The rise of the New Puritans

Oxfam intern Emma Blackmore examines the emergence of a new breed of young person.

Are these fair trade campaigners 'New Puritans'?

According to Future Foundation, an organisation which specialises in forecasting consumer and business trends, we are experiencing the emergence of a new breed of young person who live their lives shunning all form of excessive living and potentially damaging everyday pleasures and luxuries.

The New Puritan does not binge drink, smoke, buy big brands, take cheap flights, eat junk food, have multiple sexual partners, waste money on designer clothes, grow beyond their optimum weight, subscribe to celebrity magazines, drive flash cars or live to watch television. These people seek to reject any form of enjoyment which has a negative effect on health or the environment and are happy to assault other people’s pleasure seeking as well.

Not only do they make personal ‘ethical’ life choices, but also argue that government legislation should ensure others are forced to make choices which coincide with their own ‘hyper moral’ way of life. The Future Foundation reported that 30 per cent of people now feel that a pregnant woman smoking at a bar should be given a police caution. Similarly, they believe that the Government should launch a campaign to stop people from drinking at home and over 1/3 of people believe we should think twice before giving chocolate and sweets as gifts. They reject big brands, a symbol of our modern consumer led lifestyle, arguing that they ‘run roughshod over communities, public health and morality’.

Some experts in human behaviour argue that New Puritans are the sign of a maturing civil society – people who have opted for a different way of life in response to an excessive, damaging and consumer-led world.

So are these people the sign of a brighter future? Are they making the world a better, safer and healthier place? Or are they casting a dark moral shadow over the everyday pleasures we are more than entitled to?

No doubt many of us have an aspect of New Puritanism to us and we sensibly choose to deprive ourselves of certain ‘pleasures’, which can harm our health, the environment and the well-being of society as a whole. Why should we be made to feel guilty because we make ethical decisions? The only people who want to condemn us for these choices are the business and organisations who are set to make a loss if we chose to live differently. I believe these can only ever be positive choices, which make a small but important step towards righting the wrongs our capitalist, consumer-led way of life has committed to the environment and humanity.

Visit The Guardian website to find out if you are a New Puritan.