Author: Harald Welzer
Harald Welzer
Reading time: 18 minutes
Synopsis
Self-Thinking looks at and criticizes how much we focus on buying things today. This comes from a culture of “always more, everything now”. The book asks us to work together to imagine a good future. It also tells us to resist this capitalist way of thinking in our own small ways.
What this book offers you: Understand how to create a sustainable future – and take action.
Most people know that our way of life uses too much of the Earth’s resources. This is true for Western society as a whole and for each person. For example, climate change is always in the news. But nothing is done to stop this problem. The next sections explain why this happens. They also give advice on how each of us can act on our own.
First, it’s about using your own mind. You need to think for yourself, not let others think for you. In the 18th century, thinkers of the Enlightenment already asked people to “think for themselves”. They believed that people become truly responsible only by making their own choices.
Today, we are losing this ability because of capitalism. But this skill is more important than ever. Only people who think for themselves and go against the crowd can save our planet. The next sections will show you what each of us can do. They will also explain why just thinking is not enough.
In these sections, you will also learn:
- what the Earth Overshoot Day means,
- why the common idea of humans as “Homo Oeconomicus” (economic beings) is simply wrong, and
- what we can learn from the anti-nuclear power movement of the 1980s for today.
Section 1 – Our culture of buying needs endless growth, which is not sustainable.
Today, when news talks about how well a country is doing, it usually means how fast its economy is growing. Economic growth is seen as a sign of wealth. It is also a goal for politicians. Because of this, our society aims to always grow more.
This leads to wanting more in all areas. We see this clearly in politics, business, and technology. But we also see it in ourselves, as we want to buy more and more. For example, in the USA, the amount of clothes bought each year doubles every ten years. In Germany, the number of furniture items bought grows by 150% every ten years.
This culture of “always more” is based on capitalism. Capitalism has spread everywhere in the world, with no real competition. When the communist Eastern Bloc ended, the only other choice to capitalism disappeared. Even developing countries mostly aim to increase their economic growth.
This goal teaches people everywhere that our life’s purpose is to buy things. Our surroundings, like media and other people, support this idea. They tell us that getting more wealth makes us happy and gives life meaning. For example, advertisements show us happy people. They make us believe we can be just as happy if we buy certain products.
People in Western capitalist countries are now used to a constantly improving way of life. So, they want to buy more and more. For the past 200 years, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, capitalism has grown around the world. It has brought big improvements and more wealth for many people. But now, it also causes serious bad effects.
Section 2 – We know that our resources are limited.
We use many goods every day, like cars, washing machines, laptops, or books. To make these things, we need resources. These can be energy, like oil or coal. Or they can be materials, like copper, cotton, or minerals.
But these resources are not endless. In fact, we are running out of them very quickly. By using resources greedily, we are destroying the base of our own way of life.
To show this, the Earth Overshoot Day was created. Every year, it marks the day when we have used more resources than the Earth can renew in that year. This day comes earlier and earlier each year. In 2011, it was September 27. In 2013, it was August 20. These are not just numbers. Using too many resources has serious results. For example, sea levels rise and many types of animals and plants disappear. Every Earth Overshoot Day before December 31 should make us worried and want to change. The earlier this day comes, the faster we are using up our resources.
We all know about the long-term problems our actions cause. A survey by the Boston Consulting Group found that 87% of parents expect their children to have a worse life than them. Other surveys show that environmental issues are much more important to people now than 20 years ago. But even though we know about limited resources and big environmental problems, we keep our culture of growth. We do not do anything to change it.
Until now, almost every climate meeting has failed. This is because rich countries and developing countries do not want to stop growing. And no one wants to be the first to make changes. Angela Merkel’s quote shows this clearly: “Without growth, everything is nothing.”
Section 3 – As buyers, we lose our freedom.
Today, we have an enormous number and variety of products to choose from. But oddly, this does not give us more freedom, as we might think. It actually gives us much less.
First, we have less and less time to actually use what we buy. As we own more and more things, we have little time for each item. Our homes are full of things we don’t really need. For example, a drill in an average American home is used for only about 15 minutes in its whole life.
Second, many new technologies are not just useless and hard to use. They also take away our freedom to choose how we do things. Every new smartphone has new features that seem to exist just for the sake of it. No one asks if a new phone camera needs face recognition, not the makers nor the buyers. Everything possible is made, and more is always seen as better.
