Voluntary simplicity (or simple living) 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. (Ecology is sometimes used incorrectly as a synonym for the natural environment. ... Consumerism is a term used to describe the effects of equating personal happiness with purchasing material possessions and consumption. ... Simplicity is the property, condition, or quality of being simple or un-combined. ...

Overview

People who practice 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 practice 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. 8:17 am, August 6, 1945, Japanese time. ... Money Money is any marketable good or token used by a society as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. ... Gardening is an activity—the art and craft of growing plants—with a goal of creating a beautiful environment. ... Cooking is the act of preparing food for consumption. ... Turn of the century sewing in Detroit, Michigan An old sewing machine Sewing is an ancient craft involving the stitching of cloth, leather, animal skins, furs, or other materials, using needle and thread. ... See also: DIY Network, a cable TV network. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Psychology (Classical Greek: psyche = soul or mind, logos = study of) is an academic and applied field involving the study of behavior, mind and thought and the neurological bases of behavior. ... Finance studies and addresses the ways in which individuals, businesses and organizations raise, allocate and use monetary resources over time, taking into account the risks entailed in their projects. ... Spirituality is, in a narrow sense, a concern with matters of the spirit, however that may be defined; but it is also a wide term with many available readings: it may include belief in supernatural powers, as in religion; but the emphasis is on personal experience. ...

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. A Roman Catholic monk A monk is a person who practices monasticism, adopting a strict religious and ascetic lifestyle, usually in community with others following the same path. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... World map showing location of Europe When considered a continent, Europe is the worlds second-smallest continent in terms of area, with an area of 10,600,000 km² (4,140,625 square miles), making it larger than Australia only. ... World map showing location of Asia Asia is the central and eastern part of Eurasia, defined by subtracting Europe from Eurasia. ... A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived between approximately 566 and 486 BCE in India. ...

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. For more information about Quaker simplicity see Testimony of Simplicity. 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. World map showing location of North America A satellite composite image of North America North America is a continent in the northern hemisphere, bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west... : shakers or shaker, see Shakers (disambiguation). ... The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations based on the teachings and tradition of Menno Simons. ... Amish couple in a horse-drawn buggy in rural Holmes County, Ohio, the site of one of the largest concentrations of Amish in the United States The Amish are a denomination of Anabaptists and noted for their restrictions on the use of modern devices such as automobiles and electricity. ... The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, or Friends, is a religious community founded in England in the 17th century. ... Wealth usually refers to money and property. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The Testimony of Simplicity is the Quaker belief that a person ought to live his or her life simply in order to focus on what is most important and ignore or downplay what is least important. ... Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862; born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, pacifist, tax resister and philosopher who is famous for Walden (available at wikisource) on living simply with nature and Civil Disobedience (available at wikisource) on resistance to civil government. ... Natural history is an umbrella term for what are now usually viewed as a number of distinct scientific disciplines. ... Ethics is the branch of axiology – one of the four major branches of philosophy, alongside metaphysics, epistemology, and logic – which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. ... Thoreaus Cove, Concord, Mass. ...

Though people who eschew high technology are often referred to as Luddites, after the groups of skilled English hand-loom weavers and croppers who smashed automated looms during the industrial revolution, it's important to realise that the Luddites acted not because of a philosophy of voluntary simplicity, but because the new automated looms threatened their livelihoods. In a society with no social welfare system, this meant that they faced desperate privation - and their fears were realised when automated looms took over and skilled hand-loom weavers and their families endured awful poverty and even death by starvation. The Luddites were a group of English workers in the early 1800s who protested – often by destroying machines – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution that they felt threatened their jobs. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population - Total (mid-2004) - Density Ranked 1st UK 50. ... The Luddites were a group of English workers in the early 1800s who protested – often by destroying machines – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution that they felt threatened their jobs. ...

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. Sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or primarily in North America as the Roaring Twenties. // Events and trends Technology John T. Thompson invents Thompson submachine gun, also known as Tommy gun John Logie Baird invents the first working mechanical television system (1925) Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to... The 1960s, or The Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... Ralph Borsodi (1886 – 1977) was born in New York and spent the earliest years of his life in Manhattan. ... Scott Nearing (August 6, 1883 - August 24, 1983) was an American conservationist, peace activist, educator and writer. ... Young Gary Snyder, on one of his early book covers Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet (often associated with the Beat Generation); and an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist who is frequently described as the laureate of Deep Ecology — roles reflecting his studies of both Buddhist... Utopia, in its most common and general positive meaning, refers to the human efforts to create a better society, a perfect society that does not exist (yet). ... Ernest Callenbach (born April 3, 1929) is an American writer. ... This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... Duane Elgin is an author, speaker, educator, consultant, and media activist. ... Eco-anarchism argues that small eco-villages (of no more than a few hundred people) are a scale of human living preferable to civilization, and that infrastructure and political systems should be re-organized to ensure that these are created. ...

