[pf] Enough Already - Eugeneans rebel against consumerism

by Tom Wheeler

17 December 2000 20:38 UTC

http://www.eugeneweekly.com/coverstory.html

Enough Already - Eugeneans rebel against consumerism

Story by Alan Pittman | Photos by Linda Smogor

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?
"It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
"Maybe Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more!"
-- How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

What the Grinch found out the hard way, people around the country and
especially in Eugene are realizing in growing numbers. Shop 'til you drop
isn't good for yourself, society, or the planet.

The anti-consumerist movement "is huge, it's a monster," says John Baldwin,
UO environmental studies and planning professor. "I think it's going to
capture this whole next generation of young people." With youth rebelling
against an inundation of advertising, he says, "it is just as solid as a
rock among young people."

Baldwin says anti-consumerism is the response to a wide range of social ills
created by the excesses of world capitalism including environmental
degradation, social injustice and inequity, sweatshops, racism,
corporatization, cultural homogenization and the job rat race.

While the media criticized the recent uprisings against globalization and
the rise of the anarchist movement as lacking a coherent cause, Baldwin says
anti-consumerism was the uniting theme. "They knew exactly what they were
doing," he says. "You're seeing the kind of angry mob-like reaction to
[consumerism]--from the WTO protests in Seattle to the anarchists here."

UO economist Ed Whitelaw says Oregon, and especially Eugene, is a center of
anti-consumerism. A large number of the population here have chosen to
practice anti-materialism to some degree, simply by choosing to live here,
according to Whitelaw. Salaries at many companies in Oregon trail 5 to 15
percent below the national average. Whitelaw says his analysis indicates
that's because Oregonians have chosen to forgo higher income and the things
it might buy in exchange for the region's better quality of life. "It's
like, I'm going to exchange a fancier car for something I can't buy, like
getting out for a hike in the mountains or watching the salmon run," he
says.

In Eugene, it's clear that many people are, to varying degrees, following an
anti-consumerist model of simpler living, Whitelaw says. "It's not just the
Country Fair, there's a general mellow lifestyle," Whitelaw says. "There's a
lot of plain folk here in Eugene."

Here's a look at a few of the plain folk here in Eugene, how they've lived a
simpler life, and what they've learned from it.

Charles Gray, 75, lived for 16 years on a "World Equity Budget" of $100 a
month.
In 1979, Gray says he decided the American lifestyle of consumer excess just
wasn't right. "I just couldn't morally feel good living with such privilege
compared with people in the third world."

So Gray calculated a World Equity Budget (WEB) based on an environmentally
sustainable level of world consumption and income divided by the world's
population. To get by on the budget, he moved into a 7- by 12-foot travel
trailer, road his bike everywhere and bought almost nothing. Back then, the
idea of going back to the land and simpler living was becoming more popular
in Eugene. "A lot of the hippie alternative culture thing was a reaction
against excessive materialism," says Gray. Many people started communes,
Gray says. But he says the initial financial investment in such communities
was beyond his equity budget, "I was more extreme."

"I could hardly afford a patch for a bicycle tube," joked Gray. But he says,
"I felt liberated by doing this. It made me feel good spiritually."

Gray says he only had to work about 50 hours a month doing gardening,
carpentry and other odd jobs to make his budget. He would only charge $1 to
$2 and hour for his labor so he didn't over-earn. "It liberated my time for
doing the things I wanted to do," says Gray, who became active in the
homeless rights and peace movements. Many people now are working so hard
they don't even have time to harvest the fruit growing in their own yards,
Gray says. "In any reasonable civilization we'd probably have to only work
about one-third time if we didn't have to generate all the crap we do now."

Gray says at times living the WEB was a struggle. At one point he remembers
biking on a rainy winter day hauling a cart full of carpentry tools. He
passed a restaurant and smelled the coffee. "I said to myself, damn, a few
years ago I could have afforded to buy that restaurant, now I can't even
afford a cup of coffee."

But Gray says he found happiness in living simply. At Christmas, he would
have fun making his own gifts -- dried fruit, wood crafts, crochet. "It's so
good to get away from the Christmas madness," he says.

Gray got off the budget after he got married. If they'd moved in together in
the cramped trailer, "our relationship would have ended quite shortly," he
laughs. He lives in his wife's comfortable house now, but still lives
simply, biking and buying little.

