What I read last week: the Not Buying It edition

Warning: this is quite possibly the longest thing I've ever written on this site. What can I say? A little pique goes a long way ...

All things considered, I'm glad I checked Judith Levine's Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping out of the library. It seems appropriate not to buy it.

Sloppily reasoned, incompletely reported -- this book is neither polemic nor reflection on a state of American consumerism. Had it been honestly titled, it would have been called Lifestyle Liberalism. The focus is all over the map: is it about one person's struggle to define who she is when she deliberately denies the "You are what you buy" ethos that pervades American popular culture? Or is it about how thoroughly she does define herself as a consumer? Is it about the social consequences of consumerism? The social activity around consumerism? Although the book is organized in chronological order, there is no sense of thematic progression, no indication that embarking on a sustained deviation from normal behavior wrought a significant examination of Levine's core assumptions.

Perhaps if the book had been organized by theme -- the self, identified by external marketing, the self, identified through social consumption rituals, etc. -- it would have produced a more satisfying read. But I suspect not. After all, this is a book that starts out:

We're both self-employed and work at home ... Although we lurch from deadline to deadline, hour by hour we make our own schedules. We're free to rise before dawn and put in our eight hour before knocking off to ski in the afternoon ... Paul is a political and energy-efficiency consultant. I am a full-time writer and editor. We are educated, cosmopolitan, self-directing and childless.

And then notes mournfully:

I earn less than the high school graduate in my Brooklyn building who has a union job fixing garbage trucks for the city.

I can't speak for anyone else here, but I think that in terms of "occupations that are vital to society's greater well-being," the guy who keeps the garbage trucks running deserves to be well compensated. Writers are everywhere, but someone who can troubleshoot a piece of heavy equipment that's necessary to a sanitary infrastructure is a keeper. (NB: Anyone who reads this book will see Levine repeatedly confusing personal values with economic value -- and never once examining why this is so.)

The other thing that set me off a scant 14 pages into the book was the pantry inventory, which is so semiotically loaded as to count as a graduate seminar in cuisine as a cultural identifier:

I put a pot of Arrowhead Mills organic seven-grain cereal on the stove, and while it cooks, I open the kitchen pantry and count: eight kinds of rice (short-grain white, long-grain white, short-grain brown, long-grain brown, Thai sweet black, Chinese sweet black, basmati, arborio); six flours, three grades of corn meal, two dozen varieties of beans, peas and whole grains, and an entire section of organic faro. We also have six oils, six sweeteners, and nine vinegars (balsamic, white, red wine, white wine, rice wine, apple cider, raspberry, champagne, plum). There are condiments to cheer any hungry, homesick member of the U.N. General Assembly who happens by, ranging from dried Chinese black mushrooms to a can of Mexican huitlacoche fungus. I am not sure the last is a food.

I had to tamp down the urge to write a parody inventory of my own pantry in which the sickness in my soul could be seen in my Tupperware. Yep, it's that kind of "Whither buying?" book.

Once I had recovered from the pantry revelation, that was when Levine dropped another bomb: in a year of buying nothing that was not essential, she and her partner were going to be adding on to one of their two houses, improving its square footage by nearly 40% because:

I "needed" a winter office (my [stand-alone] cabin is cold in the winter months so I work in the hall). Our guests "needed" a private place to sleep (not the living room couch) and a bathroom of their own. Our boots werre piled behind the kitchen door, our skis were waxed while balanced between a sawhorse and a plastic garbage can on the subfreezing back porch; we needed a mudroom.

And so, through the rest of the book, there are mentions of the $5000 required for the furniture, lighting and art the rooms will require (Levine's word, not mine), the $2600 Andersen casement windows, the discussion over whether granite countertops press lightly upon the Earth, the $500 closet-organization system, the selection of paint as a sublimated desire for greater societal security. All of this in the year where Levine is ostensibly not buying anything.

It is tough to read someone's righteous indignation over the supersizing of houses or the creeping gentrification of New England's farm country when she is also participating in those same supposedly loathsome trends. It is not enough to shrug and acknowledge the gap between ideal and execution.

