People just don't get it. The target is affluence and living well, not cow farts. The West's affluence has been in their sights as a target for the longest of time. Many of politically liberal views are ashamed of affluence. Jimmy Carter, in his "Crisis of Confidence" speech of July 15, 1979, often called the "Malaise" speech, stated in part
(link):
Jimmy Carter said:
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.
Earlier examples are the "sumptuary laws" from Elizabethan England. I came across this from
Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by
Gordon S. Wood. The word "sumptuary" means "relating to personal expenditures and especially to prevent extravagance and luxury" and sumptuary laws means laws "designed to regulate extravagant expenditures or habits especially on moral or religious grounds." (
link to source).
There is a strain that goes back before the start of European civilization in America that sees a positive value in self-abnegation. I did not realize that this went back beyone the days of John Adams and further, to Puritan times. I had thought that this philosophy of life seeped into the U.S. via books such as the 1950's classic by
John Kenneth Galbraith,
The Affluent Society. This foreshadowed by other authors and thinkers, such as
Travels with Charley: In Search of America by
John Steinbeck. In
Travels Steinbeck rails against conspicuous consumption and other signs of affluence. Going back to ancient Greek time, there was a philosopher named Epicuris, who believed (
link to source) that was decidedly the opposite from Puritanism, for convenience called epicurean-ism.
I did not think of any modern connections in thought, Indeed, I had thought that this line of thinking was recent.