Voluntary simplicity can certainly include high-tech components - indeed, computers, photovoltaic arrays, wind and air turbines, and a variety of other cutting-edge technologies can be used to make a simple lifestyle within mainstream culture easier and more sustainable than simply "dropping out".

Advocacy by Greens

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. The Greens support for simplicity is due particularly to the positive environmental benefits of the tendency of simplifiers to consume significantly fewer resources due to their less materialist lifestyles. This article is about the green parties around the world. ... The worldwide green parties are committed to the following Four Pillars: Ecology (sometimes Ecological Wisdom or Ecological Sustainability) Social Justice (sometimes Social Equality and Economic Justice) Grassroots Democracy Non-Violence In German, it is known as Die Grünen: ökologisch, sozial, basisdemokratisch, gewaltfrei. ... ... Genetic engineering, genetic modification (GM), and gene splicing (once in widespread use but now deprecated) are terms for the process of manipulating genes in an organism, usually outside of the organisms normal reproductive process. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ... Greens are people who support some or all of goals of a Green Party without necessarily working with or voting for that or any party. ...

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. Green politics is a body of political ideas informed by environmentalism aimed at developing a sustainable society. ... Green anarchists compose a diverse and open movement of people who take influences from a variety of different places. ... Ecovillages are socially, economically and ecologically sustainable villages of 50 to 150 people. ...

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. Others feel that, while there are worthwhile television programmes, there are simply not enough to continue using TV. Some people retain their sets for watching videos/DVDs. This means that a conscious choice must be made to watch something specific, and that the phenomenon of "channel surfing" and watching more than intended is circumvented. Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ... Community radio is a type of radio service that caters to the interests of a certain area, broadcasting material that is popular to a local audience but is overlooked by more powerful broadcast groups. ... The term pirate radio lacks a specific universal interpretation. ...

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. As with any other activity, computer use taken to extremes can, indeed, pose this danger. A careful balance in all areas of life is a fundamental part of voluntary simplicity. Computer addiction is an obsessive addiction to computers. ... A computer is a device or machine for processing information according to a program — a compiled list of instructions. ... Knowledge is understanding soemthing or being able to do something. ... A virtual community is a group whose participants are engaged in a dialog by means of information technologies, typically the Internet, to share information and values. ...

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. On the other hand, electronics can allow communications between communities and provide information on effective simple lifestyles for those who wish to change their lives, and can be run on renewable sources of energy. Since antiquity, people have tried to understand the behavior of matter: why unsupported objects drop to the ground, why different materials have different properties, and so forth. ... The Materials Science Tetrahedron Materials science is a multidisciplinary field focusing on functional solids, whether the function served is structural, electronic, thermal, chemical, magnetic, optical, or some combination of these. ... The term military-industrial complex usually refers to the combination of the U.S. armed forces, arms industry and associated political and commercial interests, which grew rapidly in scale and influence in the wake of World War II, although it can also be used to describe any such relationship of...

References

• Voluntary Simplicity (1980), Duane Elgin, ISBN 0688121195 — foundational text of modern voluntary simplicity movement
• New Age Politics (1979), Mark Satin, 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, ISBN 0140167153 — another classic voluntary simplicity text
• Affluenza (2002), John de Graaf et al., ISBN 1576751996 — popularized approach to voluntary simplicity

Duane Elgin is an author, speaker, educator, consultant, and media activist. ... Mark Satin fielding a question at the Fall for the Book Literary Festival, Fairfax, VA, USA, September 21, 2004 – photo by Richard Mallory Allnutt Mark Satin (born November 16, 1946) is a U.S. lawyer and editor of the online political periodical Radical Middle Newsletter. ... Humanistic psychology is a school of psychology that emerged in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis. ...

Related topics

• Affluenza
• Back to the land movement
• Christian vegetarianism
• Ecology movement
• Foxfire books
• Green movement
• Harrowsmith Magazine
• Henry David Thoreau
• Inner peace
• KISS principle
• Meaning of life
• Self-sufficiency
• Sustainable living
• Tax resistance
• Tightwaddery