My friends Sarah Pelmas and John Perry are going to be on the Today Show tomorrow morning. They’ve been flown to New York with their respective partners (Matt and Rob) and best friend Kate to discuss their nascent anti-consumerist movement called The Compact. In a nutshell, they all agreed to not buy anything new for a year with the exception of food, health items, and underwear. (The Underwear Exception was verified in a series of private emails between Sarah’s Princeton friends; fortunately, none of us will be called upon to donate decorative thongs to the cause.)
Combine one Yahoo group, one article in the San Francisco Chronicle, another in USA Today, and one clever man whose avatar is called Miles Standish, and what do you get? How about “123 New Members - 3 New Links - 729 New Messages” in the last seven days. It’s not just a movement; it’s a phenomenon.
What I like best about The Compact is its “click.” When you hear what they’re doing, you can’t help but have an a-ha moment. It’s The Feminine Mystique for the Super-Size Nation.
(I’ve been questioning my desire for red flip flops for over a week now. I know I’ll end up working some karma mojo on myself so I can get them. Prematurely Grey is nothing if not predictable in her worship of footwear.)
What I find most interesting is the fact that the basic awareness and behaviors behind by The Compact are not all that revolutionary in my neighborhood. We share tools (we own a lawnmower jointly with one of our neighbors and my paella pan’s always up for grabs), hand down children’s clothes (had a nice bag of girls’ ski clothes on my porch the first 90° Saturday of March–the one when Chris had the SXSW migraine), and pass books between each other until I have no idea where most of my favorites are. Obviously, buying nothing new is a major commitment that may make our neighborhood sharing seem gestural. However, it is not. In fact, I think the way we live in my neighborhood may be more revolutionary than The Compact and more difficult to achieve.
My neighborhood is called Rosedale. It’s in central Austin, about two miles from the University of Texas. Most of the houses were built in the early 1940s, with a few older and a few newer. They were small, post-Depression, no frills homes, built to house the growth of Austin. For much of its history, Rosedale was a pretty low-rent area; the University crowd flocked to our east in the Victorians and bungalows of Hyde Park, the politicos went to west Tarrytown on the other side of the Missouri-Pacific line. A friend of mine who grew up in Tarrytown told me recently that Rosedale was the white trash neighborhood of Austin while she was growing up. The literal wrong side of the tracks.
Well, fast forward to the present where $200 per square foot is the norm. There’s something of a great dividing line between those of us who came before Dell and those who came after. We’re in the after category. But even though we’re in the after category, we still send our children to the same neighborhood public school, we hang out at the same public pool, and subscribe to the same neighborhood listserv. We know about each others yards and remodels, lost dogs and broken water line troubles (we’re having a real problem with old pipes around here), sofas for free, and new little restaurants that we can walk to.
What’s so interesting to me is that we’ve chosen to live in these funky smaller houses that require a level of tolerance that must spill over into other areas. These little houses have been expanded some, but most don’t have garages attached to the house. I’d bet more than half the houses in Rosedale don’t have functional garages at all. The majority of people here have to walk from their car to their front door. And that’s what makes us so weird. We see other people walking their dogs, pushing strollers, going for a run as we make that tiny walk. We see our next door neighbors.
This now-strange way of life was what I believe living in a town used to be like. You know your neighbors. You look out for the kids. You pitch in when needed. You share what you have.
The Compact is making use of networked communities to promote “flight from the consumer grid.” People post about what they find on Craig’s List (apparently everything) and thrift shops. Presumably, they’re finding it in the Yahoo group, when they voice a need and someone answers it. That would explain the 176 messages on the site that have been posted in April. In case you’re wondering, that’s in the last three days.
