Today is buy nothing day, and for some reason, the mere existence of this day bugs me more every year. I know that it’s there to get some focus on the over consumption problem, and focusing on that is a good thing. But to me, it’s a bit like saying “i’m fat because I eat too much on christmas eve” thus ignoring the rest of the year.
I was pondering a bit about that a couple of days ago, but ended up eating my words when I opened the paper and read this article by Marta Breen. It was about Judith Levine, the autor of the book and social experiment “not buying it”. She also mentions Ann Christin Gramming, a swedish Librarian who did a follow up, shopping free year.
Inspiration or discouragement?
I guess these people try to set a good example, and I guess all the articles and interviews are there to inspire us mortal people. For me it works in the opposite direction. It makes my everyday efforts seem so small in comparison to theirs. And they are, although I too do try: I choose norwegian made food and products to minimise environment costs; I’m darning my socks and patcing my clothes; I carry a coffee cup because several of the university cafees only have paper cups; and of course I only buy new gadgets and clothes when the old ones stop working. But compared to the “I won’t buy anything for a year” people it’s nothing. But then I started thinking. I weighed the argument back and forth. And then I realised that it’s the same argument as someone aguing: “You say you’re dieting? No you’re not. You’re still eating!”.
Making it simple and manageable
For me, knowing that I should buy norwegian vegetables is a thought I can understand. I get that I must buy safari cookies rather than Maryland because the latter are foreign owned and have twice as much wrapping. I don’t drink bottled water. I can carry a backpack when I don’t need more shopping bags, and I can put the paper waste in a separate wastebin. I manage to do all those singular things most of the time. But when it turns into a complete ideology and a yearlong consumer fast, it’s too much to cope with. I can’t do that. And judging on what I remember from discussions on the topic, this goes for other people as well. When you try to convince people that they can consume less, you try to make it sound simple. You explain all the little things that make big differences. Not these people. They are explaining the gigantuous effort you can make. And of course they are simultaneously making it alot more difficult for people to cope with.
But it’s buy nothing day. I’m heading down to town to try and buy some new trousers. I bought myself a new pair in july, which is far less than a year ago. And do you know what? I don’t think it makes me an awful consumer junkie.
5 responses so far ↓
Guri // november 24, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Hei Marthe!
Heilt einig
Og forresten er eg ikkje så ukjend som du trur, du har sikkert sett meg kommentera anonymt i Martines blogg. Du kan spørja ho eller Aksel om kven eg er
martheglad // november 24, 2007 at 6:36 pm
takker takker
er du den Gurien. Ja deg kjenner jeg jo bare av navn, hyggelig å hilse på deg
livetleker // november 24, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Your dad and I bought a new dinner table today, what a day to do that! Did we need it? May be not.The one we had has been with us for around 27 years, and nothing is wrong with it. But it’s too small. Everytime we are more than 8 for dinner, we have to carry heavy extra tables from the basement. We are growing old, and we do not want to cary heavy things any more. The best part is that we know that both you and your brother want the old table. It will not be thrown away.
As a matter of fact I never shop as shopping goes. Shopping is when you stroll around in the shops looking for something to shop. I don’t. I buy stuff I need, - and sometimes stuff I want. I almost never buy clothes unless the old ones are worn out, and we go to a restaurant may be five times a year, mostly on holidays. Still if I searched all parts of the house, I guess I could find clothes enough to last a life time. That is because we never throw anything away.
Like you I try not to comsume too much, but looking in a global perspective we all do, and the difference between the people mentioned in the article you linked to and us is marginal - in a global perspective.
Aksel // november 25, 2007 at 10:30 pm
http://www.beaverandsteve.com/
martheglad // november 26, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Mamma: Det er bare å svare på norsk om du vil. Jeg bare skriver på utenlandsk på grunn av alle de utenlandske menneskene på livejournal som leser hva jeg skriver. Og litt på grunn av språktreninga jeg får.
Answer:
I stroll around just looking for something to buy. My soupbowls, from which you ate dinner today was bought on a whim last time I did that. Of course that’s almost three months ago, and if I found even more soup bowls I wouldn’t buy them, seeing as I had ones already.
A more general answer:
Sometimes, part of the entire downshifting movement bugs me a bit, cause I don’t get the motivation. There seems to be several different ones:
1) Saving the environment by spending less. This can’t have been the full motivation for levine, as Anne who reads my other blog commented that Levine stil drove a suv when she had her year without shopping. Probably focus on buying things that’s produced locally wouls benefit the environment more than not buying anything at all, or buying the cheapers foods. And when they say that part of their year without shopping is to “not buy wine”, it does’t fit this cathegory.
2) Moral reasons, in the aspect that it’s immoral to spend money. I agree that buying clothes that you don’t use is rather immoral, in the “disdain for work” way. It feels weird to have some woman from china sew me a shirt that I won’t even use.
If you deep down think drinking alcohol is immoral, or that you drink too much, then it fits into this cathegory. But I see that they don’t mention beer, and if that’s because wine is more snobbish, then I don’t know which cathegory I should put it, other than a generic “simple living”-cathegory in which the argument “the working class don’t eat sushi” also fits in. I think this category is based on an idea on what’s a moral way to live, and what isn’t, based on a fear of being decadent.
3) Economical reasons. You want to spend less, work less and have more time for your family. They argue for that where they say “people don’t take a full year of maternity leave, but save for a parachute”. But sometimes, to fulfill nr 1 and 2, you have to spend more money. Environmental and/or moral choices often cost more.
My experience from about a thousand discussions, is that people assume that in order to fulfill one of the three goals above, you’re expected to make a complete lifestyle ideology that involves all three. Whenever someone argues that you can do little changes that makes a big difference, people assume that you have to live a completely ascetic life. And I think Levine and Gramming, though full of good intensions, are reinforcing that idea. I think it’s really unfortunate.
Perhaps this comment is what I really should’ve written in the blog post above, but you know. You need the background info before you get the comment…
***
I wonder how much clothes these people have to begin with, when they can last a year without buying new ones. For instance one of my shoes always, always fall apart every year, and if I was part of the experiment, I guess I shouldn’t buy new ones.
This year both the spring/autumn shoes and the army boods have fallen apart. If I had been part of this experiment, I would’ve been meeting a bloody cold winter.
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