Slow movement (culture)

The Slow Movement is a cultural shift toward slowing down life's pace.

Time Poverty

The principle perspective of slow is to experience life in a fundamentally different way. For millenia, sages have taught that the experience of being present leads to what [Maslow] refers to as peak experience.

The International Institute of Not Doing Much (IINDM) is an approach to time poverty, incivility, and workaholism through humor and storytelling. The Institute’s fictional presence promotes counter-urgency. First created in 2005, SlowDownNow.org is a continually evolving work of art and humor which reports it has 3,000 members. Author, Christopher Richards, is at work on The International Institute of Not Doing Much’s Guide to Slowing Down.

Slow Dimensions

The Slow Movement began with Carlo Petrini's protest against the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Piazza di Spagna, Rome that sparked the creation of the Slow Food organization. Over time, this developed into a subculture in other areas, such as Slow Travel, Slow Shopping, and Slow Design.

Geir Berthelsen and his creation of The World Institute of Slowness presented a vision in 1999 for an entire 'Slow Planet' and a need to teach the world the way of Slow.

Professor Guttorm Fløistad summarizes the philosophy, stating:

The only thing for certain is that everything changes. The rate of change increases. If you want to hang on you better speed up. That is the message of today. It could however be useful to remind everyone that our basic needs never change. The need to be seen and appreciated! It is the need to belong. The need for nearness and care, and for a little love! This is given only through slowness in human relations. In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection and togetherness. There we will find real renewal.

The Slow Movement is not organized and controlled by a singular organization; however, several large efforts have large followings, such as Slow Down Now and The World Institute of Slowness. Many other smaller groups are cropping up around the globe.

A principal characteristic of the Slow Movement is that it is propounded, and its momentum maintained, by individuals that constitute the expanding global community of Slow. Although it has existed in some form since the Industrial Revolution its popularity has grown considerably since the rise of Slow Food and Cittaslow in Europe, with Slow initiatives spreading as far as Australia and Japan.

Slow Food

Further information: Slow Food

Opposed to the culture of fast food, the sub-movement known as Slow Food seeks to encourage the enjoyment of regional produce, traditional foods, which are often grown organically and to enjoy these foods in the company of others. It aims to defend agricultural biodiversity.

The movement claims 83,000 members in 50 countries, which are organized into 800 Convivia or local chapters. Sometimes operating under a logo of a snail, the collective philosophy is to preserve and support traditional ways of life. Today, 42 states in the U.S. have their own convivium.

In 2004, representatives from food communities in more than 150 countries met in Turin under the umbrella of the Terra Madre (Mother Earth) network.

Slow Money

Further information: Slow Money

Slow Money is a movement to organize investors and donors to steer new sources of capital to small food enterprises, organic farms, and local food systems. Slow Money takes its name from the Slow Food movement. Slow Money aims to develop the relationship between capital markets and place, including social and soil fertility. Slow Money is supporting the grass-roots mobilization through network building, convening, publishing, and incubating intermediary strategies and structures of funding.

Cittaslow

Further information: Cittaslow

The goals of the Cittaslow movement is to resist the homogenization and globalization of towns and cities and seeks to improve the quality and enjoyment of living by encouraging happiness and self-determination.

Slow Parenting

Main article: Slow parenting

Slow parenting encourages parents to plan less for their children, instead allowing them to enjoy their childhood and explore the world at their own pace. It is a response to hyper-parenting and helicopter parenting, the widespread trend for parents to schedule activities and classes after school every day and every weekend, to solve problems on behalf of the children, and to buy services from commercial suppliers rather than letting nature take its course. It was described most specifically by Carl Honoré in "Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children From The Culture Of Hyper-Parenting".

Slow Travel

Slow Travel is an evolving movement that has taken its inspiration from nineteenth-century European travel writers, such as Théophile Gautier, who reacted against the cult of speed, prompting some modern analysts to ask "If we have slow food and slow cities, then why not slow travel?" . Other literary and exploration traditions, from early Arab travellers to late nineteenth-century Yiddish writers, have also identified with slow travel, usually marking its connection with community as its most distinctive feature.

Advocates of slow travel argue that all too often the potential pleasure of the journey is lost by too eager anticipation of arrival. Slow travel, it is asserted, is a state of mind which allows travellers to engage more fully with communities along their route, often favouring visits to spots enjoyed by local residents rather than merely following guidebooks . As such, slow travel shares some common values with ecotourism. Its advocates and devotees generally look for low-impact travel styles, even to the extent of eschewing flying.

Aspects of slow travel, including some of the principles detailed in the Manifesto for Slow Travel, are now becoming to feature in travel writing. A new book series launched in May 2010 by Bradt Travel Guides explicitly espouses slow travel ideas with volumes that focus very much on local communities within a tightly defined area, often advocating the use of public transport along the way. Titles include Slow Norfolk and Suffolk, Slow Dorset and Exmoor and Slow North Yorkshire.

Slow Art

Slow art is an evolving movement championed by such proponents as Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic and columnist for the New York Times. It advocates appreciating an art work in itself as opposed to a rapid, flitting witnessing of art common in a hectic societal setting. One of its central tenets is that people often seek out what they already know as opposed to allowing the artist to present a journey or piece in its entirety.

Another interpretation of Slow Art relates to creating art in a slow way. This practice is about being mindful of detail, valuing the history inherrent in re-usable materials, putting time into creating small items. The practice encourages the maker to be naturally meditative as they create. "Slow" ends up being a way of being. An example of local makers creating in this way is highlighted by those involved with the inaugural Eastside Makers Market in Tasmania.

Slow Media

Slow Media is a movement aiming at sustainabile and focused media production as well as media consumption. It formed in the context of a massive acceleration of news distribution ending in almost real-time digital media such as Twitter. Beginning 2010 many local Slow Media initiatives formed in the USA and Europe (Germany, France, Italy) leading to a high attention in mass-media. Others experiment with a reduction of their daily media intake and log their efforts online ("Slow Media Diet").

See also

• African time
• Carl Honoré
• In Praise of Slow
• Simple living
• Slow parenting
• Slow architecture
• Slow Food
• Slow reading
• Slow Sex Movement
• Slowth
• Slowcore (music)

References

• Slow Down Now
• Manifesto of the Sustainable Worker