Alternatives to Consumerism

Alternatives to Consumerism - Spring 2013 Prof. – Tim Kasser, SMAC E-119; [email protected]; x 7283 T.A. – Hannah Basil - [email protected]

Purpose of Class: Many thinkers have criticized the manner in which consumerism, overconsumption, and profit-seeking dominate American culture. Using these criticisms as a starting point, this class explores various alternatives that might lead humans toward lifestyles and social systems that are more ecologically sustainable, personally enlivening, and socially just. These alternatives include changes in personal lifestyles, media practices, economic organization, and social structures. We discuss both the scholarly ramifications of these ideas and how to act upon them in our lives and society more broadly.

Philosophy of Class: We have tried to “practice what we preach” by making this a low and alternative consumption class. Multiple copies of most of the class readings are on reserve in Seymour Library so you do not have to purchase books; if you do want to buy your own books, we recommend www.indiebound.org or www.bookfinder.com, which primarily benefit independent bookstores. Electronic media are used when possible; we hope that you will read on the computer rather than printing and, if you must print, do so from the recycled paper box or make sure it is double-sided. All assignments will be handed in electronically to minimize paper usage. All guest lecturers are joining us via video- conferencing, thus lowering carbon emissions for the class. We have asked you to do community action projects, as being a citizen is one alternative to being a consumer. And, as described more fully below, we have avoided the consumerist mindset of grades by making the class and all assignments graded on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory basis.

Organization of Class: This course is composed of five sections. The course commences with a brief introduction to the ideas and reflections on our own personal experiences of consumerism. We then proceed to the next four sections, which survey alternatives at the levels of our own personal lives, media practices, economic organization, and social structures. Within each section, we explore ideas and practices that orient lives and cultures in a less consumeristic manner. Each of these four sections will also include assignments designed to broaden students’ knowledge and apply the ideas to their own lives. Each section also includes community action projects relevant to consumerism and to the specific topics we’ve been exploring. We end with a student-lead conference about actions that might be taken to provide real “alternatives to consumerism.” 2

Means of assessment

Grades are a means of evaluating a particular individual’s performance in a class so that others in the “outside world,” particularly potential employers or graduate schools, can decide whether or not this person is “worthy” of hiring or admission. As such, grades are essentially a tool of consumer, capitalistic society and a way in which the educational system has bowed to that particular element of our social system. In our attempt to teach a class that is an “alternative to consumerism” we have therefore opted to offer it only on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory basis. In order to receive a Satisfactory in this course, a student must receive a Satisfactory grade on all of the following assignments. With two exceptions, if I believe that work on any of the assignments is unsatisfactory, the student will have the opportunity to continue to work on it until it reaches a satisfactory level; the two exceptions are participation and the conference presentation.

1. One Consumerography. Write 3 to 4 pages expressing your thoughts and feelings about what it is like for you personally to live within “the culture of consumption.” Answer questions like the following: What are your early memories of shopping, of commercials, and of the things you owned? What is it like “coming of age” surrounded by pressures to buy things? What are your own feelings about being in this culture now? How do you see yourself engaging with (or disengaging from) this culture in the future? You are also encouraged to explore other questions that are of interest to you.

2. Seven Community Action Summaries. Each time that you complete a community action project, you must turn in (either individually or as a group) a brief (~1 page) summary of the action in which you engaged and its outcome. For most days, this will be a brief summary of what you (or your group) did, what your experience was while doing it, and how other people reacted to it. For days when litter was collected, this will include a breakdown of the amount and type of litter collected.

3. Four Application Projects.

Project 1: From the time you wake up on March 28 until you go to bed on April 1, keep track of every cent that you spend. Record anything you purchase with cash or check, anything that you purchase with a credit/debit card that you will pay for later, and anything you spend here at Knox that you are charging to an account (thus including meals at the Caf, purchases at the bookstore, etc.). If you are paying for or taking out a loan to pay for tuition, calculate how much you are spending each day on taking classes and include this figure as well; if someone else is paying for some portion of your expenses (e.g., your parents pay half your tuition, your friend buys you a beer), only include the portion of the expense that YOU spent. Then place the expenditures into the most meaningful set of categories that represent how you have spent your money (e.g., food, entertainment, education). Calculate how much was spent in each of the categories during the time period. Then, rate each level of expenditure on 3 questions, using the following scale: 3

Question 1. Imagine that your life energy calculations have resulted in one hour of life energy being equivalent to $8.25. Did you receive fulfillment, satisfaction, and value in proportion to the life energy spent?