Building communities is at the heart of what’s happening online right now. That’s what MySpace and Friendster are all about. Figuring out how to make a living through these networked communities is the next wave of commerce. It’s what all the cool kids are doing (us included). But I wonder about building communities on blocks, in grocery stores and libraries and taco stands. Those communities allow us to share not only things and ideas but light and rain coming soon and the endless headache of road construction. I wonder, if people get too caught up in the community they find on their laptop, will they miss the one outside their front door? Do they know what they could have?
Comments 11
The future of the world is community building and I thank you for laying the foundation. If you care about your neighbor on your street perhaps you will start to care about your neighbor across the border. I love the world the Rosedallians are building. I would be very happy there.
I do have a little problem with the no buying — red flip flops are definitely a must (to go with someone’s red microwave) and in relation to Sarah, what about books? Yes we can borrow and borrow but I just read about a long out of print 19th century book OUTRAGES IN THE SOUTHERN STATES: MARCH 1871, which I am obsessed with finding.
Posted 05 Apr 2006 at 1:15 am ¶Well, Lize, thanks for including me on this list. You have given me my guilty pleasure for the week, I’m sure. I just *let* myself sit here and read and google, and follow link after link, etc. I have been in this chair for over an hour now.
First off, let me voice my “brush of greatness” awe and say that Capricorn One is a true fragment from my childhood, forever embedded in my psyche and highly influential to my young mind as to what a gov’t could do; a truly treasured memory. What a thrill to discover that connection….
Now, as to your friends the “compactors”. The idea of a support group for folks trying to translate their dismay of our popular consumer culture into positive, creative action is great. I hope their effort results in an increased awareness of the impact our spending choices make on our psychological health, our communities and our planet. I hope their compact is not too exclusive with its rules, etc. People need encouragement for every small step they take. It does have a reality tv flavor – will they crash and burn? The hype may overshadow the issues. Will people be transformed from this experiment? Or will they just breathe a collective sigh of relief when it’s all over? I think you are right to wonder if they are grasping online for something that could be outside their door. A virtual community ought to only enhance a person’s physical community, not supplant it. Do you think one inhibits the other? I think the best outcome would be that compactors become so empowered by their online community that they then turn around and model successful behaviors in their physical environment, and affect change by doing so. A dialogue gets started, a tool shared, etc. You are lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where that interaction is already in place. I also think that your community is recognizable enough to outsiders to the point that those seeking such community self-select themselves into your neighborhood. Community begets community! Rosedale is just already further down the path the compactors are starting upon. I do hope they get to where you are.
I browsed around your blog and did read the Elle article about Caitlin Flanagan. She was on the panel commenting on “things to come” in that Time article I showed you. She is a piece of work! Creepshow! And very seductive – especially to us “opt-outers”. But be wary, do not be fooled! Why aren’t dads *ever* brought into the picture? Its not about mommies – its about families. My neighbor and friend Kim Pleticha is editor of Parentwise Magazine and also loves the mommy wars debate. She leads a book discussion group at bookpeople and that is the topic this month.
ttyl!
Posted 05 Apr 2006 at 2:18 am ¶- Corinna
I was so excited to hear that you are writing again. I think that our kind of neighborhood is the wave of the future. We even have a shelter magazine: Cottage Living. Maybe the intenet community will create physical communities. I believe that nothing can take the place of face to face and physical presence. We are still very physical beings.
And huzzah to your buddies. I’m sorry I missed the show, as I was sleeping off the twelve hour trauma shift.
R.
Posted 05 Apr 2006 at 2:27 am ¶No doubt about it, the most interesting trends among the hipster intelligentsia are in what one might call post-cyberculture: we figured out how to do things in the virtual world, now let’s see what we can do to hack meatspace. From last year’s fads (Meetups, flash mobs) to next year’s (massive multiplayer *offline* gaming, the cultural merger of crrafty grrlz and techie boyz, geek camps, digital fasts and sabbaths) it’s all about getting out from behind a monitor once in a while.
As for The Compact, it sounds great to me, but it also sounds a bit like Shakerism: the measure of its success will be how quickly it ceases to affect the world around it.
