Could Thoreau's idea of a simplistic life work in today's society?

Yes

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by Olufemi Oyedele

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Thoreau's idea of a simplistic life is all we need to keep the world peaceful and serene in today's society.! His idea is not socialism or communism. It is based on controlling our excesses and oppression in the world. Thoreau's idea of simple living is about individual lifestyle on pursuit of wealth and consumption. He preached that people should use simple life because of spirituality, health, creation of quality time, reduction of stress and fatique, reduction of personal taste, reduction of frugality etc. Adherence to simplistic living can also ensure conservation, social justice, and sustainable development which says that in all present developments, we should give consideration to the implications of what we are doing now to the future. Though the present belongs to us, the future is our children's.

In producing and consuming goods and services, we should give consideration to the environment in which we dump the remnants. We should not forget that our children are learning through intuition, copying what they see us do. As a sign of relief, they would want to beat our record. The only legacy we can give them is to teach them simplistic living and help them to live simple life in future. Advancement is with its own cost. Rate of technology advancement should be controlled except when it can bridge the poverty gap and when it will not add to the world's problems of oppression in the form of religion, economic, class, fashion etc; economic crunch; waste management and global warming.

Philosophers like Duane Elgin supported Thoreau's idea of simplistic living by describing "voluntary simplicity as a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and 'alive-self' is brought into direct and conscious contact with living." Simple living is different from abject poverty in that it is not a "forced situation" or "unwanted condition". It is a choice of the 'adherer' (person practicing simlistic life) due to one reason or more. Simple living is practiced as a matter of nostalgia and pride than as a matter of lack.

It is a way of releasing your 'spiritual bondage to greed' based on the human character of multi-territoriality , oppression, greed and acquisitive tendency. It is a voluntary lifestyle which makes the practitioners well above their urge to 'over-acquire' materials things. It is different from ascetism because not all proponents of ascetism (ascetics) are 'simplistic lifers'. Ascetism is the condition or practice of self-denial. Simplistic living is not 'self-denial', it is just a way of turning against 'more-is-better', greed and over acquisition of materials things. Without authority's control, human beings are generally oppressive, greedy, highly acquisitive and have the tendency of 'dictating the tunes'. Among all animals in the world, man is the only specie that practice 'multi-territorialit y', a situation where a single person will be controlling more than one territory (for example, houses, cars etc scattered over the globe).

Critically analysing today's topical issues of "global warming" and "credit crunch", one will see that what today's society needs is "Thoreau's idea of a simplistic life". Global warming is not as a result of our over-grown population, but the direct result of our acquistive tendencies for 'expensive' and 'excessive' living. Humans have acquisitive tendencies for cars; housing; transportation; tourism; lightning of the environment; deforestation of our environment for golf courses, housing and roads; over-production of consumer goods which generates carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, acid rain, nitrates in our aquifers, phosphates and so on. People use saunas to tan their body and as a result, warm the earth.

Lack of adherence to simplistic living had practically left us with global credit crunch. Our chief executives had fed us with false projections of economic growth of multi-nationals without consideration for simple life. The world is now a global village. The capital projection of 'Company A' will definitely affect the projections of 'Company B' and 'Company C'. The companies have not being growing at the rate the management of these companies have been making us to believe. These false projections easily translate to false targets for manufacturing companies and individual employees who believe that they are earning more salaries and wages in the future years. These organisations and employees will go into loans just to acquire 'ostentatious living'.

Henry David Thoreau is no more alive today, but except as individuals, groups, societies and nations, we practise his idea of simplistic living, we shall always found ourselves in problems. We want to 'outbeat' our own records in everything we do and this is where the problem of ostentatious living lies. People see themselves as not progressing if they cannot earn this year more than they earn last year and if they cannot acquire this year, more than they acquire last year. What is wrong in a man being simple and cutting his needs to the bearest necessary for living? What is wrong in living a simple life devoid of oppression and excesses?

Thoreau's idea is not based on saddism or socialism, but on welfarism. Over-acquisition by a minor group in the face of abject poverty by a major group is anti-society and anti-progressive to the human race. Capitalism does not go against simplistic living but supports it. Capitalists with huge profits that may lead them to ostentatious living can parctice 'philantropism'. The idea of philantropism is based on the fact that 'the fingers are not equal' and that 'the conditions of the have-nots, refugees and the poors is not as a result of their actions or inactions'. Welfarism does not breed indolence as some group will argue. Everybody cannot just be in the same position at the same time. That is why any style of living apart from simplistic living will breed 'corruption'.

Simplis tic living does not preach against 'smart fashion or modern technology', but it simply says that 'do not acquire ten where one is enough for your living. Or what is the essence of a leader living in a 50-bedroom house where some of his followers are living in cardboard-houses? What benefit is derived by an actor dressing in 5 million US dollar gown when there is a man that is naked and farmished? What is the essence of private yatch lying fallow on the coasts when feeding everyday is a problem in some quarters? Of what benefit is the private jet of the affluence of the world when due to war, some people are without houses, sights and some without legs?

Waste management problem is a worlwide problem that we can curtail. The basic necessity of life are: food, water, housing, clothing, good health and transportaion. Fashion, tourism, entertainment, information technology etc, are secondary and are falsely controlling the world today. Hardly are people interested in buying shares and bonds of agricultural corporations, but the shares of financial houses, mineral exploration companies, film industries, auto industries and housing industries are over-subscribed. Most people have spent more money on secondary needs than they have on primary needs in their lives!

Henry Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817 and died on May 6, 1862. He was an American author, naturalist, tax resister, transcendentalist, development critic, surveyor, philosopher and sage writer. He was very popularfor his works on "Walden", a reflection on simple living in natural surroundings, and "civil disobedience", a justification of individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to unjust state.

Except we all practice simplistic living, the world's problems will persist, with credit crunch and global warming showing their faces periodically without permanent solution.

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