When two cultures collide

I am having an interesting time in the past few months experiencing being homeless and living within households with a very, very different attitude when it comes to carbon and energy consumption. Let’s be clear I am in no doubt that I am a minority and my hosts are the majority.

Since early adulthood I have never had to share my space and have always had the luxury of never having to compromise my beliefs and be challenged by anybody that might have a different opinion on the matter. I have had the freedom of developing along an independent path of energy awareness and an environmental consciousness. I would describe myself and my household as a low energy, frugal household. Very aware that our lifestyles ran distinctly against the grain of the dominant western paradigm: ‘I consume therefore I am’.

For the past few months I have been sharing my life intimately with other households that are very comfortable within this paradigm. A kind of microcosm of the real world but inescapably so, I cannot shut the doors to my castle and retreat inside to a kingdom of my own design. How life ought to be. It’s been an interesting time. The compromising has been great. The laughter and jollity immense. In short it has been open season on the ‘hippies’.

Why do you do that? I’m not doing that! I like it like that! Why do you make life so difficult for yourselves. Isn’t it easier just to take the car/put it in the bin/ leave it on? No I like it on all the time it keeps me company. Why are you sat there in a jumper, we do have underfloor heating you know turn the thermostat up. I shower twice a day, why don’t you. It’s not like we are running out of hot water/power/food.

Bullying and cajoling into conformity. It’s made me acutely aware that there is a HUGE social pressure to conform to the dominant culture. It’s not an easy road to embark upon. Is this why bands of greenies flock together? Does this explain the adoption of ideas such as Transition Towns in certain places and not others or the should I say some areas with a distinctive ‘green’ character within some places? Is the underlying character still dominantly characterised by the majority? Or will the majority be seduced by the hype, ‘it seems everyone else is so I should be too?’

How do you change an entire culture. E.F. Shumacher 1 suggested that it took three generations to effect a change in the dominant culture. Climate change has only been within our cultural awareness for less than twenty years. Do we have the luxury of three generations to effect a change?

1 E.F Shumacher Small is Beautiful A study of economics as if people mattered 1973 Blond & Briggs London