*

The thing is, this could have been such a good book. I spent a few long years in my early 20s being poor, and I can remember the acute social isolation that economic disparity can produce: the sense that shared experiences are passing you by, the strain that comes from trying to make sure your myriad daily calculations and anxieties are never, never aired out for friends or strangers, the message you receive that your value as a human being is practically negligible.

(One of the most indelible memories I have of that time: I was in graduate school, I had $5 and a half-bushel basket of apples to my name, and as I attempted to start my elderly car so Icould head to my on-campus job ... the car sputtered once, then died. I sat behind the steering wheel and sobbed out of frustration. A noise distracted me: two contractors had stopped their work on my neighbor's porch so they could point and laugh at me. And they only laughed harder as I got out of the car and walked by them.)

When you don't have money in America, it's a whole different world: every interaction is heavy with consequences. The difference between me and Levine is that she elected to step outside of commercial America specifically to see what it was like to live as a non-shopper; my doing so was a result of other choices I made. My observations were merely a side benefit to the larger experience. I would have expected hers to be filtered through a sharper critical lens.

Especially since Levine is surrounded by people who have astute things to say about why people like to consume:

Ann sighs. "Consumer culture is a machine for dissatisfaction," she says. "You could get a facelift, you could find the perfect dress, you could be beautiful, you could be youthful ... It all depends on people having a lot of yearning. That excitement is offered in lieu of."

(In lieu of what? Something truly worth yearning for? A greater sense of purpose? Ellen Willis addresses this later in the self-evident observation "There's a thin line between consumption for pleasure and consumption that is a substitute for the other pleasures you are not having.")

And:

"There are certain ways in which you can regulate consumption. You can take things off the market, like SUVs, for instance," (Ellen Willis) has told me on the phone. "I'm not saying there shouldn't be any laws. But reducing consumption as a principle is not a basis for political change."

Come to think of it, if you do read the book, be sure read the entire April 30 section, because it's all Ellen Willis and it is the smartest, most incisive analysis in the book.

It also set up some of the sharpest disappointment I had in the book. Levine tries to conflate consumer spending with the current administration's bassackwards policies and the 2004 elections, so what better question would there be than this: Can you effect political change through altering your consumption habits?

Some people think you can effect societal change. The people behind Ideal Bite do. The people behind TreeHugger do. The people behind BuyBlue do. Not One Damn Dime believes in boycotts, there's a rise in socially responsible investment as a field, and faith-based commerce is beginning to gather nationwide attention. Clearly, this is an idea that's gaining momentum -- and being appropriated by businesses as well. Datamonitor recently found that "recyclable" is the new hot term attached to product launches, and look how Wal-Mart's embracing the "organic" label to woo specific consumer segments.

Would you like to know how the relationship between societal change and commerce is addressed in Not Buying It? Levine lets us know that she has a friend whose boutique sells crafts "bought directly from native South African artisans and their co-ops."  This friend frets that she's part of the societal problem:

No, no, no, I reassure her. Your store does good. You're supporting the livelihoods of black South Africans, helping the struggling post-apartheid economy ...

Karen and I have often talked about "socially responsible businesses," some of whose boosters believe that the Body Shop and Working Assets will save the world. Most businesspeople who try to act responsibly, like Karen, are humbler about their effect.

And that's it. The reporter in me wants to investigate whether big businesses that try to behave like good corporate citizens do effect more significant social change than the little stores like Karen's. And the critic in me wants to know why the reporter Levine didn't bother to report or explain the implicit argument that Karen is doing more good than a Working Assets, which funneled $4 million into nonprofits laast year.

What better place to examine whether mindful buying is effective buying than a book on consumption patterns? It's one thing to wag your finger at Northern Sun's products, but quite another to examine what effect your buying the bumper sticker about the bake sale and the bombers had.

*

And finally, the last, biggest question: why are we searching for greater meaning via our wallets anyway? Levine doesn't even begin to touch this; she just starts on the assumption that it's the default mode for the American consumer. Fine -- that's the what. Explain to me the why and the how.

