Jose Chitala

College Writing 109C

Professor Jordan Ruyle
September 10, 2018
Forget Shorter Showers Summary
The article ​Forget Shorter Showers​ by Derrick Jensen centers on Earth’s ongoing
environmental crisis. By examining the big-picture, Jensen concludes that large agents of
capitalism -such as large corporations, agribusiness, and some government actors- are most
responsible for the aforementioned crises. Jensen provides figures for the levels of water, energy
and waste usage of the aforementioned large-scale actors of capitalism, and these dwarf the
figures of common citizens. Additionally, Jensen claims that not only has a dogma of capitalism
and consumerism allowed large corporations to pollute the planet, but this individualist
headspace has also manipulated citizens to seek individualist solutions to the crisis.
Jensen observes one such individualist solution: simple living (Jensen 2009). Jensen
describes simple living as, among other things, taking shorter showers to reduce water
consumption and recycling old goods to lessen waste creation. Jensen has several problems with
this approach. The first problem is that it is ineffective at significantly reducing pollution and
depletion levels because average citizens leave a tiny footprint on the environment compared to
large corporations and government bodies. A second problem Jensen has with simple living is
that the logic behind it adds dimensions to the responsibility placed on average citizens in the
environmental crisis.
Specifically, Jensen identifies four flaws in the logic of simple living. The first is that
simple living -as an effort to reduce consumption and waste- paints human beings as only being
capable of harming the planet and ignores humans’ capacities to restore it. The second reason
that in attempting to reduce their individual waste levels, individuals subconsciously adopt the
blame for the crisis, relieving large corporations and other large actors of their large share of
culpability. The third reason is that simple living reduces citizens to consumers, and on top it
that, it politicizes the question of consumption, overlooking other forms of political participation
such as engaging in elections. The last problem Jensen has with the logic of simple living is that
he claims that it leads to the conclusion that ceasing to exist would be the best thing a person
could do for the planet.
Ultimately, Derrick Jensen argues that an individualist solution like simple living would
be ineffective. Instead, he proposes a solution of an opposite nature: collective action. Jensen
both opens and closes the piece by invoking the memory of past global crises to support his
claim that what is required is a movement of activists. In the case of present day, this would
involve dismantling the system which allows corporations and other agents of capitalism to
abuse the environment and the citizenry.