New products are less and less about what buyers really need. Instead, they try to create new needs. This is how people lose their freedom. Individuals can only passively buy the new products offered to them. This stops them from realizing what their true needs are.
The Enlightenment brought us great freedom and independence. But our culture of buying gives this up. We become passive buyers. And we don’t even have time to use the things we buy. This helps businesses, but not us as individuals.
Section 4 – “Green growth” doesn’t make sense and supports the current system.
Green products are everywhere today. As we care more about the environment, more “eco-friendly” TVs or washing machines are made. But this is still about “always more”. So, these products are part of the problem, not the solution.
The main problem is that we keep buying more and more things. Most homes now have several “eco-friendly” flat-screen TVs instead of just one old tube TV. Each new TV uses less resources than an old one. But buying many new TVs, and using them all, means we use a lot more resources overall.
Every improvement in using resources better is quickly cancelled out by our growth-focused economy. For example, if new technology means a TV uses half the energy to make, its price goes down. Then, people buy more TVs than before. And factories make twice as many TVs.
Trying to save the current economic system with “green corrections” and “green growth” is wrong and pointless. Only a change in what buyers think and want can make a difference.
Companies are often blamed publicly for harming the environment. For example, the oil company BP was blamed after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. But companies do not drive our environment into chaos alone. It’s the buyers who do – the everyday use, not just big disasters, is the problem.
Companies harm the environment more and more because people want cheaper products. In BP’s case, it was the demand for cheap fuel. Only if we change this attitude can we help the environment.
Section 5 – The culture of growth strongly shapes us, even without us knowing it.
The next time you talk to a friend, try this to understand our culture better: We usually talk to someone from about 30 to 35 cm away. This is about the length of a big ruler. If you start to move closer, something happens. The other person will get more nervous as you get closer. And your own heart rate will also speed up.
We never consciously learned this social rule about keeping distance, especially not with exact numbers. But it has become a deep part of us. Our culture shapes us with many such rules. Most of these rules we don’t even know about. If these rules are broken, we feel uncomfortable.
It’s the same with how we think about economic growth. We feel uncomfortable if we do not follow this cultural rule. People who grow up in Western countries often enjoy a constantly improving life. Thanks to economic progress, we have better cars, more powerful phones and computers, and new gadgets every day.
Since childhood, we are surrounded by constant buying and progress. Both have become part of our way of life. Even if we decide to buy less, we often don’t. This is because buying is just too strong a habit.
This cultural influence can also be seen in politics. All parties in the German parliament and public advisors believe in economic growth as the main goal. This includes politicians who care about the environment.
Most politicians do not notice this conflict between economic growth and protecting the environment. Or they talk around it, because the belief in economic growth is so deeply part of their culture. So, in the West, the culture of growth shapes not only what we think but also what we do. What can we do to truly change our behavior and not fall back into old ways?
Section 6 – Strong community feeling can lead to lasting change.
The title Self-Thinking comes from the philosopher Immanuel Kant. He asked people to think for themselves to avoid being immature. But is it enough to just think for yourself?
People can act in ways that are totally against what they believe. In the West, we like to think that people freely choose how to act based on their beliefs. But this idea of humans is not real.
Many of us care about protecting the environment. But this usually doesn’t stop us from booking flights or buying smartphones. The habit of buying things and its attractions are simply stronger than our moral beliefs.
The many calls to save the environment are not enough. Campaigns like Save the World Day often only try to make people more aware of environmental problems. But they rarely or never lead to real changes in behavior.
These campaigns ask us to use less – “Use less so that people in 50 years might not have such a bad life”. Sadly, this message is much less appealing than the usual one: “Keep buying as much as you want, while there’s still something to get”.
That’s why we need a new movement. This movement should combine clear actions with fun group experiences. The anti-nuclear power movement in the 1980s was not successful for so long only because of what people believed. Instead, all members felt a strong sense of community. Activists often met with like-minded people to protest, share ideas, and have fun. The long work of this movement was a key reason why Germany stopped using nuclear power.
Today, such a movement must also be formed. It needs to attract new members and spread widely.
Section 7 – We need a vision again.
If you look at the environmental movement today, you will see something. It is now a firm part of the current system. It only aims for small changes to the way things are. It no longer creates real visions for the future.
In the 1980s, within the Green Party, a group called the “Realos” (realists) led by Joschka Fischer won against the “Fundis” (fundamentalists). The Fundis wanted to create a different system than capitalism. The Realos wanted to only fix the bad parts of the market economy.
