22
ECOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
home-town looking
teenage boy and girl relaxing wholesomely in a
convertible. The girl sports a fountain of long blond flowing hair, her face clear
of make-up, and reclines with the boy, wearing clothing lifted directly from the
late fifties; a time when the country was still innocent’. The ad suggests that it
would be desirable to restore the simplicity of the days before the Vietnam
War, the civil rights and women’s movements. Romance’, which the women’s
movement is blamed for destroying by challenging gender roles, will be
restored as well. Environmental campaigns increasingly conflate the decadence
of today’s neo liberal capitalism with yesterday’s New Left, citing the latter as
the cause of social and ecological breakdown.
However, there is nothing romantic about living simply. Women and the
poor have lived the real ‘simple life’ for centuries, impoverished by economic
and social institutions of compulsory heterosexuality and alienated labor. A life
without choices, alternatives, and in many cases, material subsistence, is indeed
very simple. Our world is becoming increasingly culturally impoverished and
simplified, filled with senseless commodities and spectacles. Women and all
marginalized peoples, at the center of this quality crisis, cannot afford to live
any more simply. And because so many have lived simply, restrained by
authorities for centuries, the romantic appeal to conserve nature sounds
seductively familiar; so familiar that many accept such admonitions without
even thinking. However, upon closer look, we see that we are being implored
not to release human potential for social and political transformation within
society but instead, to ‘conserve’ nature.
Consumer
Ecoloqy:
TIhe Romance Of
Ecoioqioxl SeIEConstraInt
The desire for a pure, ‘simple’ social world has claimed a new theater within
contemporary society, this time wearing the mask of the ecological consumer.
Within this contemporary play, the well-meaning purist yearns to slay a new
dragon: the impure product. For those who feel demoralized and poisoned by
social and ecological degradation, consumer ecology offers a way to combat
the dragon of ecocide’while purifying the body and soul at the same time, all
without destabilizing institutions such as the state, capitalism, or racism.
The search for an ecological life style reflects the longing to establish
congruence between consumption practices of everyday life and ecological
ideals.
Consumer ecology expresses a scientistic dimension of ecology,
dictating methods of environmental and physical ‘hygiene’ loaded with moral
and spiritual meaning. Practices such as recycling, energy conservation,
veganism, vegetarianism, or consuming organic products, are considered not
only physically and environmentally more healthful, but resonate with the
moral desires to be pure of spirit as well.