Minimalism in Consumer culture

Consumer culture

The main idea here: Minimalism is having its cultural moment in the sun. Lots of people are thinking, talking and debating about it. By virtue of having taken this class, you are in privileged position to think about these arguments.

Your first step should be to complete the readings on minimalism and make sure you understand them. Begin, by identifying two or three succinct and cogent definitions of minimalism. What does it even mean? Do all the authors mean the same thing? What are the origins of the term? What do you think it means in its most common usage?

Once you have a sense of what it is, then you can begin to take it apart (deconstruct it, if you will) and begin evaluating it. To do this, identify the arguments made in favor of minimalism and the arguments made by those skeptical of minimalism. How do supporters justify it and how do detractors attack it? It might help to write that out (either on scrap paper or in a Word document that you later delete. What is their reasoning? What is their evidence? Can you spot any flaws in their reasoning?

Now begin to apply what you’ve learned in this class. Remember: you’re becoming an expert now and can speak to these issues better than most people. Do the proponents of skeptics of minimalism evince a good understanding of consumer culture? Do the arguments in favor of (or skeptical of) minimalism use any of the flawed consumer culture critiques we’ve encountered in this class? You should look for connections between those points of reasoning (pro and skeptical) and content from the class. How does the content of this class, and what you have learned, affect how you think about minimalism? In other words, how does the material from this class affect what you make of the arguments for and against minimalism?

Allow me to illustrate with some examples of connections with the content from week #1 in the readings by Arnold, Csikszentmihalyi and Teitell. The first and last of these (Arnold and Teitell) are very critical of consumption and stuff and focus on some of the negative consequences of a very non-minimalist lifestyle. The reading by Csikszentmihalyi is a little more balanced. Csikszentmihalyi identifies a dependence on things and identifies some very powerful reasons why we absolutely need things/consumption/stuff. In other words, Arnold and Teitell would probably agree with the proponents of minimalism while Csikszentmihalyi might find some of the arguments skeptical of minimalism more compelling.

Try listing out some of the main argument Arnold, Teitell and Csikszentmihalyi make.

For example, Arnold and Teitell note that an abundance of things is exhausting, depleting (of time and money) and stressful (as measured via stress hormones). Csikszentmihaly, on the other hand, notes consumers’ “increasing dependence on objects for survival and comfort.”

From there, it’s easy to make more connections to more course content. The easy way to do that would be to cite and connect those pieces that say something similar to Arnold and Teitell (such as Cline, Packer or the BBC documentary on used clothes) and Csikszentmihalyi (such as Fournier and Miller).

Helpful advanced hint: if you want to really go all out, when you discuss the status angle (which is a big part of the critiques of minimalism, oops, I gave away something big there), you could make connections to any of the pieces from the three sessions we spend on taste and status. There is a lot to be made there.

In the end, you want to aim for at least four or five solid, well-explained connections

Consumer Culture

This is an assignment about minimalism and its recent rise in cultural prominence. Minimalism connects with a lot of different things we’ve covered this quarter, starting with content from week #1 and running through week #9. There are a lot of different opinions about minimalism: what it means, how it works, what it can do and for whom it can do it. As a result, there are a lot of different directions you could take your argument in this essay.

The important thing is that you actually have to spend some time and methodically think about minimalism in light of course content. The bad news: you won’t be able to crank this out in one sitting. The good news: if you’ve been paying attention at all and have done at least half of the reading, you’re going to have a surplus of ideas while you read and ponder the following readings. The subsequent lists contain readings on minimalism, both pro and con/skeptical, as well as some readings for context.

Here is a list of articles on minimalism in consumption.

Pro minimalism:

1) “Living With Less. A Lot Less,” by Graham Hill, New York Times, March 9, 2013:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/living-with-less-a-lot-less.html.

2) and Hill’s blog:

http://lifeedited.com.

3) “How I Became a Minimalist (Why I Choose to Live with Less),” by Jennifer, Simply Fierece.com, September 5, 2015:

http://www.simplyfiercely.com/how-i-became-a-minimalist/.

4) “’The Joy of Less’ is the best minimalism book I’ve read,” Katherine Martinko, Treehugger.com, April 27, 2017:

https://www.treehugger.com/cleaning-organizing/joy-less-best-minimalism-book-ive-read.html.