Posted 05 Apr 2006 at 3:27 am ¶I’m trying to remember the article I read (was it in the New York Times?) this fall that talked about how some nations are trying to find a tool other than Gross National Product to measure their success. As a young economics student, I remember thinking it was pretty crazy that Consumption, the largest part of the GNP measure, only counted if it was a new product–buying a used car, for example, didn’t contribute to GNP. I’ve often wondered how the crude GNP tool contributed to our disposable culture, as governments didn’t see any value in promoting reducing, re-using or recycling…at least not to the extent that they promote exurban home-buying via subsidized superhighways, mortgage tax exemptions, etc. Is The Compact just another contrarian’s effort to call attention to a faulty measure–like Reed College’s refusal to cooperate with the US News survey of “best” colleges and universities?
I do think there’s too much stuff sitting unused in the world. The one thing I’ve taken from limited reading of Feng Shui literature is that the things in our environment were meant to be used–so we should either use them or give them to someone else who will. I like the idea of sharing lawn mowers and other objects that sit unused most of the time (by the way, we DO loan out our karaoke system). I like the idea of a community that is on your street, or in your neighborhood. But as someone who is connected to the University, I find that the local communities I try to build keep dispersing in an effort to spread knowledge (or find tenure) elsewhere. On the other hand, I’m heartened to know that our crib is with a family in San Antonio, some old kitchen appliances are cooking dinner in Chicago, and the happy meal toys my kids used to collect are part of playtime in El Salvador.
As for the red flip-flops, I’m reminded of a quote from my favorite anarchist, the incomparable Emma Goldman: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want your revolution.” Any dogma that denies the importance of pleasure in a sane person’s life is a fundamentalist trap, and not worth the commitment.
Posted 05 Apr 2006 at 4:32 am ¶I think it would be just as hard to only buy brand new things for a year.
Craigslist:
lawnmower works great and your neighbor will mow your yard everyother time for the privilage of using it.
New:
Posted 05 Apr 2006 at 5:09 am ¶$350.00 and looks like it will probably break down. Neighbor isn’t interested because they picked up the $50.00 one off of Craigslist.
Lize, This has been a wonderful teaching moment. We discussed the Compact at dinner, pondered whether the Compact would really preclude giving a new book to a friend, and thought about how much we already share in our lives, pointing around the house at all the handmedowns, old furniture, etc. We could do more – a helpful and humble reminder. Andrew was a little upset about how you would get a decent computer if necessary. And what about the baby who needs a new pacifier? Your e-mail and then blog visit tonight was absolutely touche for us since we have been grappling with whether to forgo our neighborhood for the respite of a farmhouse in the hills of NH. We see all our friends at the bus stop on our green in the morning, we get babysitters signed up while waiting, receive the handoff of used lacrosse equipment from neighborhood boys, sign up to use the neighbors magic stick pick up machine on Saturday… We take each others trash to the dump and leave clothes on the exchange table. We leave handmedowns behind our neighborhood store to be taken to the new refuge families in town. We don’t do enough, and it is painfully true that the new pair of flip flops is just most excellent. So… we haven’t joined the Compact mostly because I want the kids to have a pair of Keene’s this summer, as they have grown out of their tevas, and my birthday is coming up. So, we aren’t Texas baby, but I believe that community and neighborhoods are the way to go!!!!
Posted 04 Apr 2006 at 6:25 pm ¶I am proud of Sarah, Matt, John et all, and am planning to send a friend a brand new something great so they can use it for a day and give it to the Compact crew as a gift.
That Ruth L. sounds like a total HOTTIE!
IS she a FIREFIGHTER????????
They should not wear red flip flops (too dangerous with the flaming, flying debris and all) but everyone else should.
Peace out!
Kris K
P.S.-word to Chris H.–didja burn that disc I wanted from you but can’t recall what it was now??
See, Kiddies? I thought I needed it but now I can’t even REMEMBER it-glad I did not purchase it new!!!
