From Generation X by Douglas Coupland:
Conspicuous Minimalism: the non-ownership of material goods flaunted as a token of moral and intellectual superiority. (p107)
I DON’T HAVE DSL! DID I TELL YOU THAT TODAY?
Yeah, OK. I guess I’m a little guilty of this one…
Generation X was written in 1991, 15 years ago. I have to wonder if the definition of minimalist has changed a little since then. If conspicuous minimalism is the opposite of conspicuous consumption, then what is consumption?
Fight Club (the book and movie, but different author) has a protagonist discussing how he defined his personality through shopping. If we follow this line, does conspicuous consumption mean a person thinks more about consuming-as-expression than about the True Self. Would Socrates be opposed to conspicuous consumption because it is the opposite of his admonition that the unexamined life is not worth living? Is consumption a replacement for self-examination?
There might be something to this… So let me say that AFTER I GAVE UP DSL AND CABLE TV, I learned how much entertainment products (movies, games, never-ending-news-channels) prevented me from serious self-examination. Thus, consumption might now be something more than simply obsessing over the latest Crate & Barrel catalog.
Consumption might mean anything that allows us to live a materialistic life‚ both real (through purchasing) and vicarious (through MTV Cribs, the Food Channel and never-ending pr0n on the Intraweb).
So what does minimalism accomplish, when it’s not being used as an ego-boosting whine against consumption? Is it rebellion against materialism? Rebellion against corporations or marketing? Rebellion against class?
I’m not sure, but maybe a bit of them all. The only thing I know is that I don’t have DSL. Boo-Yah!
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Minimalism might be a good way to quiet down the noise from our loud and speedy culture. What with televisions in public places, internet, radio, advertising, high expectations for social position and material goods, obscure tax and insurance laws, as well as endless deadlines it’s no wonder a person can’t hear herself think! Was the world always this complicated?
My guess: just as complicated, but not quite as distracting.
I mean, people always have problems and messy relationships. But consider how people 100 years ago knew a bunch of songs they could sing around a piano. I don’t think I know the lyrics of any songs by heart…at least, none that I’d sing with my relatives ‘for fun’.
I can’t say I have any desire to live in a world like that. I love modern technology, obviously, as this site shows. It’s nice to have the option to have and/or use technology. The question I have is “when is it enough technology and you should stop?”
I guess I wonder how conspicuous minimalism is any better for one’s state of being than conspicuous consumption/maximalism.
I mean, is “I have fourteen Armani suits, three German cars, a vacation home in the Keys, and I carry 8 different kinds of miniaturized electronics on my person at any given time, so therefore I’m better than you” really any more obnoxious than “I have one chair and I only read used books, so therefore I’m better than you”?
I’d say both are obnoxious, yes. (Did I tell you how much better I am than you as I do not have DSL?)
There’s an interesting parallel between conspicuous consumption/minimalism and religious devotion. Merton talks about how many devout and otherwise holy people were prevented from being saints because of their own desire to be holy. They turned ‘holiness’ into the object of their devotion, rather than God.
In this area, too, I think that conspicuous minimalism is just another way to set up hierarchies. In such a conspicuous case, the original reason for minimalism (saving the environment, rebelling against marketing manipulation, financial frugality, etc) is traded for something that is akin to ‘fashion’.
Strangely, I got a bunch of external links to my site when I wrote about shutting off DSL at my home and using libraries, coffee shops, and so on. After I saw that, I was tempted to write more about it because getting attention is cool. But then I asked myself: why did I shut it off and is it really something to wave like a flag? I think the answer is no, if only because shutting off the DSL was an effect of a larger theme/idea/philosophy in my life.
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