Looking ahead 10 years from now is pretty variable because technology is ever changing. I see myself still integrated into society with a normal job, a house, and a family with 2 or 3 kids. Originally, I wanted to live the high life. Nice car. Nice house that isn’t too big or too small. Dogs. Beautiful garden. The American Dream. I cannot fully say that even after reading this book, that I still don’t want those things, because truthfully I still do. However Radical Simplicity definitely opened my eyes to a way to still be integrated into society but also take certain measures to enable my life to be more sustainable. After reading the book, I still do want all of those things, however now I want to substitute some of the materialistic aspects of my dream life 10 years from now, with more sustainable products. Having a quaint home just large enough for the family, but have it be built “green” and still have it be super nice inside, is an adjustment I want now that I am more aware. I want a fuel efficient car, instead of the luxurious Mercedes, and a garden that grows native plants to California and fresh produce rather than a garden of water-wasting seasonal flowers. By not spending as much money on unsustainable things such as gas-guzzling cars, or large gardens which use a lot of water, I can save that money and put it toward travel and my kids. I am well aware that having 2 - 3 kids is not the ideal number because having fewer kids is more sustainable, but having a medium sized family is extremely important to me. Regardless of what Merkel says about family size that aspect of my life 10 years from now cannot and will not be changed.
While reading the novel, Joanna and I came to the conclusion that Merkel is a “nature whisperer” - or a little forest fairy you could say. The book began being very inspiring as he brought out all of this information about modern society and how we need to improve being sustainable to enable future generations to enjoy the benefits which we have now. Slowly as the novel progresses though, Merkel becomes extremely radical. I understand that his point of view and concept of the novel is supposed to be radical, hence the title, but I feel that he lacks the concept of reality. There is no way society can revert back to times when technology was inexistent, or when people simply hunted and gathered, doing what they needed to simply survive. The world does not move backwards, and this is where I feel that Merkel was a bit ridiculous.
Merkel was put in a highly idealistic position. He had made enough money to go out and buy a house and all he needed prior to his transition to simple living, and on top of that, he did not have a family to support during this project. In modern day society, money plays a significant part in almost every aspect of our lives: higher education for our kids, transportation, and even going to the grocery store. To completely opt out of modern capitalistic society would be impossible for a person with a family of 5. In my opinion, Merkel has some great ideas for how living simply can help ensure a sustainable future, but I think instead of taking his direct advice and completely changing one’s lifestyle to the simple living he is able to do, individuals should take the lessons that he is teaching in the book, and try to implement them as best as they can into their daily life. Only by doing this can society shift as a whole to make changes to becoming more sustainable. Being completely on the radical side will not suede people to change their habits because truthfully it just isn’t practical for most people who aren’t as fortunate as Merkel.
I think different aspects of my life lay in different spheres of how conscious I am of my unsustainable decisions. For example, I admit I am highly unconscious about how unsustainable some of the food products I am eating are, such as my produce or any boxed item. When I am home I have a lot of control over going to the local produce market to get produce, but here at school, my sustainability does not cross my mind because I do not have control over where my produce from the dining hall comes from. From reading this book however, being sustainable has definitely crossed my mind more in everyday decision making. However, I am more conscious about being sustainable by using reusable water bottles and trying not to use grocery bags as much as possible. I feel like this is the easiest way people can change small aspects of their life to a become more sustainable. By simply altering little aspects of our lifestyles we can incorporate some of Merkel’s radical ideas to make them more practical to modern society.
I agree with your point that Merkel becomes more radical as the novel progresses. At the beginning, I found myself thinking that his ideas were well stated and inspiring, but by the last few chapters I began to think he was a little bit crazy. He definitely sucks you in to thinking he has a rational argument, and then throws some spiritual ideals in at the end.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your points and Nora's points entirely, I felt that some of his sustainable practices might even promote intense class conflict and revolts from those that may be view his arguments as injustice and un-practical. I think it would that Merkel provides arguments for that ideal, great, perfect state with no waste and everyone having their equal share of resources, but I dont think that, realistically, such ideals and practices could hold up in the real world.
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear, Merkel is radical, not "a radical" (and not that you called him one). I don't think what he is doing is unrealistic b/c he's a culture creator. He along with others like him are part of a movement lead by cultural innovators, and he's one of the movement's many drivers. The work he is doing now, of trying to drive a society and its cultures away from one way of life and in the direction of another kind of lifestyle will have unpredictable results. I don't look at his model as an either/or option. We don't have to commit to living exactly like Merkel or dismiss any of his ideas because we can't predict when and if they will work for us. As more people adopt more sustainable practices, new solutions will be found that Merkel did not think of. Still others will be absent in which case a bit of radical simplicity will be necessary. Not everyone will be living in the woods off $5000 dollars. But many people may find that they don't need 5 cars, a ginormous house, 10 TVs and Playstations, an RV towing a Hummer stacked with motorbikes and kids toys. They will find instead that they get fulfillment out of doing things like growing all their own fruits and vegetables, biking to work, camping in a tent instead of purchasing an RV. If Merkel had only subscribed to a few of these alternatives, he wouldn't make a very good hero. In order to demonstrate that simpler living is doable and fulfilling, you need an extreme version as an example before you can get society to work the rest out for itself. If you have a family with children then you will have to do more than just read Radical Simplicity to get ideas on how to subsist greenly. The Dervaes family in Pasadena, AKA the Urban Homesteaders, make a fine model of how a family of 5 I believe can live entirely off of just $30,000/yr and not be poor and not be wanting. Initial investments may require making more money to get started, especially in a big city, so its up to people like you guys to figure out innovative solutions to the sorts of problems that Merkel doesn't deal with. Imagine a society that lies somewhere between LA and Kerala, but veering more towards Kerala, where people are educated and healthy, women have lots of rights, people grow a lot of their own food, and I think you'll be imagining a pretty interesting and exciting place to live. Another point I want to make is that we don't have to make all these changes to our lifestyle all at once, mostly because we can't. We don't have the knowledge or resources that someone like Merkel had when he wrote his book. As we gradually make the changes that we can, we will find that the things we value and the things we want out of life will evolve alongside our evolving lifestyle. You may be surprised to find yourself being more radically simple and sustainable 10 years from now than you thought was possible, without even realizing it, simply because your tastes, preferences, assumptions, your world view changed too as you evolved different ways of living.
ReplyDeleteAs for Merkel's wackiness, spiritual or otherwise, I agree that he does seem a bit different by the end. But that is primarily a reflection of the fact that he has chosen a radically different path than most, has done so largely on his own or with just a few others, and so has developed a different sort of spirituality and a different way of articulating that spirituality than mainstream society. Any time someone truly lives radically (e.g. maybe becomes a nun or monk; joins guerrilla fighters; or becomes an academic- yes if you stay here at UCLA long enough you will in many respects stop being mainstream) you can expect to develop different world views than the masses. If you could see the sequence of events in his life leading to the development of those views as they were unfolding, it wouldn't seem as unjustifiable. Yet the unfamiliar always strikes one as odd or questionable at first, no matter if it really is or isn't rational and justifiable. I wasn't too concerned with his version of spirituality, nor am I very concerned with anyone else's for that matter. I didn't agree with everything he wrote either. But that's ok because he has a lot of useful tools for reshaping your own views to suit your own codes and values in such a way that while you probably will not, nor would you want to, become a carbon copy of Merkel, you will discover sustainable ways to live your own life.
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