Buying Time and Getting by: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement

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Summary: The Dirty Little Secret of the Voluntary Simplicity Movement
Review: What is the voluntary simplicity movement? Who participates? Why do people join the movement? How do they participate? What has the movement accomplished? Where is it going? Mary Grigsby asks these questions and seeks to answer them in this sociological study.

It's difficult to get a handle on the voluntary simplicity movement because, by its nature as a counterculture, there are no leaders and there is no generally acknowledged definition of the movement, if indeed there is really a movement at all. It is a sort of anarchic trend of downshifting, financial independence, and back-to-the-land. Politically, it embraces bits of socialism, libertarianism, and anti-globalization. Individuals pick and choose the parts of voluntary simplicity that suit them. Some participate in simplicity circles, many don't. Since Grigsby was only able to interview and observe those who participated in simplicity circles, she saw only a sliver of the movement.

What she did see, however, makes for some surprising reading. Although she says, several times, that she is sympathetic to the ideas of voluntary simplicity, and she participated in at least one circle, rather than just observed, she found that as a group, simple-livers are overwhelmingly white, middle-class, and heterosexual. They are mostly middle-aged and have no children, or at least, no children living at home. In other words, this group of anti-establishment pioneers is actually a closed society much like the very people who run things.

Grigsby finds the simple-livers fall into the stereotypes you would expect to find in any other middle-aged, middle-class, white group of North Americans. In simplicity circles, the men tend to take over. Everyone makes excuses for themselves when they don't live up to the expectations they think you have ("I see Costco as a heartless, spiritless, communityless operation, but some things are half-price there.")

The book's conclusion is a comprehensive list of steps the voluntary simplicity movement can take to achieve its goals, for instance, expand the group beyond its heterogeneous boundaries in order to get new input and different ideas on how to make voluntary simplicity work. Grigsby's list is practical and realistic.

Grigsby mentions that this book came out of her work on a dissertation, so there's a fair amount of sociological jargon. Still, it is a readable book on a compelling subject, and she surprised the heck out of me with her findings. It is original and, at times, unexpected. (A comparison of voluntary simplicity with Wicca threw me for a loop until I saw that Grigsby's dissertation advisor has written articles on witchcraft. Aha.)