The problem with the simplicity movement, Charlotte Allen says, is that its proponents — namely the writers in Real Simple magazine — mistake simplicity, an aesthetic lifestyle choice, for humility, a genuine virtue:
Genuine simple-living people — such as, say, the Amish — are not part of the simplicity movement, because living like the Amish (no iPod apps or granite countertops, plus you have to read the Bible) would be taking the simple thing a bit far. Modern simplicity practitioners like Jesus (although not quite so much as they like Buddhist monks, who dress more colorfully) because he wore sandals and could be said to have practiced alternative medicine, but they mostly shun religious movements founded in his name.
Thus, simplicity people are always eager to tell you how great the Amish are, growing their own food (a highly valued trait among simplicity people), espousing pacifism (simplicity people shy away from even just wars), and building those stylishly spare barns (aesthetics rank high in the simplicity movement), but really, who wants to have eight kids and wear those funny-looking hats?
For similar reasons, genuinely poor people don’t qualify for the simplicity movement, mostly because of their awful taste in everything from beer to bling to American Idol. Tattoos, flatbill caps, Ed Hardy T-shirts, and chin piercings are not the stuff of the fashion pages in Real Simple.
Hunting is usually taboo in the simplicity movement because it involves guns (hated by the professionally simple) and exploitation of animals (ditto). However, if you’re hunting boar in the upscale hills ringing the San Francisco Bay so as to furnish yourself a “locally grown” boar paté, as does Berkeley professor and simplicity movement guru Michael (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) Pollan, or perhaps to experience an “epiphany,” as another well-fixed Bay Area boar hunter recently told the New York Times, you’re doing a fine job of returning to the simple life.
Simple doesn’t come cheap:
In their 2007 book, Plenty, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, who had vowed to spend a year sticking to the 100-mile locavore eating radius (and, as freelance writers, had plenty of time to put together meals that lived up to this promise), discovered that they were spending $11 per jar on honey to substitute for $2.59 sugar and that one of their locally foraged dinners cost them $130 and more than a day to prepare.
(Hat tip to Foseti.)
Conflating simplicity (i.e. parsimony in thought, action, and deed) with pacifism and effete aesthetics is a cheap shot.
Most Amish I know are bright, aware, happily stuck in the past, quite healthy, secure, and wise (in a grandfatherly way, not an Alan Greenspa$m way). Easy targets, I guess.
Moving on… Over-constraining simplicity to exclude hunting is a straw man. It takes far less than an hour to gut a deer, feed the entrails to the chickens and get the meat stored.
Granted, the post was targeting the “simplicity movement”, whatever the hell that is, but simplicity itself? William of Ockham, Einstein, and Edward Deming would all agree it’s a virtue.