Avid appreciator of situational irony that I am, I couldn't help but contrast this recent article with avowed atheist Levine's quest:

Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, co-authors of The Churching of America, 1776-1990, argue that ministry in the U.S. is modeled primarily on capitalism, with pastors functioning as a church's sales force, and evangelism as its marketing strategy...

According to Finke and Stark, the American church adopted a consumer-driven model because the First Amendment prohibited state-sanctioned religion. Therefore, faith, like the buying of material goods, became a matter of personal choice. And "where religious affiliation is a matter of choice, religious organizations must compete for members and … the 'invisible hand' of the marketplace is as unforgiving of ineffective religious firms as it is of their commercial counterparts."

This explains why marketing strategies and secular business values are pervasive in today's ministry—we're in competition with other providers of identity and meaning for survival.

-- "iChurch: All We Like Sheep," Christianity Today Leadership Journal, Summer 06.

And one of the ascendant movements in American evangelical Christianity is the "prosperity gospel," or the idea that the Lord wants you -- yes, you -- to enjoy material comfort. This is a perfect collision of meaning and commerce. It has been coming for a while. Naturally, there's no mention of it whatsoever in the book.

*

So after the unpleasant beginning and the unfocused middle, did the book actually deliver in the December chapter? Did it sum up what it means to be part of -- or apart from -- the American dialogue on buying your desires?

No. There is a snippy condemnation of the Live Strong bracelets, followed immediately by the defense of outre outdoor lighting and decorations with:

I love these displays not for their religious fervor, but for another kind of devotion they show: the devotion to something from which absolutely no profit is gained.

That will come as news to the power companies. And to the purveyors of holiday decorations, who got an average of roughly $40 per American holiday shopper last year.

The muddled projection of one's own moral values onto other people's buying decisions, the incomplete economic examinations ... I appreciate any written work that can provide bookends, but sometimes it's hard to muster the gratitude.

Levine is not an unpleasant writer to read: she is a reporter and knows how to write to a general audience in clear terms. What I object to is her less-clear thinking and her murky logic as applies to her own spending. I felt the same way when reading Walden, though. Perhaps it is I who has issues with professional-class people telling me why I should be a more mindful consumer when they're off getting handouts from their mom (Thoreau) or adding on to their country home (Levine). Perhaps my issue is entirely too reflective of the strangely personal way I look at spending.

Would that I could read a book that  astutely examined that personal relationship and explained it within a well-researched larger social context.

Comments

[drunken monkey]

Her comment about the garbage truck maintenance worker suggests that she doesn't understand that tradespeople are paid more because there aren't enough of them, so their skills are in high demand, unlike writers; it doesn't do a lot to convince me that I should spend time with a book that focuses on money and how we spend it, when that simple fact of economics (supply/demand) seems beyond her, frankly.

I think that part of the no-shopping movement -- and the many food-related movements -- comes from an entitled position. It's easier to say "I'll only eat organic" when you can afford the extra cost of organic products. And it's easier to say "I won't buy anything for a year" when you already have plenty of things, don't particularly need anything and have a group of friends who are also well-equipped and will lend you what you may lack.

What you wrote about your lean years in your 20s was particularly resonate for me. I wasn't flush with cash as a student, but I was in dire financial straights when I finished school, and I was surprised by how much I felt that reflected on my sense of worth. I felt like if I couldn't keep up with what was current -- clothes, music, books -- then it would soon be obvious to everyone that I was not with the times, and I'd be left behind. That's worth examining -- how what we buy signifies who we are to others, and what happens when that signal is halted -- and it's too bad that it sounds like this book didn't examine it in any sort of meaningful way. I mean, I can't even believe that she didn't spend more time on consumption's political effects. It seems, to me, that in a capitalist society, your weight as a consumer if some of the heaviest pull you have as a citizen.

[Jecca]

Your description of the isolation caused by lack of money hit home for me, too. I remember the times, following my divorce, when I met friends at restaurants and lied about having already eaten because I didn't have the money for a meal out. (I wasn't going hungry -- just waiting till I got home to have eggs or noodles or whatever.) I found being on a very strict budget isolating because almost all social activity involved spending money: restaurants, coffee shops, clubs, movies, shopping, and even thrift shopping with the hipsters.

