Compactness: The Latest Fad for Liberal Dilettantes

God, I despise trendiness. I can ignore right-wing trendiness, It's usually something so bizarre -- like Christian video games that rationalize killing sinners through prayer -- that it's easy to dismiss. But liberal trendiness is another matter. Its silliness embarrasses me because of my own lefty proclivities.

Liberals are not an easy lot to live with to start with what with their self-righteousness and endless kvetching over war, poverty, hunger, homelessness, inequality, inhumanity, injustice, racism, sexism, specism, heightism and the heartbreak of psoriasis. The San Francsico Chronicle reports the latest lib-fad to add to their hair shirt wardrobe was started by a small group of liberal San Francisco professionals -- who else?-- gathered at a dinner party -- what else? -- as a way to fight what they consider "a rampant disposable consumer culture wreaking global ecological and socioeconomic havoc. "

Now let's look at that for a moment. Here's a group of upscale people, sucking up vast amounts of resources simply by residing in the most expensive city in the nation and earning incomes that could sustain four or five working class families, sitting around at what was, no doubt, an elaborate, catered affair that could feed a good portion of the city's homeless and still having the balls to hatch this nonsense.

According to the Chronicle They even gave themselves a name, the Compact -- "a step," one member hopes, "inherits the revolutionary impulse of the Mayflower Compact." No illusions of grandeur there. After recruiting another 50 or so friends, they set off to go an entire year without buying anything new besides food, health, safety items and underwear. (Does underwear wear out within a year? Could be.)

The Compacters say they were never out to create a cause. Their intention was merely for a group of friends to "reduce the impact of consumer culture in our lives." Have you ever heard of a bunch of liberal do-gooders actually doing good and not turning it into a cause? Somehow, wink, wink, the story got picked up by the Chronicle. The group's Blogspot now lists 50 chapters in Europe, Israel, Canada, Japan, Australia and across the U.S.; one new member gushing, "I though I was the only one. Now I've found my tribe." Oh god.

"We're people for whom recycling is no longer enough," said one of the founders of the nascent movement. "We're trying to get off the first-market consumerism grid, (that's lib-speak for new stuff) because consumer culture is destroying the world." That said by a man who at the time worked as a marketing executive for a Silicon Valley high tech firm.

"I didn't buy a pair of shoes today," said another member. "They were basically a $300 pair of clodhoppers. But they were really nice and really comfortable. But I didn't buy them. That's a big part of the Compact -- we show that we're not powerless over our purchasing."

How nice for him. Has he ever considered that no one needs a pair of $300 shoes. Consuming isn't their problem. Having too much money and too little commonsense is!

The extent of their inanity is best demonstrated in this example. Compacters can get as much as they want from thrift shops, eBay and flea markets, as long as the items are secondhand. And when they're in doubt about a purchase, they turn to their fellow Compacters for guidance.

"We had a little crisis when Matt and Sarah had to replace their shower curtain liner and we said no," admonished one member. "But we put the word out and someone found one for them. It's like the Amish -- we help each other out. We raise a barn every week." A crisis? A barn raising? What? $6.95 max. Are these people insane? Wasting time tracking down a secondhand shower curtain liner.

This whole thing smacks of self-delusion and hypocrisy by dilettantish prigs with too much time on their hands living in Liberal Fairy Dust Land. Reading about these smug, self-congratulatory hypocrites makes me want to flee to the mall in a fit of plastic frenzy just to spite them. This smells suspiciously like the medieval practice of wealthy Catholics buying indulgences to secure their place in heaven despite their whore mongering and mendacity. In the 60s, we called people like this "limousine liberals." The ever so chic, affluent, urbane sophisticates who assuaged their conscience dallying in the anti-war, civil rights and environmental movements, never actually risking anything or even inconveniencing themselves particularly much.

Look, you want to live an ecologically sound and economically sustainable life, it's really very simple. Give up your complicated, high maintenance, fast-track lifestyle. Downsize your job, your house, your car, your wardrobe, your leisure activities. Reassess your definition of "necessary." In other words stop living like an upper middleclass global parasite, and start living the life of a average working middleclass person. And for god sake keep your mouth shut about it!

It's just a fact. The further up the food chain you are the more ecologically damaging your footprint. Oh, you may buy green, recycle, drive a hybrid but if you're still living large you're still responsible for more CO₂ than your fair share regardless of how politically correct you are.

I can assure you, start living on $50,000 a year and you will never be faced with choosing not to buy a $300 pair of shoes. You already shop on eBay and at flea markets. You live on one or two marginal incomes, in a modest home, drive a five-year-old Chevy and worry about affording college for your two kids. You never need fear your level of consumption will besmirch your environmental virtue.

Shower curtain liners! Save me!