and entrench environmental harms over time. Authors of the book Techno-Fix criticize technological optimists for overlooking the limitations of technology in solving agricultural problems.
Advertising is criticised for encouraging a consumerist mentality. Many advocates of simple living tend to agree that cutting out, or cutting down on, television viewing is a key ingredient in simple living. Some see the Internet, podcasting, community radio, or pirate radio as viable alternatives.
Simplifying diet
Another practice is the adoption of a simplified diet. Diets that may simplify domestic food production and consumption include vegan diets and the Gandhi diet. In the United Kingdom, the Movement for Compassionate Living was formed by Kathleen and Jack Jannaway in 1984 to spread the vegan message and promote simple living and self-reliance as a remedy against the exploitation of humans, animals, and the Earth.
Politics and activism
Environmentalism
Simple living may be undertaken by environmentalists. For example, Green parties often advocate simple living as a consequence of their "four pillars" or the "Ten Key Values" of the Green Party of the United States. This includes, in policy terms, their rejection of genetic engineering and nuclear power and other technologies they consider to be hazardous. The Greens' support for simplicity is based on the reduction in natural resource usage and environmental impact. This concept is expressed in Ernest Callenbach's "green triangle" of ecology, frugality and health.
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 a smaller scale, e.g. the ecovillage. Deep ecology, a belief that the world does not exist as a resource to be freely exploited by humans, proposes wilderness preservation, human population control and simple living.
Anti-war
The alleged relationship between economic growth and war, when fought for control and exploitation of natural and human resources, is considered a good reason for promoting a simple living lifestyle. Avoiding the perpetuation of the resource curse is a similar objective of many simple living adherents.
Opposition to war has led peace activists, such as Ammon Hennacy and Ellen Thomas, to a form of tax resistance in which they reduce their income below the tax threshold by taking up a simple living lifestyle. These individuals believe that their government is engaged in immoral, unethical or destructive activities such as war, and paying taxes inevitably funds these activities.
Art
The term Bohemianism has been used to describe a long tradition of both voluntary and involuntary poverty by artists who devote their time to artistic endeavors rather than paid labor.
In May 2014, a story on NPR suggested that positive attitudes towards living in poverty for the sake of art are becoming less common among young American artists, and quoted one recent graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design as saying "her classmates showed little interest in living in garrets and eating ramen noodles."
Economics
A new economics movement has been building since the UN conference on the environment in 1972, and the publication that year of Only One Earth, The Limits to Growth, and Blueprint For Survival, followed in 1973 by Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered.
Recently, David Wann has introduced the idea of “simple prosperity” as it applies to a sustainable lifestyle. From his point of view, and as a point of departure for what he calls real sustainability, “it is important to ask ourselves three fundamental questions: what is the point of all our commuting and consuming? What is the economy for? And, finally, why do we seem to be unhappier now than when we began our initial pursuit for rich abundance?” In this context, simple living is the opposite of our modern quest for affluence and, as a result, it becomes less preoccupied with quantity and more concerned about the preservation of cities, traditions and nature.
A reference point for this new economics can be found in James Robertson's A New Economics of Sustainable Development, and the work of thinkers and activists, who participate in his Working for a Sane Alternative network and program. According to Robertson, the shift to sustainability is likely to require a widespread shift of emphasis from raising incomes to reducing costs.
The principles of the new economics, as set out by Robertson, are the following:
systematic empowerment of people (as opposed to making and keeping them dependent), as the basis for people-centred development
systematic conservation of resources and the environment, as the basis for environmentally sustainable development
evolution from a “wealth of nations” model of economic life to a one-world model, and from today's inter-national economy to an ecologically sustainable, decentralising, multi-level one-world economic system
restoration of political and ethical factors to a central place in economic life and thought
respect for qualitative values, not just quantitative values.
Politics
Although some religious and political movements promote this type of practice as apolitical, there is no conflict of this philosophy with various political theories. For example, a person could practice an intense capitalism and at the same time live in a simple way, since the capital that is generated by income (property, shares, etc.) does not imply a form of consumerism in the strict sense but rather capitalism and stoicism. In any case, the ecologist, libertarian and anti - capitalist perspectives of voluntary simplicity usually want a local self-determination, which can be threatened by financial capitalism and foreign investments, and therefore could consider this type of activities unacceptable.
On the other hand, a person might belong to a totalitarian state that promotes a simple life for his subjects by applying anti- consumer laws.
Many green parties or ecologists call the simple life as a consequence of the triangle ecology, anti-consumerism or frugality and health, which promotes a sustainable development for humanity as a whole. In many cases, these models can be applied more easily at the municipal level. An example is the ecovillages, where a critique of globalization is carried out as industrial capitalism without borders, neoliberal colonialism, etc., by drastically reducing the consumption of superfluous goods and services.
Literature
The Quakers' white paper on simple life is "Testimony of Simplicity."
The naturist and writer Henry David Thoreau is often considered the founder of the movement in a non-religious context, as can be seen in his book Walden, published in 1854. In a paragraph of this work, Thoreau expresses himself in this way when he sees a poor family of Irish immigrants who lived near him:
I tried to help him with my experience, that I did not drink tea, coffee, butter, milk, or fresh meat, so I did not have to work to get all that and, since I did not have to work hard I did not have to eat much either, and my food barely cost me anything; but since he started with tea, coffee, butter, milk and beef, he had to work hard to pay for it and, since he had worked hard, he had to eat a lot to repair the energy expenditure, so it did not matter, or he did not give it, because he was unhappy and he had wasted his life with the deal, although he had believed that he was winning by coming to America and being able to get tea, coffee and food here every day.
Source from Wikipedia
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