Posted 04 Apr 2006 at 7:37 pm ¶Neighborhoods are where you find them. For a lot of people, the friendships found, forged, and maintained through the internet are life saving and a “neighbohood” can thereby cross and convert the traditional boundaries of race, location, ecconomics, etc.
I personally find The Compact to be a perfectly respectable enterprise, (but yeah, you can keep your used pacifiers {and soap, socks, eyeliner) if a little self-congratulatory. That said, if it works for you–great. However if buying/giving/receiving something new yields genuine pleasure and makes someone happy, I say God Bless. I just had a birthday and non-members of the Compact can view any one of my many online wishlists for gift suggestions.
Posted 04 Apr 2006 at 8:41 pm ¶Thanks for the post, Prentiss Riddle forwarded it along.
Here in Ann Arbor my block has a mailing list which gets a modest amount of use in sharing tools, announcing neighborhood easter egg hunts, doing neighborhood watch, and generally providing just a tiny amount of socialization during the wintertime when it’s perpetually dark and no one is out on the street.
Our neighborhood generally has houses with garages in back, and often garages full of gardening supplies or bikes and too small for cars. So people also park in their driveways or on the street and you see them. We take the bus into town and there’s foot traffic from the bus stop.
I haven’t even begun to map out all of the connections that people have with their neighbors in eight years of living here. Our friends across the street read the NY Times early in the morning, xerox the crossword, and rebag it and throw it on our porch. One neighbor has a basketball hoop and is out practicing with his kids a lot. I found out yesterday that someone at my new job at the U of Michigan lives around the block. Lots of kids at the neighborhood school cross the busy street on their way at the crossing guard, so everyone knows Bob at 8:30am. And the people who walk dogs know the dogs names, if not each others.
At work I’m managing a “Community Information Corps”, getting School of Information students thinking about an academic construct called “community informatics”. (unfelicitious but you work with what you have for now). Could this be as simple as a bunch of tiny 20 family listservs sprinkled wherever you can manage to put them together? What other things do you need to have going for you to make it work – is there some model that works not just in college towns but also in Detroit urban neighborhoods? I wish I knew.
Posted 04 Apr 2006 at 10:38 pm ¶First of all, I didn’t see the Today Show with your friends. Did K. Couric interview them? Was her $15 million dollars showing?
My dad is The Minimalist. He traded his Harvard MBA for a farm in Idaho, gave his inheritance away and read Edward Abbey to me when I was 10. My mom’s minimilism, on the other hand, is only present in her retirement fund. Suffice it to say, she’s planning her 2nd face lift. So when the red flip flop issue arose, I was first appalled at Lize, and then I thought, OH! I want some too!
Despite my confusion, I do have two thoughts that affect my choices most of the time: one is that the more you have the more you’re responsible for (my dad’s words) and two is that Earth can’t sustain our consumerism. Ed Abbey said, “God bless America. Now let’s save some of it.”
Oh! there’s a third thought (better go with it, I don’t have them too many these days). When I was 29 I sold everything I owned except 3 or 4 boxes of irreplaceables, quit my job and took off for Asia for a year. I was taken completely by surprise at the lightness of it all. Astounded, in fact. I swear I’m going to do that again someday.
My guess is that if The Compact continues to get good media attention, people who have never, ever considered their consumer habits will have something to think about. That is if their consumer habits haven’t usurped their thinking habits.
Damn good work Lize! I’m so glad you let me know that you’re back at it. Put those knitting needles down for a bit, you’ve got another talent that deserves some time.
Posted 06 Apr 2006 at 3:51 pm ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[...] When I wrote the original post about the Compact last week, I mentioned a pair of red flip flops I had my eyes on. Learning about my friends’ movement to “get off the consumer grid” hit me where I lived: shoe shopping. I predicted that I would conduct some sort of “karma mojo” in order to get myself those red flip flops. [...]
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