Simple living mostly a white thing?

[Ultralight]

Hey all, collecting thoughts and ideas here.

Anyone else notice that simple living/voluntary simplicity/minimalism appear to be mostly a white people thing?

I promise I am not interested in razzing. I want purely a candid and thoughtful conversation...

Thanks!

[iris lilies]

Hey all, collecting thoughts and ideas here.

Anyone else notice that simple living/voluntary simplicity/minimalism appear to be mostly a white people thing?

I promise I am not interested in razzing. I want purely a candid and thoughtful conversation...

Thanks!

BS, you will pounce on anyone from whom you get a whiff of racial stereotyping. But you don't scare me, so sure, I'll play.

I find that many cultures I've encountered have pride in their ability to be frugal.

African-Americans talk about how they did wilthout and how they substituted other things for that which they had no money to buy. Scots pride themselves on being thirfty. farm people pride themselves on making whatever they need, growing it or constructing it.

Ethnic groups not far removed from their 3rd world origns might be naturally more frugal than suburban 5th generation WASPs because they have witnessed it in their parents and grandparents.

This isnt really 'voluntary' simplicity but it is frugality.

[catherine]

I agree with IL--in that many cultures/minorities are frugal and make-do. It's only people who have had the opportunity to gobble up all the material benefits they possibly can who then find they WANT to be a reject old habits of consumption. Then they "brand" simple-living and make it a cool trend, when they are merely copying what others have done without thinking about it.

There's a book by Gary Cross called The All-Consuming Century and he defines those patterns really well--that people have to cycle through upward mobility and material prosperity in order to be able to do the voluntary simplicity stuff. Obviously there will be exceptions, but the general trends make sense. You have to drink the Kool-Aid first, unfortunately.

[ApatheticNoMore]

A lot of people are just poor, there's nothing particularly romantic about it, it's just poverty - disproportionately minority, well yea, but hardly restricted to minorities or anything.

Minority communities are often better at sharing and having a social support network and a community etc. though.

[bae]

I promise I am not interested in razzing. I want purely a candid and thoughtful conversation...


Doesn't seem likely.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

[LDAHL]

IL has it right. Thrift and frugality are more or less universal.

If you feel the need to turn frugality into some sort of environmental/political/philosophical movement with brand names and websites, you probably belong to a certain subculture that may or not be predominantly white.

It becomes a matter of separating practice from pretense.

[JaneV2.0]

Making a "thing" out of it is probably a middle-class contrivance. The rest of the world just goes about doing it without much fuss.

[catherine]

It becomes a matter of separating practice from pretense.

Wow, I said the same thing, but you said it so much better! You, Jane and bae are the Terse Trio!

[Ultralight]

If simple living is a movement, and voluntary, would it seem that the "movement" in its voluntary-ness seems rather white?

This forum's demographics appear to be very white.

My voluntary simplicity classes I "taught" have all been very white. The minimalist group I attend is very white. The tiny house group I attended here as well was very white.

Thought I did read an article by bell hooks about simple living.
Lemme see if I can find a passage from it...

[Ultralight]

“When we black people commit ourselves to living simply as a political action, as a way of breaking the stress caused by unrelenting hedonistic desire for material objects that are not needed for survival, or essential to well-being, we will not be talking about ebonics. We will be out in the streets demanding that the public schools have enough teachers so that all kids, cross color, can read and write in standard English and in Spanish too.”
― Bell Hooks, Black Genius: African-American Solutions to African-American Problems

[LDAHL]

You can make any old quotidian thing into a “movement”. Witness the slow food movement or the maker movement or the tiny house movement. Apply enough lipstick to the pig, and you can convince yourself you’re doing something profound. I wouldn’t say that race necessarily enters into pretentiousness (at least in most forms), but I do think that a certain amount of leisure, education and resources are probably needed to bring it to it’s highest levels.

[ToomuchStuff]

Sounds like your choosing to hang around white people and then complaining about it. Heard the same comment about minimilism and being Japanese.

[Ultralight]

Sounds like your choosing to hang around white people and then complaining about it. Heard the same comment about minimilism and being Japanese.

No... I hang out with people who share my interests and values. These folks are very, very white.

They are two types:

Voluntary simplicity types

And/or...

Secular types

[ApatheticNoMore]

It may have to do with exposure to various ideas as idea in that form.

Like there are going to be ideas that mostly only graduate educated idealists have been exposed to pretty much (and well some people will be who don't meet those criteria because the criteria isn't all that strict - since it's often about what one has read and has exposure to rather than strict credentials - that was just a stereotype with some truth :)).

There is of course a lot of poverty and involuntary poor people are not exactly practicing VOLUNTARY simplicity, but people who aren't poor - it does have something to do with exposure to the idea or not, and well it may be self-reinforcing to some degree, if you were a minority would you want to go hang out in white people group? maybe but maybe not.

[Rogar]

I think the root of some of the recent simplicity movement, including possibly this very forum, came from a ripple effect of the dotcom/silicon valley boom on the west coast and Pacific NW. People either experienced or observed others with soul sucking jobs, big money, and big living that only bought an illusion of happiness. Minorities now seem proportionate to that demographic. Before that there was the get back to the land movement with Scott and Helen Nearing as the role models and many hippie followers. Maybe before that the Thoreau transcendentalists. Pretty much white bread all around.

[HappyHiker]

My two cents worth: Living simply, if it's "Voluntary Simplicity," from choice, is mainly a first world thing--and yes, I do think it's mostly white. Living simply due to economic necessity is a cross-cultural lifestyle and is not limited to the first world.

I think it comes down to a choice or a necessity.

And by the way, this tend of way of living has been with us for quite a while, before Your Money or Your Life...I remember a book back in the early 70's called "Living Poor With Style." It sent me on the highways and byways of simple living and the wonderful world of thrift stores.

"Your Money or Your Life" supported me in wonderful ways to keep me from developing into an over-spending consumer when the media and advertising was tempting and encouraging me to buy, buy, buy.

[Lainey]

HappyHiker, I also remember "Living Poor with Style" ! loved that book, although I think he changed the title later to "Living Cheap with Style". Just loved his overall attitude about the whole thing.

[sylvia]

My European cousins have been efficient, thrifty and all that wayyyy before I even considered it a necessity. Some places in the world its a way of life and to survive by being more simple. But they do dream of American big cars and big wide king sized beds.Superstores are more common but its mind boggling to them how some Americans shop with overflowing carts and walk up to their Escalades. For them its luxury not necessity. Its definitely becoming an American middle class necessity these days to be more simple/efficient/green.