Minimalism is killing us: Re-awaken your senses, bring back joy | Ingrid Fetell Lee | Big Think

Minimalism is killing us: Re-awaken your senses, bring back joy
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The feeling of joy has become associated with immaturity, resulting in a culture of drabness.

Minimalism is now the dominant aesthetic of nearly every artistic medium.

There is an antidote to the deadening of our senses brought on by cultural minimalism.
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INGRID FETELL LEE:

Ingrid Fetell Lee is a former Design Director at global innovation firm IDEO and founder of the blog The Aesthetics of Joy, a leading resource in the field of emotional design.

With over a decade of experience in design and branding, she holds an MA in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and a BA in English and Creative Writing from Princeton University.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Ingrid Fetell Lee: I think one of the reasons we don't feel joy as much as we might like is because we have a culture in which joy is judged often as frivolous, as childish, as superficial. And its interesting to think about where this actually comes from. It has pretty deep roots in our culture.
So if you look in 1810 Goethe wrote in his Theory of Color that savage nations, uneducated people, and children typically prefer bright colors whereas people of refinement avoid color in their dress and try to banish color from the objects about them. And what happens in this equation is that were seeing the equivalency between savage nations, so uncivilized people, primitiveness, a lack of sophistication or education and children. And those are being equated to the sort of aesthetics, the tangible manifestations of joy in our culture. And when you look at the roots of this a lot of it stems from colonialism. So you had a bunch of Europeans getting on boats going around the world trying to conquer other peoples and when they found these sort of uninhibited displays of emotion, when they found festivals and dancing and drumming and colorful dwellings and outfits they felt a need to distance themselves from those behaviors.
And so what happened was European culture became more and more emotionally repressed as a result. So we had to get rid of the color in our surroundings because that was uncivilized. We had to get rid of our sort of exuberant and playful displays. And you actually see this when in certain colonies when settlers would arrive they would bring their pretty raucous festivalsI mean Carnival originated in Europe and it was a pretty raucous festival there. They would bring it to these colonies like In Trinidad and Tobago, for example. And then once they got there they realized the had to stop visibly celebrating and they started having formal balls instead of, you know, wild celebrations, because that made the seem too close to the natives. And so joy became repressed within our culture, and in its place we got this sense of seriousness that this is what is valued. And that became reflected in our aesthetic culture as well.
Over the past few years the dominant aesthetic has been an aesthetic of minimalism. And we've been encouraged to sort of simplify and strip back our possessions in our homes and sort of get to very simple gray, beige interiors.
And in a way this has been described as sort of reaction to all of the overstimulation thats going on in our devices, that it sort of helps us relax. But, in fact, what we find is that minimalist interiors actually can be very stressful. That when you look at our sort of natural love of abundance and lushness and textures and sensation, when you actually deprive us of sensations we go a little bit crazy. And a study I love that sort of explores this had a bunch of people sitting in a room, and all they had to entertain themselves was a machine that gave electric shocks. And after only a few minutes of sitting alone in a bare, unadorned room they started giving themselves quite painful electric shocks rather than sit without any stimulation. So the brain seeks and craves stimulation.
And when it doesn't have that it will sort of seek it out even in ways that maybe aren't so adaptive.
A real world example where you can see this craving for abundance sort of overwhelming the modernist desire for minimalism happened in the planned city of Brasilia. So the city was planned out, it was designed as a truly modern city with sort of uniform blocks of buildings that all looked alike and were very simple and modern and orderly in their design. And what happened as people began to move...

[lp]

All the top comments are about how they disagree because the simplicity of minimalism is actually making their lives better. But she's not talking about it in terms of possessions. She's talking about our artistic taste. Paint your walls a vivid color rather than grey. It's like no one even watched the video to see what she meant.

You may also be able to think about it like this: would you rather have that simplistic abstract modern art (like a painted square in a square), or something like Dali's work? Would you rather have those plain white and glassy apartments, or something more elaborate like victorian architecture?

I immediately saw it this way, so I agree with her.

[IDIDNTORDERANYSOUP]

She's not saying that you should buy lots of things to bring yourself joy - she means to have things of great value to yourself, colors, beauty to bring you joy in your life. This fits with minimalism, and I don't understand how the title is 'minimalism is killing us'

[MatthewStinar]

It's useful to differentiate between minimizing possessions and minimizing decorations. I like to think I can minimize the objects in my life without creating a band, withering environment. Right now I'm trying to reduce the amount of stuff on my shelves, but my walls are covered in art.

[thoyo]

I feel like minimalism nowadays may be more of a reaction to over stimulation, especially from ubiquitous multimedia.

[AnnaAE]

You can be a minimalist and still utilize color and texture in clothing and decor. Minimalism does not equal spartan, colorless furnishings. Minimalism means you keep what you love and use and reduce the things you don't love or use.

