Happier people healthier planet
Richard Murphy welcomes a book that questions consumer values
Happier people healthier planet by Teresa Belton is a fascinating book that took me a lot longer to read than I expected. It is, a bit like Quaker faith & practice, a book that few would, I feel, want to read from cover to cover in a sitting. I think it wise to view it that way precisely because of the depth of the issues that the book addresses.
Based on research with ninety-four ‘modest consumers’ and thirty-seven interviews, the book explores what it means to consciously choose to stand outside the mainstream of current consumer society. If there is one thing the book should resoundingly convince any reader of it is the fact that ‘simplicity’ (if living in this way can be interpreted as such) is not necessarily simple. To think that was ever going to be the message of the book would, however, be to completely miss its point. The real purpose is summarised in a single sentence on page 302:
It is growth in positive human qualities and capacities that we now need, not growth in economic output for those who already have enough or more.
Time and again Teresa illustrates this with carefully chosen, direct quotations from her interviewees’ comments on their chosen (and occasionally enforced) lifestyles, seeking to show that it is not the lack, or want, of material possessions that defines wellbeing for those she spoke to, but how they had chosen to use the opportunities that a freedom from material desire had opened for them.
Some of the examples spoke to me; inevitably others did not resonate and I had to reflect harder on what the lesson within the related experience might be. That reminded me of the necessary attitude to worship offered in Meeting. I am quite sure there isn’t a Quaker who has not at some time struggled to appreciate something sincerely offered in that way, and so it is here.
At its most powerful, the book reminded me of the moment when I realised that material wellbeing was not of great significance to my happiness. For his own reasons, my father ensured I was fairly hard up as a student, choosing not to make up my grant to anything like the recommended level back in the days when student loans and all the entrapment of debt that goes with them had not yet been dreamed of.
One night, after a great time spent with university friends, I can recall walking back to my digs and stopping in my tracks when I realised that despite the fact that materially I had much less than many of the people I knew I was very happy. For a student of economics it was a profound moment. After realising that fact, nothing of the economic mantra of material wellbeing, which was being taught to me at the time, could ever have the same impact.
This is what I think is so important about the book, it can also be seen in some aspects of Quaker life. An obvious example is the Quaker camp, which both Teresa and my family have participated in, organised by Norfolk and Waveney Area Meeting each summer. It is managed communally and, to be honest, frugally, but, as a result of each person bringing to the camp their varying talents, a week’s holiday, which my sons rate as an annual highlight of their year, is provided at remarkably little cost. It is also provided with very limited environmental or material impact on our fragile planet – avoiding the damage for which Teresa reveals her passionate concern throughout the book. Quite literally, happy people can be created without having to cost us the earth.
Perhaps many Quakers already know that. This will not diminish the depth of the message Teresa and her interviewees have to impart. Treat this book as part of your occasional reading. Leave it in a place where you dip into books. Or use it as part of your worship preparation. But I do recommend reading it.
Happier people healthier planet by Teresa Belton, Silverwood Books, ISBN: 9781781322604, £13.95.
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