Consumerism. His different nationwide PBS specials comprise sooner than his paintings in television, de Graaf used to be public affairs director for KUMD Radio in Duluth, Minnesota. He has taught documentary movie construction on the college of Washington and the Evergreen nation collage. he's the founding father of the Hazel Wolf Environmental movie competition and previous president of the Hazel Wolf Environmental movie community. he's the recipient of the Founders of a brand new North­ west Award for his paintings in environmental media. he's additionally the co­ chair of the general public coverage Committee for the Simplicity discussion board, a countrywide imagine tank for the Voluntary Simplicity flow. CW: i have been attempting to imagine via a politics of refusal that as­ sumes an "outside" to dominant assumptions approximately American politics and tradition. it really is transparent to me that by some means you stumbled on your self at the open air arguing opposed to what with regards to everything of the political spectrum considers "reasonable. " are you able to offer a quick autobiographical caricature of the way you came upon your self lots outdoors of "received political wisdom"? have been there significant impacts of an highbrow or functional nature for you? a hundred twenty five THE SPIRIT OF DISOBEDIENCE JD: there were many affects. the 1st used to be a adolescence spent backpacking within the Sierra Nevada (often purely with acquaintances, occasionally even on my own by means of the age of fifteen). I discovered the worth of solitude and an appreciation of the flora and fauna and formu­ lated my very own puzzling over what was once very important. yet it's not that i am a solitary individual, and my own event tells me that shar­ ing the sweetness of the realm with others is key-to my happi­ ness, at the least. I savour humans and town existence and human connection. Like my hero, David Brower-the Thoreau/Muir of twentieth-century America-I like desolate tract as "dessert. " still, my stories with desolate tract assisted in shaping an self sufficient spirit i feel. past this, my perspectives have been formed through my adventure with poverty as a VISTA volunteer on an Indian reservation from 1965 to 1967. I won a keenness for justice, yet I additionally discovered that stuff does not create happiness whilst I taught at the Navajo reservation in 1969 and observed that children who had not anything have been way more creative-they by no means said being bored-than my ten-year-old brother and his associates, whose rooms seemed like Toys 'R' Us shops and who al­ methods claimed they'd not anything to do. It was once continually transparent to me that i needed to manage my time-­ i did not are looking to be trapped. i did not are looking to need to quit these weeks of backpacking within the mountains-though now I seldom do it anymore given that i've got overfilled my very own agenda. My love for the surroundings intended that so-called caliber of existence politics continually appealed extra to me than conventional left politics. I got here to appreciate that the environment couldn't live on limitless growth-so that materialism was once not just now not the path to happiness; it is going to pave how you can biosphere cave in if left unchecked. I got here to appreciate this even greater whereas generating Affluenza.