Experiments with Truth: Analysis
The man who lives without money
Original article at https://wagingnonviolence.org/experiments/man-lives-without-money/
Share This Article
Irishman Mark Boyle tried to live life with no income, no bank balance and no spending. Here’s how he finds it.
If someone told me seven years ago, in my final year of a business and economics degree, that I’d now be living without money, I’d have probably choked on my microwaved ready meal. The plan back then was to get a ‘good’ job, make as much money as possible, and buy the stuff that would show society I was successful.
For a while I did it – I had a fantastic job managing a big organic food company; had myself a yacht on the harbour. If it hadn’t been for the chance purchase of a video called Gandhi, I’d still be doing it today. Instead, for the last fifteen months, I haven’t spent or received a single penny. Zilch.
Having just suffered through another of crapitalist growth society’s premier consumer holidays, aka Xmass, I can’t seem to stop thinking of Hannah Arendt’s report on the banality of evil. What could possibly be wrong with celebrating Christmas with family and friends? When the patriarchy invented this consumer orgy to celebrate the birth of the “Son of God the Father” the Earth’s web-of-life screamed – that’s what is wrong! Political philosophers from Marx to Holloway have analyzed and elucidated in great detail what’s wrong with celebrating Xmass, to little avail. We just don’t seem to get the banality of evil. We just don’t seem to get how much evil occurs when good, decent caring people conform to the demands of a corrupt society without thinking about the connections and consequences of their actions. Thanks to Mark Boyle for imagining that a new world is possible and that our lives don’t necessarily have to be banal.