X-Message-Number: 15841
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: "A Hazard of Good Fortunes"
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 20:10:20 -0800

From:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/11/magazine/11WWLN.html?pagewanted=all

March 11, 2001


A Hazard of Good Fortunes

by Gregg Easterbrook



Ten years ago America won the cold war, and now, with a significant tax cut 
very likely, is about to declare victory on the domestic front too; things 
are well enough under control that government can reduce its claim on our 
income, giving most people more money to spend. And why not declare victory? 
By almost every measure, life in the United States today is the best it has 
ever been: ever-rising living standards; rising life expectancy and falling 
rates of disease; low unemployment; declining rates of crime, pollution and 
poverty; low risk of war; unlimited supplies of just about everything; 
personal freedom never greater. This is America's Golden Age.
So if things are so great, why don't we seem pleased? Poll data show that 
the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as "happy" has not 
increased since the 1950's. Incidence of unipolar depression -- the disorder 
in which a person always feels bad -- has increased tenfold in the United 
States in recent decades, and the causes don't appear biological. 
Contemporary American public discourse consists almost exclusively of 
complaints, often at near-hysteria pitch. Formula No. 1A of modern movies 
and books is that society is going to hell in a handbasket, even as almost 
everything -- including the fortunes of the people making the movies and 
writing the books -- continues to improve.


Standard American conversation today often boils down to: bitch, bitch, 
bitch. There's too much traffic; the cable bill went up; the service isn't 
perfect; etc., etc. People are even complaining about the coming tax cut -- 
complaining about getting a tax cut. In the last few days, how many times 
have you heard someone express gratitude or happiness, versus complain? How 
many times have you expressed gratitude or happiness, versus complaining? 
Recently, with my kids at a Burger King, I found myself mumbling under my 
breath about the wait for our order. Fast food takes too long, I complained. 
It may seem incredible that America has constructed a society in which 
people can think such a thought, but admit it, you've entertained this 
gripe, too, haven't you? Circumstances just keep getting better, and 
Americans just keep complaining. Future historians may someday categorize 
the progression of society into agricultural age, manufacturing age, 
grousing age.

Psychological research shows that people rapidly adjust their perceptions of 
life circumstances. As standards rise, most men and women almost immediately 
begin taking gains for granted -- what were yesterday's luxuries really do 
become today's necessities. Already a 2,230-square-foot, 2.5-bath home (the 
median figures for new homes built last year) doesn't seem like a reward for 
which we should be appreciative but rather just the launching pad for the 
next level of middle-class acquisition angst. Those big new houses start 
feeling cramped as we fill them up with stuff, and once a certain critical 
mass is achieved, something always breaks, creating perpetual irritation. 
Excess materialism can also cause people to generate their own complaints, 
even on a big budget. One of the few trend lines about contemporary American 
life that isn't favorable is the national savings rate. Spending every 
dollar rather than saving a few embeds anxiety in daily life, a point raised 
by Juliet Schor, a Harvard economist.

Meanwhile it is the movement in living standards, not the standards 
themselves, to which most people are keenly attuned. As David Myers, a 
social scientist, wrote in 1999 in "The Pursuit of Happiness," "Better than 
a high income is a rising income," since it is the rising rather than the 
money that engenders the sense of gain. And though real income for the 
typical American has almost tripled in the postwar period, the rate of rise 
has slowed in recent years, except for the top quintile. Thus it's common to 
hear people assert they are "worse off than their parents were" when 
objectively they are much better off, just not gaining as rapidly as parents 
once did, relative to their parents' more modest starting position.

Skewed perceptions also reveal themselves in the widespread conviction that 
Americans are time-stressed in a historically unprecedented way. This may be 
true for some individuals, especially in two-income families with small 
children, but for society as a whole, the time-bind notion is an urban myth. 
As John Robinson of the University of Maryland and Geoffrey Godbey of Penn 
State University have demonstrated, today typical Americans have more 
leisure time than at any point in the nation's history. As a nation we've 
gained almost one extra hour of leisure per person per day since the early 
1960's, and this figure holds even for working mothers.

So why doesn't America seem appreciative of its state? To a certain extent, 
grumbling amid plenty is simply human nature: as Jacques Brel sang, "Sons of 
the rich, sons of the saint/where is the child without complaint?" 
Complaining also serves as a psychological self-defense mechanism. Many fear 
that the good times cannot continue, and subconsciously inoculate themselves 
against bad luck by refusing to feel too pleased. Plus we all know that 
complacency leads directly to disaster. And if there is one thing 
stressed-out, hardworking, complaining Americans surely are not, it is 
complacent. The American character may be so fundamentally entwined with 
striving that we will grouse no matter how much better circumstances get.

There's reason to be concerned about this auto-complaint syndrome, of 
course. If we're dissatisfied and in many cases even feel sorry for 
ourselves when times are good, what might happen if trends reverse and 
hardship lies ahead? Imagine if Americans really had something to complain 
about.

Gregg Easterbrook, a senior editor at The New Republic, is working on a book 
about whether life is getting better.

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