+ = received great fulfillment; increase spending 0 = expense feels okay as is; don’t change - = received little or no fulfillment; decrease spending

Question 2. Was this expenditure of life energy in line with your values and life purpose?

+ = completely in line with values; increase spending 0 = neither helps nor hurts values; don’t change - = conflicts with values; decrease spending

Question 3. Is this expenditure helpful to the planet?

+ = helps planet; increase spending 0 = neither helps nor hurts planet; don’t change - = hurts planet; decrease spending

Turn in a spread sheet (like Figure 4-3 or 4-4 on pages 129-131 of YMYL) that summarizes your expenditures and ratings, and then write a 3-4 page reflection on this exercise. What was it like to track of all your money? Were there any surprises about your spending habits? What did you learn from rating your spending on the three questions?

Project 2: You may choose from either 2a or 2b for this Project.

2a. From the time you wake up on April 4 until you go to bed on April 8, keep track of every single commercial impression to which you are exposed, including advertisements on television, on clothing, in public places, on the Internet, etc. Write a 3-4 page summary that catalogues the impressions you’ve encountered, that reflects on what it was like to attend to these impressions, and that discusses how this project changed your understanding of your place in consumer culture.

2b. Go on a commercial media fast from the time you wake up April 4 until you go to bed on April 8. Specifically, to the best of your ability, exclude from your life all commercial media, including television, radio, commercial Internet sites, etc. Write a 3-4 page summary that catalogues the joys and difficulties you encountered in undergoing this fast, how people reacted to your attempt to fast, what your experience of yourself and others was like during this time, and how this project changed your understanding of your place in consumer culture. 4

Project 3: Interview two people about capitalism. Ask them to describe the basic principles of a capitalist society. Find out what they believe the strong points and weak points are of the system. Ask them what they believe the alternatives are, and see how they react to some of the ones that we’ve discussed. Write a 3-4 page summary of these interviews and your reflections about people’s reactions to your questions.

Project 4: Find an intentional community at www.ic.org that you think would suit you well. Do some additional research on this community and write a 3-4 page paper that describes the community and that explain what is particularly appealing to you about this group. Explore also your ideas about what would it be like to live there after you graduate.

4. One Conference Presentation: On May 27 & 29 we will have our Sixth semi-annual conference on “Alternatives to Consumerism.” At this conference students will present to the Knox College and Knox County communities information about a topic of your choice concerning alternatives to consumerism. The material should be summarized in some visual form, ideally in a sustainable fashion (e.g., use recycled cardboard). You will be expected to stand by your display in the Seymour Union gallery and offer explanations and answer questions for passersby during the conference. You may work in a group of up to 3 people for this assignment, but group projects should be more ambitious than projects done by just one student. Topics must be cleared with the instructor by April 17, and can either examine in greater detail a subject presented in this class or investigate something we are not examining. We are quite open to a variety of different topics and different modes of presentation (i.e., films, papers, art work, interviews, scientific investigations, policy papers, etc.). Please come and talk to me if you are having trouble deciding on a topic.

5. One Final Thoughts paper. In this 3-4 page paper, please reflect on the variety of topics you have learned about in this class, how they have affected you personally, how they make you think about your current and future life, etc.

6. Participation: Class sessions will be a mix of lecture and discussion; we will also break into small discussion groups throughout the term to facilitate a more in-depth and intimate discussion of the material. Throughout our discussions, each of us will be expected to show kindness, consideration and care when others are talking, while still being able to disagree and discuss constructively. In your contributions, we expect to see evidence that your thoughts and understandings are being informed by the readings and by previous discussions. We will assess your participation comments, questions, examples, experiences, and reflections by noting their relevance to the topic at hand. These contributions should demonstrate that you are reflecting and thinking about the topic. A good participant is also a good listener, disagrees in a non-attacking way, and doesn’t “hog” the floor. 5

Attendance at all class sessions is encouraged and the consistency of your attendance will also influence whether or not your participation is satisfactory. A satisfactory participant is at most class sessions. We meet 27 times. Three absences are acceptable; this includes excused absences. If you are 30 minutes or less late for class, you will be counted as having a half absence for that day; if you are over 30 minutes late, you will be counted as having a full absence. For every half absence over three (excused or not), one hour of documented and pre-approved community service will be necessary to make up the missed/late class. However, if a student accumulates more than six absences total, his/her participation will be judged as unsatisfactory.

In addition, the members of each small discussion group will be asked to identify any member of their group who was an unsatisfactory participant in small group discussions. This individual may also receive an unsatisfactory for participation.