[phipsdeus]

Too many of us are broke, have no deeper meaning, or deeply in debt. That's why too many of us have no joy.

[McLKeith]

This is a poorly thought out thesis. Minimalism or even having some restraint is not killing us. It is not minimalism that is killing us. It is our thinking that we need lots of possessions and be constantly active that is killing us. It is true that a study showed that bored people in an experiment would shock themselves. It doesn’t: seem to have occurred to Lee that maybe these subjects just hadn’t learned how to sit calmly and peacefully. Lee doesn’t mention meditators sitting for hours in peace. So while Blaise Pascal said: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly alone in a room”, that only means most people haven’t learned sit quietly.

[DoomRulz]

You're not wrong but we live in a society where the opposite of minimalism means consuming as much as possible, even if it means accumulating debt in the process. We have no understanding of how to find happiness in anything other than material goods.

[trish.goes.ironman]

Minimalism ain't killing me... It's making me free and I feel like I'm living more actually. Minimalism doesn't mean depriving yourself of the things you want and it certainly doesn't mean... changing your wardrobe and furniture 'for the sake of minimalism's aesthetics' - if that's your ONLY reason, I suggest... don't even start. Frankly, this whole concept shall teach an individual not to be greedy and practice sustainable living economically.

[EMVelez]

I went to see an art exhibit in Santa Fe New Mexico last month that featured modern fashions made by indigenous people. The thing that struck me most was how bright and colorful nearly all of the designs were. It was beautiful to me to see so much joy put into the clothing and designs. Why don't we dress like this anymore? It feels like all the life has been sucked out of modern life. It's literally killing us. Killing our souls, at the least.

[josuecallejero]

There needs to be a balance, certainly. The Ancient Greeks said it best, with 'Nothing to excess, ' and 'Worship the mean.'

[gigantkranion]

I love minimalism.

It provides me with an open canvas in my home to fill with my own skill and projects... I happily call myself a DIY minimalist.

Got a blank wall? Go out and paint it myself.

Let me paint a picture, frame it and put on there as well... not sit and shock myself...

Minimalism, in my home decor, allows me to truly think and know what my room needs. If my needs change and add something else or something less... the best part is that I usually make my own things myself. Saving money, wasting less, gaining experiences and feeling pride in what little I do have. Yes, I won't have as much as the next guy/gal who goes out and easily buys all of their things.

But, my home is a true reflection of who I am... a work in progress...

[DLFfitness]

There is a big difference between being poor and being a minimalist. Getting rid of things that I don’t use on a regular basis has been a game changer. Most people fall victim to marketing and the constant messaging of more.

[OdditiesandRarities]

Finally someone said it! there has always been a backlash to minimalism. I think buildings need to express the culture of a society. Say no to the internationalists!

[hi]

On the flip side you can train your brain to not require constant stimulation to feel joy. She is also defining minimalism as a one dimensional - white or off white/grey walls, rather than a more cohesive definition where you reduce the unnecessary possessions you have that do not give you joy or serve a purpose. We are talking about two separate things, a minimalist aesthetic vs functional minimalism.
Some people find minimalist interiors stressful but others find them peaceful and relaxing. Different people like different things.

[SauloGoki]

If you think "minimalism" is killing us, you're not praticing "minimalism",
you're simply self-deprivating from things you REALLY NEED.
Respectfully speaking, of course, improve your research and come back later.

[MarkArandjus]

You can be a minimalist and still be a colorful joyful individual;
Minimalism has helped me reduce a ton of stress and junk and has made me trade quantity for quality in life and hasn't hindered me from enjoying say Thor Ragnarok one bit :)
Also just not true, Europe is plenty full of color and vibrance and always has been.

[avp_]

I thought that the study she referenced, regarding how a person would sooner give themselves a painful shock in a dull room than just sit still in a dull room, was less about our desire for the aesthetic and more about our inability to sit alone with ourselves, in a room, with our own thoughts. When I first heard of that study, I took it as a message to learn to be with ourselves, to look within, to observe our own thoughts and not be so dependent on external stimuli to distract us from ourselves. She seemed to interpret it as a message to find more colourful, less harmful distractions.

[moderntheurgist]

Minimalism is the one of the best philosophy that I have followed. Its fundamental truths have been preached by the best philosophers around the world. Extreme consumerism is extremely ugly. The best example is black friday shopping spree.

[johnbouttell]

Dear Ingrid, Have you not seen an IKEA advert? You say, 'we’ve been encouraged to sort of simplify and strip back our possessions in our homes and sort of get to very simple gray, beige interiors.' Have you not been watching tv? Or shopping on Amazon?