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A comment on Marie Kondo betrays her whole premise by launching e-commerce store full of junk. Parent comment

Re:Marie Kondo betrays her whole premise by launching e-comm... by ip26 on Thursday November 21, 2019 @02:43PM (#21598623)
A minimalist as currently known in popular culture doesn't own a chest of tools for repairing their car or bicycle, or pans & knives & cooking spoons & such. They don't have monkey wrenches & a pipe sweating kit. They pay a mechanic or a restaurant or a plumber. Which is where the current complaint that you have to have money to be a minimalist comes from.
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Re:Marie Kondo betrays her whole premise by launching e-comm... by coldtea on Thursday November 21, 2019 @06:50PM (#21601072)
I understand where it comes from but I hardly see the point as real for several reasons:

1) The argument at the start of this thread was that you have to be "ultra rich" (exact wording) to be a minimalist. It's hardly just the "ultra rich" that "pay a mechanic" or pay a plumber, and you hardly need to be one to afford to do so. If anything it might be only the ultra poor that can't afford those things.

2) Almost every middle class and most working class people I know pays mechanics and plumbers. And according to what I've read, poor people are more likely to eat e.g. fast food and such than sit and cook (many just don't have the time/will due to working hard for one).

3) Even if all the above weren't true, it's still a moot point. If only the things that prevented people from being minimalists where "monkey wrenches & a pipe sweating kit" and such "chest of tools for repairing their car or bicycle, or pans & knives & cooking spoons & such". It's all the other BS that fills every room of every house...

4) I also don't know where the weird notion comes from that "aA minimalist as currently known in popular culture" doesn't own tools, or pans and knives and cooking spoons and such. Minimalists can own all of those things. They just get rid of BS stuff we all have but don't need.

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Re:Marie Kondo betrays her whole premise by launching e-comm... by JeremyNT on Thursday November 21, 2019 @07:41PM (#21601373)
This feels like a very narrow definition and I find it sad if this is the broader interpretation of minimalism in our society.

I don't find Kondo's advice in any way incompatible with a definition of minimalism that includes retaining the kinds of basic tools people use to perform common repair tasks. Certainly anybody who reads her book and decides to discard their tools and materials, being sure that they have the resources to replace them, is not a person who takes a very considered approach to consumption.

But I took away something different. Junk is something that is not useful, whose very creation is likely wasteful. Redundant items and keepsakes, unused gadgets, things that truly have no use and even whose decorative and sentimental value is lost (ie they do not spark joy). To me, implied in getting rid of junk, is also a dedication to not acquiring or creating junk, thus reducing the overall waste of resources one generates. Such a view should actually highly value preserving truly useful and reusable items since it results in fewer wasted resources.

Maybe that isn't the message most take from her work, or the message she intended, but to me it seems like a form of minimalism we could all aspire to.

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