Let’s get real

Gina PICCALO’S description of postmodern “real” (“Looking for ‘Real,’ ” Dec. 6) illustrates how absurdly ostentatious and deluded we have become as we search in vain for meaning through consumerism.

As a high school teacher who has taught the philosophical significance of Thoreau and Emerson, I have to laugh at the hyperbole of sociologist Paul H. Ray when he asserts that “now we’re talking about tens of millions” of people who have embraced the same simplicity that Henry David Thoreau espoused in “Walden.”

How many credit card-wielding yuppies with Hummers living the ascetic life of ranches in Telluride or Taos have even the faintest notion of simplicity and frugality?

Sadly, self-reliance in our time comes only with affluence, a far cry from a modest cabin, made of recycled materials, on Walden Pond. I doubt that the “authentic” staff of Whole Foods, with their “dreadlocks and tattoos,” have any of the financial wherewithal to achieve even a modest version of the corrupted self-reliance described in Piccalo’s article.

Eric J. Malstrom

Ontario

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I was deeply dissatisfied and almost affronted by the article’s blithe failure to address the biggest obstacle to “achieving authenticity” in this day and age: economics.

Roughly 26% to 29% of Americans, primarily women, who are deemed “cultural creatives” are able to be so because they are affluent. The average Jack and Jill in this country cannot afford the cost of such a lifestyle while keeping a roof over their heads and food in their children’s mouths.

Nicole Galland

Oakland