Graceful Simplicity: The Philosophy and Politics of the Alternative American DreamDespite the United States' economic abundance, "the good life" has proved elusive. Millions long for more time for friends and family, for reading or walking or relaxing. Instead our lives are frantic, hectic, and harried. In Graceful Simplicity, Jerome M. Segal, philosopher, political activist, and former staff member of the House Budget Committee, expands and deepens the contemporary discourse on simple living. He articulates his conception of a politics of simplicity—one rooted in beauty, peace of mind, appreciativeness, and generosity of spirit. |
Contents
Two Ways of Thinking About Money | 3 |
Individualistic Strategies for Simple Living | 23 |
The Money We Need | 45 |
The Politics of Simplicity | 73 |
How Did We Get Where We Are? | 119 |
Graceful Living | 159 |
Graceful Living and Retreating from the World | 180 |
Graceful Opulence versus Graceful Simplicity | 200 |
Are We Simple Creatures? | 214 |
The Monetary Illusion | 228 |
Economic Life for the Twentyfirst Century | 247 |
NOTES | 253 |
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Common terms and phrases
achieved activity aesthetic American American Dream ancient argue Aristotle attained beauty Bernard Mandeville better capita central century Condorcet consumer Consumer Expenditure Survey core economic needs cost desires Duauf earn emerges Epictetus Epicurean Epicurus expenditures family income friends Garden give graceful existence graceful living graceful simplicity growth household housing human Ibid idea of progress Iliad important increase individual instance issue John Woolman labor leisure less limited live gracefully Mandeville married couple families matter means nomic one's opulence ourselves percent perhaps personal services perspective pleasure politics of simplicity poor possible poverty problem productivity rabbits relationship religious respect rich schools seek Seneca sense simple living social society someone spending Stoic Stoicism technologies things Thoreau Thucydides tion transformation vision wealth well-being
Popular passages
Page 15 - So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business ; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, 'keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a lean will ;' and, " ' Many estates are spent in the getting, Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting, And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting.
Page 15 - Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy. And after all, of what Use is this Pride of Appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is suffered? It cannot promote Health, or ease Pain; it makes no Increase of Merit in the Person, it creates Envy, it hastens Misfortune.
Page 15 - And again, Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more saucy. When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece ; but Poor Dick says, It is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.
Page 15 - What maintains one vice would bring up two children. You may think, perhaps, that a little tea or a little punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter: but remember what Poor Richard says, Many a little makes a mickle...
Page 225 - Thus what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women.
Page 167 - The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world.
Page 17 - Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
Page 17 - Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.