Because of this, the Green Party and the whole environmental movement lost their vision. They stopped wanting to create a better and more beautiful future. Instead, they only wanted to make problems smaller. But a movement needs a vision to attract followers and encourage people to act together.
A vision of a good future gives people a very important feeling. It makes them feel that things could be different if they fight for it. This attitude also makes people believe they can truly make a difference by acting.
But today, most people feel they cannot change anything. So, they don’t feel motivated to act. Instead of a vision, our society has a hidden feeling of powerlessness.
We need to think of and create real alternatives to the capitalist system. This system is based on “always more”. Capitalism says that the meaning of life is to get more material wealth. But this system becomes dangerous when we use up too many resources. It threatens to destroy itself. The fewer resources there are, the fewer people can keep their “always more” lifestyle. This can lead to a lot of conflict.
So, we urgently need to create new ways of living. These new ways must be based on different values than just wanting more things. This is to stop a disaster in the future. But what are these values?
Section 8 – Responsibility and reuse are the new values for our time.
If you grow up with capitalism, you mainly see two values: individualism and materialism. As a society, we must put other, shared values against these. People are not just individuals; they are also always part of a group. So, we should value relationships between people more.
The common idea of humans as selfish or “economic beings” is simply wrong. People form relationships even if they expect no gain from them. Parent-child relationships do not fit the capitalist system. In our culture today, parents get no financial gain from raising their children. Human relationships are often rewarding in themselves.
One key thing about capitalism is how work is divided. For example, many different people work on many different steps to make a car. This means no one person feels responsible for whether the car is good for the environment or not. To change this, we must feel responsible again for what our actions cause. This sense of responsibility, broken by capitalism’s division of work, is needed for a sustainable future.
Fixing broken products and new ways of using things, like upcycling, are very important for a good, sustainable life. Sadly, few people today fix broken computers or mend holes in their clothes. Instead, things are just thrown away and new ones are bought. This fits the capitalist system, which is not interested in recycling. It only wants to make new products.
But new alternatives are already being tried: In big cities, you can now find cool second-hand shops. There are also stores that fix and reuse old electronics. New ways to use products creatively also lead to a sustainable life. For example, fruit and vegetables from local gardens are used to feed people at festivals. Another example is foodsharing. Here, leftover food is given away or traded for other goods online, instead of being thrown away.
New ways of living should not be about strict sacrifice. Instead, they should offer an attractive idea of a sustainable future.
Section 9 – Only a living alternative can balance capitalism.
Many people who care about the environment have wondered what they can do. They feel like just one person in a big system fighting environmental damage. The answer is simple: Just start acting!
We cannot expect change to come only from politics. We must fight for changes ourselves. Politics is part of the capitalist system. Because of this, it cannot create a true alternative. For example, climate meetings since 2005 have not had much success. But citizen groups have achieved a lot, as shown by the anti-nuclear movement.
It’s about trying out new ways of doing things. When these new ways succeed, they will inspire others to copy them. Big solutions, like communism, often lead to problems. It’s much better to try new lifestyles in small ways and learn from any mistakes. The success of these alternatives will create a counter-model to capitalism and attract others.
Here is a good example of taking small actions to make a change: After the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the Sladek couple in their hometown of Schönau wanted to create an eco-friendly alternative. After years of protesting, a public vote happened in 1991. This vote was about a citizen group buying the local power grid. The Sladeks and many other people won this vote.
From this, Elektrizitätswerke Schönau (EWS) was formed, once known as the ‘Schönau Power Rebels’. Since then, EWS has been owned by the citizens. It provides most of Schönau with electricity from renewable energy sources. Many customers also own a part of EWS by having solar panels on their roofs. Now, EWS even sells green electricity across Germany.
So, it is wrong to think that we as individuals cannot achieve anything. We just need to take the first step and try new alternatives. The motto is: Think for yourself and act on it. So, there is no excuse anymore to do nothing.
Summary
The main message of the book is:
We must create good alternatives to our “always more” culture. We need to try these new ways in real life. Only by doing this can we hope for a good future with a healthy environment.
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For further reading: The Smart Dictatorship by Harald Welzer
The digital age slowly and silently puts our democratic systems and values at risk. A system is growing where everyone watches themselves and their neighbors. Power is held by a small group of people.
Source: https://www.blinkist.com/https://www.blinkist.com/de/books/selbst-denken-de