Too much is more than enough
2003; Wiley; Volume: 1; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1890/1540-9295(2003)001[0112
ISSN1540-9309
Autores ResumoDiane Wood downshifted last year. She quit a high-powered job to work 4 days a week as the director of the Center for a New American Dream, a nonprofit encouraging “responsible consumption”. Now she tries to walk rather than drive, she hangs out laundry to save on energy bills, and she talks constantly to her daughters, aged 12 and 13, about “needs versus wants”, and the value of lightening their footprint on the Earth. Yet when Woods kids recently nagged her for a battery-powered robot dog that barks and snores, she caved. “It's so hard to balance guiding them to the right choices without depriving them so much that everything becomes even more tantalizing”, she reasons. “So we take it in small steps.” Even so, why is it so hard to cut short the hunting and gathering for things that we – and our kids – just don't need? As I watch my own sons, aged 4 and 7, struggle desperately over the rights to a Lego Bionicle, it strikes me that our problem is as primitive as a baby's first grasp of his rattle, and as ancient as King Tut's sumptuous burial. Our veins buzz with the pleasure of acquiring something new, even as our rush to consume has become, in evolutionary terminology, “maladaptive”. We can't say we haven't been warned. Newspapers are full of reports on our declining supplies of water, oil, and arable soil. By one oft-cited estimate, it would take four additional Earths to provide all the raw materials required for everyone to live as we Americans now do. It is clear, in fact, that a backlash is building up against our high-spending ways, as evidenced by the success of several recent books (all available with one-click shopping): The Overspent American, Credit Card Nation, Luxury Fever, How Much is Enough?, Your Money or Your Life, and so on. Poll after poll has shown that all those SUVs and Game Boys aren't making us any happier. Current estimates of those choosing to simplify their lives, like Wood, run as high as 19%. I'm wondering, however, if we need more information, specifically about what it is about most human cultures that makes us want quite so much. Might it be that the research agenda of conservation science is skewed? If the underlying goal is to rescue what's left, wouldn't it be more useful to redirect some of the millions of dollars we spend on monitoring threatened species towards deciphering our basic drive to plunder their habitat? Evolutionary history offers some clues. “We're not very fast and we're not very big, but we're smart, and we use tools like no other species”, says Knox College psychology professor Tim Kasser, author of The High Price of Materialism. Particularly in our primitive past, tools have helped ensure our survival. “When chased by a saber-toothed tiger, we depended on a rock”, explains Kasser. “So today, we've still got that feeling that you never know when something is going to come in handy.” Kasser concedes he's guessing, however, admitting that he is unaware of any “solid work out there” on early humans and hoarding. Consequently, most proposed solutions address current cultural norms, rather than that base, basic instinct. In Luxury Fever, economist Robert Frank proposes a tax on consumption. The Center for a New American Dream encourages people to take small steps, such as eating less beef and installing more efficient light bulbs. The visionary architect, William McDunough, believes that we can find more sustainable ways to make things, and then indulge to our hearts' content. Still, perhaps if we knew more, we might better be able to tailor some non-punitive social engineering to our psyches. Who knows what we'd come up with – a vaccine? (Who on earth would fund it?) Organized toy swaps? An obligatory hour of Pacman before any major purchase? While waiting for breakthroughs, I've been rereading a favorite book, The Moral Animal, Robert Wright's eloquent look at evolutionary psychology circa 1994. One of his theories is that a measure of brotherly love is inherent in human nature for several reasons, including that, by helping our fellow humans, we increase the probability that our own genes will endure. I've certainly seen my own sons get a buzz from altruism, on the unfortunately rare occasions they've had the chance to engage in it. So I've decided to try some social engineering at home. The next time I hear pleas for a robot dog, I'll send them off to collect clothes for Afghan refugees, or march them down the street to entertain an aging neighbor – or, who knows, maybe even get them to tidy up all the puzzle pieces, Lego bits, and Yu-gi-oh! cards gathering dust in their room.
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