Interesting living trend - Minimalist Living! "It's someone who decides not to buy into the 'work, spend, go into debt, work some more' lifestyle, which is encouraged by consumerist society," Professor Kasser says. "[They] instead focus on personal growth, their family, or spirituality … living sustainably or contributing to the community" "We focus primarily on how the economy is doing … these are all extrinsic, materialistic, money-orientated indicators," he says. "Instead of using economic growth as a proxy for all things good, [we must focus] instead on indicators that really do have to do with intrinsic values, how happy are people."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-16/whats-behind-the-rise-in-minimalist-living/9258084
The conviction that minimalist living is necessary in doing one's part to prevent climate change and to reduce one's carbon footprint.
No doubt that decreasing consumption cannot but be healthy for everyone. But I think that in itself, I mean in the frame of individualistic society such as the one in which we -willing or not- are involved, this pattern is simply another attempt to reach happiness by oneself, alone: another kind of “extrinsic, materialistic, money-orientated indicators” used this time in a reverse scale of evaluation.
The real reason for changing our way of consuming should come out exclusively from the awareness of the innate injustice of the neo-liberistic economy, based on the exploitation of the masses of the poor. It should be clear to everybody nowadays that the roots of the amazing difference (growing on and on) between the richness of the minorities (i.e. us) and the misery of the great majorities (80% of the world) and of all the wars going on are economic. Welfare (of the few) promised by capitalism has his double face in the poverty of the many. Happiness should come from the fight against consumerism and from the ability of sharing what we have with others more unfortunate and not from a solipsistic satisfaction of saving money or things like this. This is simply another capitalistic way of thinking.
Dear Marcello,
I basically agree with your answer (even though I might have used some other wording to express this). When reading the original question, I got the feeling that "minimalist living" expresses a certain attitude of luxury. Only the privileged ones have the choice.
For all the others hold (as Bertolt Brecht stated): "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral". (Translation attempts: "Food comes first, then comes ethics."/"A hungry man has no conscience.")
Regards
Lorns
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