ermanson

"Success, in our country, is now defined by money earned, by promotions, by continuous servitude to an employer... Our gauge of success and personal worth has become so reliant on external validation that women and men now find it difficult to believe that a life centered around the home can satisfy their needs for personal fulfillment and genuine achievement." Or, as written in 1870: "Bright women should aspire, and drudges should keep the home fires burning." Yo. "Our actual needs are so much larger emotionally and so much smaller materially." Yes. But for every eloquent statement like that, or for every disturbing fact about the insanity of six companies controlling 98% of world seed sales, there was also a morally righteous quote from one of the radical homemaking interviewees about their neighbors' lives of quiet misery and desperation. Everyone makes their own choices, you know? It's tough to think that most of the rest of the United States is living in a crazy way that will ultimately not lead to a satisfying, happy life, but there is a medium ground between working 60 hours with an insane commute and eating fast food every day and, say, living on the farm and bartering for dental care. I had a strong reaction to the lines of thinking espoused in this book, and at the end I was left with a lot of ambivalence. For every argument that I found interesting, there was one that was poorly thought through and that relied on generalizations. Criticisms: The author relies on too few sources. The people she interviews are predominantly white people from New England who have families that support them through donations of money and land. The author tries to argue that parents who commute to an office job directly cause their children's allergies and asthma because their commuting and office jobs take focus away from the health of their families. (p. 120) Relatedly, saying that "we buy prescription drugs when we no longer have time to take care of our health and get ample rest" (p. 61) is a gross generalization and denies the existence of actual illnesses that can't be cured with fresh air and local foods and exercise. I buy into the argument that individuals should structure their decisions about how to live by thinking about what's best for their family and community, and what contributes to social justice and the health of the planet. The more you delve into what that means, however, the more it becomes clear that it is a radical choice in this culture (hence the book title). It means trading away what we think of as our security, whether that is dual incomes, health insurance, or a hefty retirement fund. What you trade that security in for is time and attention and focus. And trust, really, the trust that your needs will be met and that you won't end up living on the streets when you're old.

2022-11-14 13:59