When he sees frantic Christmas shoppers he thinks, "They're helping murder
the planet," he says. "But I don't blame people," Gray says. With all the
advertising, "We're so brainwashed into it."

Mary Ellen Laughlin and her husband bailed out of lucrative careers to come
to Eugene and lead a simpler life. Motivated by the book, Your Money or Your
Life, Laughlin says she and her husband decided there was more to living
than their busy careers as a Realtor and running a veterinarian clinic. "We
figured out financially how to drop out of the rat race," Laughlin says.

Laughlin says they figured out a budget to live off their savings and
liquidated assets by doing just some part time work. They cut their budget
by two-thirds, moved to Eugene three years ago, bought a modest house and
furnished it from garage sales and second hand stores. "It was kind of
funky, but fun," she says. Many of the family's clothes are now old or
second hand, she says. "We all look like hell, but we're pretty happy," she
laughs.

Before, "all I did was work and keep our head above water," Laughlin says.
Now, she says, she and her husband have time to garden, take classes and
volunteer for Alliance for Democracy, FOOD for Lane County and Meals on
Wheels. Laughlin says they also take great satisfaction from knowing they're
"living lightly on the planet."

Laughlin says she's seen more and more people from her 50-something age
group making a similar lifestyle change. "The whole simplicity movement is a
huge great groundswell," she says. "A lot of people my age are really
feeling that their lives aren't quite satisfactory."

"We haven't done Christmas as such with the crazy consumerism for many
years," Laughlin says. This year, Laughlin says she and her husband plan to
volunteer helping with a Christmas dinner for the poor and have a quiet
dinner together by themselves. "We basically exchange a book and a calendar,
something small, no big piles of presents," she says. "There's lots of joy."

Before, "I can remember how stressed out I was at Christmas time," Laughlin
says, recalling all the time shopping for things people didn't really need
or even want. "We probably gave horrible gifts to people and we received
equally horrible gifts," she says.

"It's become so ridiculous," she says, before she goes to sit down, relax,
put on some music and make balls of cloves tied together with a red ribbon
for Christmas presents.

Marshall Kirkpatrick is a local anarchist. He likes all the controversy now
over the city's decision to ban some Christmas trees in public spaces. "I'm
kind of psyched," he says, noting the issue is sparking people to think more
deeply about the meaning of the tree and the season.

Kirkpatrick laments "corporate fetishization of corporate products" and
ingrained "crass consumerism" of everyday American life, especially around
Christmas. He notes that while WTO protesters were trying to convey the dire
social and environmental ills of globalization in Seattle last year, the
media couldn't stop dwelling on the fact that the protests were disrupting
downtown holiday shopping.

But he says he's not opposed to gifts. "The world is a sad enough and barren
enough place that it's pretty understandable that people want to make their
loved ones happy with the exchange of gifts." The problem is that "people
don't have a lot of access to non-corporate alternatives," he says. Gift
giving is a "potentially really healthy social impulse put within a very
unhealthy context."

Kirkpatrick is also critical of liberal "Buy Nothing Day" protests and
liberal calls for buying locally made crafts to "uphold the local hippie
economy." The local crafts are too expensive for most people and buying
nothing for a day "is really just something that's going to make yourself
feel good" rather than make much of a dent in massive consumerism.

Kirkpatrick says he'd recommend "not buying a dead tortured bird to eat" as
a more meaningful act. "What's one more overpriced piece of plastic in the
heap of crap from Toys R Us?" he says. "A bird is a whole life."

Kirkpatrick says his Christmas this year will be fairly tame. He'll spend
time with family and relatives, making small talk with people who don't
share his world view. "I don't tell them I've been in touch with
insurrectionists around the world trying to overthrow world industrial
capitalism," he says. "I just sort of smile."

Hope Marston, 46, worked "20 years in the [TV] news business making big
bucks" in Seattle before deciding to bag it all for the good life.

She got rid of her 2,000 sq. ft. home, sold most of her possessions to pay
off her credit cards and escaped her 40- to 60-hour-a-week job. Now she
works 30 hours a week as a secretary and uses the time off to volunteer for
causes she believes in. She worked with the Nader campaign, the first major
presidential campaign to challenge consumerism. The day after Thanksgiving
she organized a "Buy Nothing Day" event on the biggest shopping day of the
year. The event at a local church featured a used coat swap. Three hundred
people donated coats for less fortunate people to have to keep warm.