It seems as though a big problem lies in her definition of the word "need." Did she define it at all? Give herself any quantifiable paramaters? I was flabbergasted to read that she decried McMansions and gentrification while adding on to one of two homes that she owns. Wow. I wonder if her editor pointed out the problem, but she refused to change those passages.

And I think that in order to read that book you long for, Lisa, you're going to have to write it yourself. You're off to a good start!

[marion]

So what you're saying is that this book was less insightful and thought-provoking than that "Friends" episode in which Phoebe, Rachel and Joey deal with the ramifications of the fact that Ross, Monica and Chandler don't understand what it's like to be poor in the city? Good to know. Thanks for the lengthy analysis!

[Lisa]

And with one comment, Marion reminds me why I am not a book reviewer ...

[Ex-Monkey Ben]

Geisler: Look, you confused? You need guidance? Talk to another writer.
Barton: Who?
Geisler: Jesus, throw a rock in here, you'll hit one. And do me a favor, Fink: throw it hard.

[marion]

Ack! That wasn't meant to be a slam at you, but at the book's author. Sorry if that was unclear. I was being quite sincere in my thanks for the lengthy analysis - I had wondered if this book were worth reading, but you isolated the few interesting bits and otherwise showed me why it is not. Just as Mickey Kaus has the SeriesSkipper(TM), I think I'm going to dub this your BookSkipper(TM) feature. Much appreciated.

[molly aka Space Monkey]

OMG, your memory of grad. school made me almost start to cry. There is nothing like grad. school poverty. After my divorce in grad. school, I had no money and couldn't really buy much food. I remember looking at the canned food drive boxes on campus and wondering if I could grab a can of food and eliminate "the middle man" of free food distribution. (I ended up not taking any).

Loved this book review. People like Levine anger me because they are so totally out of touch. It is a shame that her book is solipsistic. It surprises me that so many people have raved about this book! Eeek, I am now suspicious of their opinion.

I am also beginning to feel much of the consumer activism is, at the core, hollow. (...like deep down we are all shallow - kind of thing) It seems like such an elitist and lazy way of supporting a cause and promoting change.

And finally, I still think Chuck Palahniuk did the best consumer story, even though it is fiction.

[Teleri]

I read this when I came across my desk for cataloging a few months ago. It infuriated me, mainly because of the self-righteousness of Levine.

As I get older, I have become increasingly less tolerant of those in our society that like to flail about and say this thing (non-organic food, excessive consumption, too much tv, whatever) is the root of all problems and because we are wealthy and white we can cut this thing out of our lives and be better people. Then sit with their $7 bowls of organic rice and sneer at the family of four who eats at MickyD's cause they have 5 BigMacs on special for $5 without ever considering that for some people there is *no* choice for not shopping at Walmart or eating organic or whatever. Not because these poor schlubs what to, but because there is no other option.

Thanks for a good review and suffering through it. If I'd read your review before, I wouldn't have bothered reading and probably would have saved myself some fury.

[Lisa]

marion, thanks for clearing that up! I initially read it as "So, you think I could work on the brevity thing? Fair point, well taken." I appreciate your follow-up post.

*

Teleri, you make a really good point. I remember when I was reading Gregg Easterbrook's "The Progress Paradox" a few years ago, he had an observation on how ridiculous it was that the stuff that's good for you, food-wise, is often the least economically accessible. And in this book, as Levine talks about her FOUR DOLLAR GLASS BOTTLE OF MILK, there was no awareness whatsoever that the ability to affirm your values via spending is an incredible luxury.

[Kip]

I have grown to hate this whole genre of journalist-trying-on-lifestyle books. The authors don't seem to mind cutting themselves enormous slack (zB, the car Barbara Ehrenreich allowed herself while playing at being a minimum-wage employee in Nickel & Dimed; Levine's house remodel in NBI). As a reader, I just can't take them seriously -- their biases are so blatant that they read like 19th century diaries of noblemen among the savages.

