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Then things got dicey.
然后情况变得不确定起来。
Some permanent pens accidentally went into a load of washing with nearly all my clothes. Still, I resisted buying new ones.
一些不可擦除的笔不小心和我几乎所有的衣服一起洗了。不过，我还是拒绝买新的衣物。
But then, the next month, we saw a great house for us.
但是，下个月，我们看到了一栋适合我们的大房子。
We made an offer, knowing – half-accepting, half-denying – that to make it our home, we would have to buy a lot more than five things each.
我们提出一个报价，心里明白——半接受，半否认——要想把它变成我们的家，我们每人需要买的物品将远超过五件。
When our slow-buy year was on the brink of failure after just six months, I came across a harsh but hilarious screed against minimalism, written by Chelsea Fagan of the Financial Diet blog.
仅仅6个月后，当我们的缓慢购买年计划濒临失败时，我看到了一篇严厉但有趣的反对极简主义的文章，作者是The Financial Diet博客的切尔西·费根。
Fagan levels multiple arguments against all forms of minimalism.
费根对所有形式的极简主义提出了多种反对意见。
She writes that it is classist, a fad for the rich, because people in real poverty don’t have to worry about what not to buy, and because of how expensive “sustainable” and “heirloom” items often are.
她写道，这带有阶级主义偏见，是富人一时的风尚，因为真正贫穷的人不需要担心不买什么，也因为“可持续”和“传家宝式”的物品通常十分昂贵。
“‘Stop wasting money on all that Ikea nonsense!’” Fagan imagined a minimalist saying.
费根设想了一位极简主义者的说辞：“别再把钱浪费在宜家那些乱七八糟的东西上了!
“‘With this $4,000 dining table hand-whittled by a failed novelist in Scandinavia, you will never need another piece of furniture!’ – which really just points to having enough disposable income to ‘invest’ in your wardrobe and surroundings.”
‘有了这张价值4000美元的餐桌，你再也不需要其他家具了。这张餐桌是斯堪的纳维亚一位失败的小说家用手工雕刻而成的!’——这实际上只是表明你有足够的可支配收入来‘投资’衣橱和周围环境。”
Furthermore, she derides the idea that a simple aesthetic and decluttering equals moral worth, a “faux spiritualism”.
此外，她嘲笑那种将简单的审美和整洁等同于道德价值的想法，这是一种“虚假的唯心主义”。
Every form of minimalism, Fagan concludes, “is just another form of conspicuous consumption, a way of saying to the world, ‘Look at me! Look at all of the things I have refused to buy, and the incredibly expensive, sparse items I have deemed worthy instead!’”
费根总结道，每种形式的极简主义“都是另一种形式的炫耀性消费，是以一种方式对世人说，‘看看我! 看看那些我拒绝购买的东西，以及那些我认为值得购买的昂贵而稀少的东西!’”
Others have pointed out that attacking consumption itself in order to solve the problems of over-consumption is unlikely to succeed.
还有人指出，通过打击消费本身来解决过度消费的问题不太可能成功。
Consumerism has become a symbol of liberty and democratic equality – in today’s world, the idea goes, anyone can consume anything, and thus be turned into the person they want to be.
消费主义已经成为自由和民主平等的象征——在当今世界，这种观念认为，任何人都可以消费任何东西，从而成为他们想成为的人。
The symbolic glow of consumption cannot simply be turned off.
具有象征性的消费的光芒不能简单地熄灭。
