Green Consumerism: an Oxymoron

Monbiot's latest: "giving things up is an essential component of going green."

In a nutshell, production of crap creates pollution in the air, water, and land, and uses up non-renewable resources. If you don't really need it, don't buy it.

But if we want stuff, and deny ourselves over and over for the sake of the world, we'll end up bitter and angry and eventually we'll all just say, "Fuck it!" and go shopping.

We need to stop wanting stuff. And this desire to stop desiring has been part of a multitude of philosophies and religions for thousands of years. It's right there in the ten commandments: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife or house. It's a sin to look longingly towards what others have and to wish to own their possessions. And a little later, Epicurus had the famous line, to paraphrase: There are two ways to be rich, to have lots or to desire little. He argued at length why desiring little is the way to go, but he didn't explain how to get there from here beyond being reasonable about it all. But our appetite has run wild and we're going to melt in the sun.

It's relatively simple to stop consuming unnecessarily. Cut up the credit cards, and challenge yourself to shop only for food. It takes some willpower, but it's certainly do-able. It helps to avoid most media forms that bombard us with advertising, and to avoid malls in general. But how is it possible to stop ourselves from wanting.

Just yesterday I needed a new pair of sandals. I've been wearing a broken pair for over a month now, and I only own three pairs of footwear in total, so I feel justified. Then at the mall, I got sucked into the summer sales and ended up with a bikini. I have one, and one is all I really need. But my guy slammed it this weekend for making me "look like an old lady." The bottoms go up past my navel which, apparently, is no longer the fashion. Because he's recently been brainwashed to ascribe to a rigid, media/consumerist-inspired definition of beauty, it's affecting me. And suddenly I need to replace my perfectly good swimwear.

I could have avoided the swimsuit purchase. My will was weak momentarily. But could I avoid the feeling of desire for the swimsuit and all it means for me, essentially the desire to be attractive to my mate? And isn't all desire just a search for social approval and security from someone. If we feel secure, we don't need to shop. For six years I've worn the same bikini and felt great in it. One negative comment, and I'm off to the mall.

Or, as Alain de Botton writes in Status Anxiety, "The history of luxury could more accurately be read as a record of emotional trauma."

This is pretty obvious stuff but bears repeating over and over until it never leaves us: much advertising and copy is there to make us feel insecure and ugly or afraid. Advertising is emotionally abusive. Shopping is a symptom of our emotional state. When we get to a place where we can ignore the ads, and our close friends and lovers can ignore the ads (or we can ignore them too), then we can be secure enough to stop shopping, to stop needing to fill our lives with shoes and hair accessories.

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir writes of women: "She is occupied without ever doing anything, and thus she identifies herself with what she has." That certainly applies to both genders now. Our work is boring and inconsequential in this world, so we obsess about the trivial details. We're working for the weekends.

Apostate recently speculated that women "go frumpy" intentionally because they're irritated that men are more respected for their intelligence than women. I've never come across this divide, being well-respected as intelligent since grade school. But I've been frumpy since university when I decided reading was more fun and more important than shopping or spending any time on my appearance. I lived in a grey track suit for years. I look down my nose at fancy stuff, and can spout off the social and environmental problems caused by most big brand names of clothes, make-up, furniture, etc., which both really helps insulate me from the drive to follow fashion.

But the grey track suit phase was during a very solid relationship. I felt very secure and sexy underneath, so I didn't feel the need to dress up the outside.

So, reducing our desires has to come from a sense of security within relationships and in society, and from work that interest us, which we really believe in, or at least a belief that our work, or our mere existence perhaps, is of some importance. And arrogance helps: the belief that having stuff is a game for the less intelligent masses, holding firm to the romantic idealization of the starving artist or the writer at a cramped desk in a tiny room with only the essentials of life, or Thoreau in his little cabin in the woods.

I think I have more to say on desire, but I have to go shopping for my daughter's friend's birthday present now. I'll try not to be too concerned about the social approval of the parents standing around and opt for something simple. I'll get back to you on how well that went.