Books written by people who actually live/d the life are more interesting to me. Ten Thousand Working Days by Robert Schrank is a great example -- the book was written by a guy who spent 40 years working in various blue- and white-collar jobs and then became an industrial psychologist. Genuine experience, genuine insight, and (maybe due to his sociology training?) an awareness of his own biases. I highly recommend it as a counterpoint to Nickel and Dimed specifically, and to this sort of reporting in general.

And Lisa, in the words of Toni Morrison: If there is a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. I look forward to it!

[amanda]

Great follow-up to your earlier post on this book. I'm glad you read it so that I don't have to. Your fabulous commentators (a lot of monkeys!) have some great insights, too. I'll have to check out that Schrank book.

[marion]

You think I want you to write LESS? Good lord, woman, I'm sitting here watching the season premiere of "CSI" thinking, "If only I could get a classic sobell TWoP recap of this episode..." I agree with Kip - if all of these nitwits can get published, then where's your book? :) (And no, I am not calling you a nitwit. Quite the opposite.)

[alice]

"There is nothing like grad. school poverty."

Unless it's actual poverty. Think it is time to call a halt to the idea that because we had to eat ramen in college we understand being poor. We don't. We had medical care through universities, had even a ratty car, had a place to live, family to bail us out if necessary, and a light at the end of the tunnel. Can we all stop saying how poor we were while shelling out thousands for school? (Sorry, it's a personal peeve.)

Excellent review. Thanks much.

[Lisa]

Alice, your point is well-taken about confusing a few years of ramen with genuine, sustained economic deprivation.

Just to expand on the grad school poverty thing for a little bit:

Without getting into too many details ... I was financially autonomous for the period I was talking about, and although there was that graduation light at the end of the tunnel, if there's ever a time when the phrase "it takes money to make money" is apt, that's it -- hard to interview for jobs when you can't afford a suit, or travel to an interview, or photocopies of the resume. And relocating for a job is pretty daunting when you can't scrape together the $$ for the necessary rental deposit.

There is a sort of shabby-genteel poverty in grad school, but there were also those students who were genuinely on their own. One of the dirty little secrets of higher education is that the degree isn't enough: you still need a little stake to get you started afterward, and unless a kid figures that out early, they're going to be at a disadvantage to the kid whose parents dropped a $10,000 check for graduation.

The way I lived for a few years after grad school -- in debt, cash-poor, no insurance, and often selling belongings to swing groceries when my paychecks had gone to student loan payments and rent -- to be honest, it didn't feel much different from grad school poverty. If anything, I actually felt more of a sense of control, because at least I wasn't beholden to some job for a set period of time and a specific set of hoops to jump through.

However, that's just my experience. And I recognize that I was very lucky in a lot of ways: I had no serious health problems, so I could take on extra work when I needed to generate cash for unanticipated expenses; I was living like this because I thought it would position me better job- and money-wise over the long run; and I did have a loving family who offered a lot of emotional and logistical support and no complications. Had I not had those factors, those years would have been a lot worse.

I probably should have mentioned up above that there's a difference between the kind of poor I was and the kind of poor that's damn near impossible to get out of. You know how we've got a vocabulary for dealing with the different gradations of people who have money? ("Affluent" "Comfortable" "New rich" "Old money") I think I need to work on the vocabulary for delineating the different types of not having it.

[alice]

Thanks for your response, Lisa. I was reacting more to tales of woe I've heard from others than from your experience.

Mea kinda (sorta), as J. Stewart says.

Really enjoy your writing.

[drunken monkey]

I'll second both Lisa and alice's comments -- being poor while working to put yourself in the top ten percent in your country for education level is a totally different thing than living under the poverty line. That said, I worked and took on massive debt to get myself through school, and my post-grad-school poverty has screwed my credit for years to come.

I lived under the poverty line as a teenager, in a poor area, then went to a university renown for its rich students, so I totally understand your peeve, alice. My head nearly exploded one day when a classmate said, in seriousness "Well, poor students and rich students can be friends. My best friend drives a Jetta and I drive a Honda, and we still hang out."

[Deborah]

"Would that I could read a book that astutely examined that personal relationship and explained it within a well-researched larger social context."