Marston says getting rid of the TV was the most difficult and most important
step she took toward a simpler life. The ad-driven "cravings" for buying
went with the TV, she says. Noting she doesn't even have a closet now, she
looks back at her former life and wonders, "Why did I need all those
clothes? Why did I need the big house and the sports car?"

Marston sees a sign of societal illness in the boom of the self-storage
industry. "People have so many possessions they don't know what to do with
them," she says. "It's really sick."

"Love comes from spending time with people," not from madly shopping for
gifts, Marston says. "It's a frenzy not born of peace and understanding,
it's a frenzy born of promotion," she says of the droves of holiday shoppers
now filling the malls. "People like me seem to be scrooge to people like
that, but I have to say, I'm really happy."

Although anti-consumerism's call for simpler more environmentally and
socially sound living may have a growing number of dedicated adherents here
in Eugene and around the nation, the movement has a long way to go.

Ever-growing consumption, consumer spending and economic growth are seen by
the mainstream media and society as universally good. A rising gross
domestic product is the primary goal of the U.S. government's economic
policy.

While some in Eugene call for living simply, many others are rushing to the
mall. In a recent survey by the Media Audit, three-fourths of the readers of
the ad-laden local daily are regular shoppers at Valley River Center.
Thirteen percent of their readers consume more than five hours of television
a day and another 7 percent eat fast food more than five times a week.

Dr. Seuss taught millions of children that "Maybe Christmas Ö perhaps Ö
means a little bit more!" But now, even that message has been
commercialized. Hollywood bought the rights to the book from Seuss's elderly
widow this year and spun off a mall full of movie-related merchandise, from
green-filled Oreos to plastic Grinch toys in Wendy's kids' meals. VISA is
now the official credit card of the Grinch, with a heart two-sizes too
small.

[sidebar]

Insatiable

* The average American planned to spend $800 on Christmas gifts in 1997 --
almost three times what the average Vietnamese citizen earns in a year of
labor.

* 96 percent of 8 to 12 year olds included a big screen TV in their holiday
wish list for 1997. Nearly three-fourths of parents say they would like to
reduce their children's TV watching.

* It takes an average of six months for a credit-card user to pay off
holiday bills.

* The total U.S. credit-card debt is more than $450 billion and is growing
at a rate twice that of wage increases. The number of personal bankruptcies
has quadrupled in the last 15 years.

* Americans produce five million extra tons of trash each year between
Thanksgiving and New Years Day.

* Compared to the 1950's, Americans are twice as rich, but less happy. The
average American's buying power has doubled since the 1950s but in national
surveys the number saying they were "very happy" declined from 35 to 30
percent.

* The U.S. has 6 percent of the world's population but consumes a third of
the world's resources and produces a third of the world's toxic waste. U.S.
per capita consumption has nearly doubled in the last two decades.

* Eighty-four percent of Americans would prefer a less materialistic
holiday, but Christmas retail sales increased seven percent last year.

* Teenagers see 360,000 advertisements by the time they graduate from high
school. There are more shopping centers in the U.S. than high schools.

* Two-thirds of Americans say they would be happier if they had more time to
spend with family and friends. Only 15 percent say they'd be happier if they
had nicer possessions.

* Nearly a third of Americans say they have voluntarily traded income for
improvements in quality of life.

* Half of Americans would rather have more free time, even if it means less
money.

* Americans now work about one month longer a year on average than they did
two decades ago.

* Each day, the average American city-dweller consumes 150 gallons of water,
3.3 pounds of food and 15 pounds of fossil fuels and produces 120 gallons of
sewage, 3.4 pounds of garbage and 1.3 pounds of pollutants.

* 82 percent of Americans agree that we buy and consume more than we need.

* 93 percent of American teenage girls say shopping is their favorite
pastime.

Sources: Chicago Tribune, The Economist, E Magazine, Adbusters, Center for a
New American Dream, New Roadmap, Merck Family Fund, U.S. News and World
Report, Zero Population Growth, The Overworked American.
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"Our first work must be the annihilation of everything
as it now exists."  -  Mikhail Bakunin

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed,
debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own."  -  No.6