Various notes regarding assignments

Late assignments. Papers are due on the assigned date, unless otherwise announced. If they are handed in later that day, you will be required to engage in one hour of documented community service; an additional hour will be required for every additional day your paper is late. The community service must be approved beforehand by your professor and all hours must be completed by May 24. Only excused absences from the Dean are valid excuses for late papers.

Paper style: College-level writing is expected on all papers. Incomplete sentences, sloppy editing, poor grammar, frequent typographical errors and the like are unacceptable and may result in the paper being considered unsatisfactory. If a paper is considered unsatisfactory, you will have the opportunity to rewrite it.

Plagiarism. Please be sure all sentences are in your own words or fully paraphrased or quoted if you are using someone else’s ideas. If three or more words are in the same order as in the original text they must be in quotation marks and cited. Failure to put other people’s words in quotation marks (even if the source is cited) is a violation of the honor code. The following examples show what is and is not acceptable.

Original Sentence: In brief, gender differences are modest in magnitude, consistent with gender stereotypes, and replicable across cultures.

Plagiarized Sentence: Gender differences are consistent with gender stereotypes, replicable across cultures, and modest in magnitude.

Plagiarized Sentence: Gender differences are moderate in magnitude, compatible with gender stereotypes, and consistent across cultures. 6

Acceptable Sentence: We found that differences between genders were not very large, but did fit common stereotypes and were similar across the 26 cultures.

Naming files. It is important that every file placed in the class drop box be named appropriately. For all of the writing assignments, please name your files using the following formula. First, begin the file name with your last name followed by the initial of your first name (e.g., kassert). Then place an underscore. Then, for the consumerography use the abbreviation “cons”, for the application papers use the abbreviation “appl”, for the community action reports use the abbreviation “CA”, and for the final paper use “final”. For the application and community action papers, use a number that reflects whether it is the first (1), second, (2), etc. paper. Finally, add the .doc appendix. For example, then, my second application paper would be named “kassert_appl2.doc” and my fifth community action paper would be named “kassert_CA5.doc”.

Course Schedule

Date Topic Readings Due PART I OVERVIEW 3/27 Syllabus 3/29 Personal Consumerography experiences PART II PERSONAL LIFE 4/1 Voluntary Elgin, Chs. 1, 2, 3, & 5 (R) Simplicity (w/ www.noimpactman.typepad.com Colin Beavan) (esp. background section) 4/3 Spending Habits Dominguez & Robin, App 1 Due Chs. 1, 2, & 4 (R) 4/5 CA1 - Light-bulb Exchange Part III MEDIA 4/8 Commercial www.commercialalert.org CA1 Due Creep (film) www.commercialfreechildhood.org AAP Media Guidelines (R) 4/10 Adbusting www.adbusters.org (esp. spoof ads) App 2 Due Bordwell Chapter (R) 4/12 CA2 – Kids & Media 4/15 Ethics of and www.theyesmen.org CA 2 Due plans for Culture www.revbilly.org Jamming www.raginggrannies.net www.billboardliberation.com 4/17 Capitalism www.freetochoose.tv (watch Vol.1, preview original 1980 series) 7

4/19 CA3 – Culture Jam PART IV ECONOMICS 4/22 Alternatives to www.happyplanetindex.org CA 3 Due GNP www.gnhbhutan.org 4/24 Time Affluence deGraaf, Chs. 1, 16, 20, 25, & 28 + 2 other chapters of your choice (R) 4/26 Flunk Day Contingency 4/29 Alternatives to www.ncba.coop Corporations Korten, Chs. 9 & 10 (R) Microfinance – TBA 5/1 Alternatives to Helleiner Chapter (R) Money www.newdream.org (download the Guide to Sharing) 5/3 CA4 – Litter 5/6 Alternatives to www.wikihow.com/Squat-in- CA 4 Due Land Ownership Abandoned-Property App 3 Due Anderson Article (R) 5/8 NO CLASS PROFESSOR OUT OF TOWN 5/10 CA5 - Citizen PART V SOCIAL STRUCTURES 5/13 Homesteading Nearings, Chs. 1, 2, 4, 6, & 8 (R) CA 5 Due (film) 5/15 City Planning www.transitionnetwork.org (film) www.smartgrowthonline.org 5/17 CA6 – Litter 5/20 Intentional www.ic.org CA 6 Due Communities App 4 Due 5/22 Potluck 5/24 Final Thoughts Final Thoughts 5/27 CA7a – Conference Conference Presentation 5/29 CA7b – Conference Conference Presentation 6/? CA 7 Due