Would that you would write it, Lisa. It occurs to me that while I truly enjoy all your writing, I find your pieces on this subject among your most compelling and thoughtful. Please seriously consider tackling this subject in book form.

[Jane]

Beautifully put....and Marion, ditto the CSI observation!

I have also gone through the soul-sucking experience of not having enough money. Perhaps money does not buy happiness, but the lack of sure makes one miserable.

Being without basic resources has so many reprecussions - many of which have been articulately outlined in these comments. I feel that I am a frugal person, so not having enough money to take advantage of basics and essentials when these items were on sale was incredibly frustrating - almost demeaning.

For all my working life, I have worked with people who are truly poor. They struggle against enormous odds and are constantly criticized by the Levines of the world.

Ms. Levine has no business being allowed out of the house without adult supervision.

[Loisarah]

I've been following the comments on this page, and I see so many of the points here.

I've had a lot of money problems in the last 5 or so years, and while I can't say I've been ramen every night broke, I've been very broke. I had to give up my piece of crap car and started walking. I get asked if I had a DUI or something. Teenagers like to yell stuff out of car windows at me as I walk on the side of the road. I can't understand what they're saying, as the car passes before they finish, but whatever. I assume it's not flattering. I find myself humiliated when I really shouldn't be. I don't mind when I think that it's good for the enviroment to walk, I'm being more eco friendly. Just because i can't afford a car doesn't make me a joke... right?

::sigh:: I work in retail, and sometimes it is so hard to listen to the "sell, sell, sell!" mantra when I think that I struggle, and not everyone has money, and you know when someone is living on credit. Our store kind of stradles more of a working class and upper class area of town, and the difference can be nauseating. "What, you don't have cable? I'm soooo sorrry!" (said with sincerity, like the fact that I don't get to watch Project Runway is a tradgedy.)

I am so tired of feeling isolated because I don't have cable, shop at the Goodwill for clothing, and don't go to the movie theater every Friday night. I think a lot of people I run into have skewed ideas of what is a necessity. And I don't mean to sound like an elitist snob, this hardly refers to even half of the people I know or have run across, but just from some of my chit-chatting with my customers, I get a little bothered with how much of a necssity cable is, or that huge SUV is because you have A kid, buying organic, having perfectly manicured nails all the time, the cell phone with a new ring tone a week...

I totally agree that some people don't get how much of a luxury it is to be able to buy only organic, or eat fresh produce daily, or whatever your issue is. There are a lot of people who live on under $15,000 a year. ARe you gonna buy the $4 a bottle milk, or the 1.99 a gallon milk? The 1.99/lb of carrots or the 3.99/lb organic carrots?

[jrochest]

I'll add my thanks: I'm still going to take this out of the library, but now I know what to expect.

The grad school poverty thing rang bells for me, too: I was in my 30s, so while I could call my folks if I needed something like a root canal, and I lived in a city with a good, solid public transit system, it was still dire. I knew, and we all do, I think, that I was comparatively rich -- healthy and young, always able to stop if I needed, and doing it with a goal in mind. But Jeez, 800.00 a month in Toronto was NOT fun: goodwill is the big, gosh I-can't-afford-this splurge, and you know what day the discount veggies are best at the local markets. Worse still, you drive the credit card up with the conferences and seminars you need to make the education work, and then frantically scrabble to make the payments.

My moment of uncontrollable sobbing (curled up on the floor of my hallway, clutching a bewildered cat) came when I realized that the windfall I'd just gotten was going to be seamlessly absorbed by the hydro bill and the phone, with not a penny for, well, joy. Dinner out. A new coat. A movie. A night in the pub. A date where you don't have to limit your gainfully employed boyfriend to what *you* can afford (free, or less than 5.00).

I had friends who were single parents, and others who were foreign students, much worse off than I. But there are times when wearing yet another Goodwill coat until the lining tears is more than you can take.

The first year of my real, post-PhD, post-sessional-instructor job, I spent 12,000 dollars on clothes; I have 47 pairs of shoes, partly because I wore the same pair of christmas present Franco Sartos to every interview, conference and class for 5 years.