5) “I Tried Minimalism for a Week,” BuzzFeed videos, July 1, 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PDlf8mPMh8.

6) “Top 8 Benefits of Living a Minimalist Lifestyle,” by Tina Williamson, Lifehack.com, August 31, 2018:

https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/top-8-benefits-living-minimalist-lifestyle.html.

7) Becoming Minimalist, a blog by Joshua Becker:

https://www.becomingminimalist.com/most-popular-posts/.

Con/skeptical of minimalism:

1) “Marie Kondo and the Privilege of Clutter,” by Arielle Bernstein, the Atlantic, March 25, 2016:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/03/marie-kondo-and-the-privilege-of-clutter/475266/.

2) “The Oppressive Gospel of ‘Minimalism,’” by Kyle Chayka, New York Times, July 26, 2016:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/magazine/the-oppressive-gospel-of-minimalism.html?_r=1.

3) “Minimalism: another boring product wealthy people can buy,” by Chelsea Fagan, The Guardian, March 4, 2017:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/04/minimalism-conspicuous-consumption-class.

4) “Minimalism is Overrated: How I Learned to Love a Little Clutter,” By Michelle Slatalla, The Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2018:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/minimalism-is-overrated-how-i-learned-to-love-a-little-clutter-1525194725.

5) Mull, Amanda (2020), “The End of Minimalism,” from the Atlantic, July/August 2020.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/the-triumph-of-the-slob/612232/

For context:

You might consider some of the readings from our first class:

1) “Today’s families are prisoners of their own clutter,” by Beth Teitell, The Boston Globe, July 9, 2012.

2) “Material Saturation: Mountains of Possessions,” by Jeanne E. Arnold, Anthony P. Graesch, Enzo Ragazzini and Elinor Ochs, from Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century, 2012.

3) Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1993), “Why We Need Things,” in History of Things, Essays on Material Culture, Steve Lubar and W. David Kingery, ed., Washington D.C., 20-29.

As you might recall, the first two of these readings dealt with middle class families being overwhelmed by mountains of possessions. The third dealt with the positive power of meaning from things. These three readings can be found in the course reserves in ARES. The next one was on our week #1 D2L discussion forum:

4) “Meet The People With Almost Nothing in Their Closets,” by Alina Dizik, BBC, July 26, 2016:

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160725-meet-the-people-with-almost-nothing-in-their-closets.

Here is another on mountains of stuff, with a slightly different spin:

5) “The Pack Rat Indicator: Why Hoarding Is a Good Sign,” by Patricia Clark, Bloomberg, December 13, 2016:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-13/the-pack-rat-indicator-why-hoarding-is-a-good-sign.

In addition to writings on minimalism, there are some adjacent/related/analogous concepts that are culturally significant. These include things like tiny houses, downshifting and voluntary simplicity.

Your assignment: read some (or preferably all) of the above. In two-thousand words (give or take), try to discern what is going on with this movement and make connections to course content. In other words, use course content to validate and support your arguments, interpretations and positions. Make sense of minimalism using what you have learned in this course. Is minimalism the answer? What exactly is the problem? Is minimalism just another problem? Are the proponents of minimalism right? Are the critics of minimalism right? Are they both right and both wrong? Will this movement catch on? Do you plan to use it? Why or why not?

There are lots of connections to make to lots of different ideas, concepts and frameworks from this class. Stuff. Mountains of things. Over-stuffed closets. Taste. Status (all forms and its evolution). Clothing and fashion. Brands. Identity. Meaning. How we buy. Donations and used clothes.

Much that we have covered is germane to this exercise and there is no one right answer. This is where you can tell me what you think about consumer culture and why. Has this class changed the way you consume?

You can work on this project alone or in groups of up to three people. That is entirely your choice. Naturally, I will be expecting a ~little~ more from groups than solo work. Last Fall, the work on this particular assignment ranged from good to great to the truly astounding. Students got into it. Allow yourself to have a little fun with this.

At the bottom of the paper, list the number of words in the document. The word count does not include references, or any other appendices you might want (but don’t have) to include.

 

 

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