Читать книгу The Nature of College - James J. Farrell - Страница 36

Eventually, however, students will need to change their habits in the public sphere, off campus, where most of American life occurs. They’ll need to join a long tradition of consumer advocates and environmental activists to regulate our culture’s relationships with goods so that they’re better for people and the planet. From the National Consumers League to the Consumers Union, from Florence Kelley to Ralph Nader, from Henry Thoreau to Wendell Berry, conscientious Americans have reminded us that one of our consumer options is opting out of consumer conformity, and choosing the simpler satisfactions of the unstuffed life. Legislators from the Puritans to the present day have tried to reform capitalism so that it meets all our needs, without wasting energy on mere wants and whims. Indeed, challenging the system of consumption is almost as American as consuming itself.³⁰

Changing the nature of our relationship with material goods can start here and now. If we begin to develop a real reverence for materials and their creation, reviving pre-materialist ideals of thrift, frugality, and sufficiency, we can encourage the design of products for repair and reuse, allowing us to consume materials fully before discarding them. If we practice a materialism that takes materials seriously—both individually and institutionally—we’ll have a better chance of creating a culture in which we have more human satisfaction with less stuff.

Changing college culture is a way of changing American culture. When students change their lives, they change the world. When they transform their institutions, they transform the default settings of the places they live. When institutions leverage larger changes (in purchasing, in green building, in transportation alternatives) and establish new expectations, everyone begins to see the first solid evidence of the ecological revolution of the twenty-first century. And that revolution, harmonizing finally with nature’s evolution, changes the possibilities for life—and the good life—both on campus and on a small and fragile planet.