Nathan Thompson

Engl 1010

Dr. Mugavero

March 18, 2024

A Simpler Way

Imagine living in a tiny house not much bigger than a tool shed. The shed-house does not

have running water or electricity. The only light you have is a kerosene lamp and some candles.

In the morning you must get up and tend to the community garden before helping your neighbor

build their house. In the Australian wilderness outside of Melbourne, there are 20 or so acres of

land that has been named Wurruk’an. The name Wurruk’an is derived from a local word

“wurruk” which means earth and story, combined with the Mayan word “Kan” which means

seed. This is a great name for the ecovillage and intentional community that was created and still

exists there. In the film A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity there have been people living in

just such a community, who are sowing their own seeds of an earth story. They hope the seeds of

their earth story grow into an example for the rest of the world. That a simple life is possible, and

that it is worth working for. Our planet and its inhabitants are obviously in a state of crisis

because of industrialization, the desire for affluence, and global economies. A simpler way

suggests that if we abandoned these ways of living and tried to live simpler by consuming less

and working together that the earth and its inhabitants would be happier and healthier. While I

agree with A Simpler Way: Crisis in Opportunity up to a point about the need to change the way

we interact with one another and the planet. I cannot accept that the film presents a practical

solution to changing either of these interactions.

The film effectively uses credibility from experts as well as emotional appeal, by using

both expert opinions and personal experiences from the residences of Wurruk’an to help make its
arguments easy to understand and agree with. The movie has two types of interviewees there are

experts on different aspects of simple living things like permaculture, localization, purposeful

community, energy consumption and the economy. Then there are the actual participants of

Wurruk’an. There is a pattern throughout the film where it introduces one of the main arguments

by talking to one of the Wurruk’an’s residents about the point the film is trying to make, and then

the film moves to an expert on that same point. A good example of this is when the film

introduces Ross Iness-McLeish he speaks about having a deep love of nature from a young age,

how he as he grew up, he realized that were “serious, even moral problems with the way we treat

our home.” The film then cuts to two of its best interviews, one with climate change expert

David Sprat. The other with Nichole Foss, a renewable energy and economics expert. Both

harshly condemn most of the accepted ways of thinking about climate change, and our ability to

solve the problem. David Spratt calling people “bright siding” in other words, people just telling

themselves that everything is going to be ok is the moral problem that Ross was talking about.

This is a combination of ethos and logos that the film uses to help make its argument easier to

accept. It starts with the Wurruk’an resident, a relatable seeming, everyday kind of normal

person. This creates a greater credibility, and emotional appeal before switching it up and

showing an expert talk about hard fact and science of the issue. As David Pratt puts it “we are

dealing with a brutal reality.”

The film makes a good argument for permaculture and changing the way we think about

how we get our food. There is a powerful quote from the film by Zainil Zainuddin that is “food is

more than just fuel for our bodies… it’s our connection to the land.” If you have been to the

grocery store recently or had to buy food, you may have noticed how it’s becoming increasingly

difficult to find food that is affordable and nutritious. A Simpler Way appeals to our emotions and
our stomachs through the whole film by showing fresh, colorful, and tasty looking food. This is

a very clever way of contrasting over processed food shipped across the world with a simpler

way of fresh food right from our own garden. The film makes it clear that there are several

problems with the current agricultural systems and food supply chain. Some of these problems

include the overuse of pesticides and chemicals used to grow food. The film offers permaculture

and localization as an answer to these problems. Permaculture is described as permanent

agriculture, which is intended to mimic nature. It is a self-cycling system that creates no waste.

Its main features are sustainable land use and sustainable living. It seems that even with all the

technology available to us today we would have found a better way to effectively grow food,

besides spraying poison on everything. This method has proven to be disastrous for not only

people but the whole environment.

Although I agree with much of what the film has to say about how we grow our food, I

cannot accept the solution they offer that growing our own food is a viable alternative. The

current system of growing food in poor countries to feed rich countries is one of the cornerstones

of globalization and seems an even less viable option than growing all our own food.

The standard way of thinking about globalization is that it is a good thing. Expert Helena

Norber-Hodge rejects this way of thinking and calls for localization. In other words, she

theorizes that if our economy was based less on big multinational banks and corporations, and

more on smaller more community driven economies, that there are likely benefits to the

environment, and human health. The film uses her expertise to call help make its argument about

the need for smaller, more local economies and stronger communities. In the film Wurruk’an

resident Taj is appalled by the fact that watermelons are on sale at the grocery store out of

season. Growing up in the in a rich country, going to the grocery store, I had just come to accept
that all the fruits and vegetables are always in season and available. The film is effective here at

making an argument that most people have likely never even considered. Thinking about how far

away some of our food comes from, and the amount of effort put into to transportingfd food

around the world.

Those unfamiliar with the school of thought may be interested to know it basically boils

down to the fact that technology is not helping the situation. The expert Ted Trainer from the

film implores “if technology is going to solve or fix problems then when is it going to start.”

The film makes several other claims that technology is not helping fix climate change or wealth

inequality. Nicole Foss even claims that blind faith in technology is only making things worse.

The film really relies on the credibility of these experts here. The film gets most of its emotional

appeal from the Wurrk’an residents, and they use every piece of technology they can to make

things work. This interesting juxtaposition shows that we don’t have to abandon all of our

modern tools and convenience to live simpler.

A Simpler Way contradicts itself. On the one hand it argues for self-reliance, on the other

hand it also advocates for stronger communities. The film shows all the residents of its

intentional community to be very harmonious, for example whenever they have to build a new

place for someone to live it speeds up the frames and ques up the upbeat energetic music. Then it

shows a dozen or so people all working in harmony, having a good time, while seemingly

constructing a place for someone to live in the blink of an eye. This is one of the harder parts of

the film to accept. The idea of intentional communities must be one of the harder concepts in the

film for people from countries that stress individualism to agree with and accept. It doesn’t seem

realistic that the people living in Wurruk’an never ran into internal conflict and issues with

interpersonal relationships. I can see why the film would just brush over any of these types of
issues that might have occurred. There are just some subtitles that explain that some of the

residents had moved on to other projects before the year was over.

I am of two minds about A Simpler Way: Crisis in opportunity. On one hand, I agree that

there is a need to change the way interact with one another and the planet, and that makes this

argument effective. On the other hand, I don’t think the film presents a practical alternative.

Perhaps the film isn’t trying to suggest that everyone throughout the whole world start living

simpler, but rather that it can just be accomplished it all. While the film does seem unrealistic at

times and doesn’t do the best job of showing what living in Wurruk’an for a year would have

been like. In one of the interviews towards the end of the film they briefly mention that there

were arguments, some of the buildings leaked, and they did get to the grocery store to

occasionally buy food. A Simpler way still offers valuable insight into how living a simpler life

can be good for the individual, the community, and the entire planet. The film is very good at

sowing seeds of thought and conversation about everyday parts of life that most people

don’t even consider.