It’s hard to believe America’s failing.
We’re so prosperous, powerful, a leader in technology, science, health. By many measures, no nation in history has been as big and dominant as we. We’ve enjoyed an unprecedented stretch of peace, only marred by small wars. We’re a wow – we were, anyway. But now, the evidence suggests, we’re failing. This may be the only question about which our fractious nation can agree. Game over, stick a fork in us, we’re done.
How come? To each, their culprit. Immigrants, pointy-head elitists, abortionists, evangelists, plutocrats, racists, feminists, the media, the Internet, almost any ethnic group has been accused. The party in power sucks. So will the other party, when it assumes power. Nothing’s going right. The Chinese are better off than we are – the Russians – Hungarians – New Zealanders – pretty much anybody, the data notwithstanding. No, we’re not down on our luck, not completely, not yet, but we sure are down at the mouth.
Nor are we alone in our spiritual funk. It seems, get this, the richer a nation, the sadder its citizenry. This generalization is too broad, but largely applicable. The French, Germans, Brits join us in the slide toward grump, younger folks especially. Meanwhile citizens of smaller, poorer nations often feel cheerier.
No one owns the solution to this riddle. The causes are … multivalent. (Never used that adjective before. Now I have!) I nominate capitalism as a corroder of our contentment.
The mightiest engine for invention, wealth creation, and the spread of prosperity ever devised, capitalism is predicated on a false premise: the more you have, the happier. Stuff is the staff of life. Sellers stimulate desire for their product by stirring dissatisfaction: if you’ve never driven a Tesla, you’ve never lived!
That’s hooey. Philosophers have been telling us this since before Jesus. Love, purpose, selflessness, idealism tend to make us glad, by causing us to forget our fretful selves. “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind,” Thoreau taught me more than fifty years ago – and did I believe him? In theory, yes; in practice, I salivated for predictable gewgaws to impress my peers. I frittered much of my life trying to “make it,” when my heart yearned to make.
If America’s failing, blame our success. We’ve been a whiz at getting people stuff and teasing them to want more, less clever at providing a why. To be happy, it helps sensing why you exist. All goals are delusory, of course, delectable fictions, but we need those fictions to make our treks feel worthwhile. I exist, for example, to write something worth your while to read. Preposterous, you say? – who needs more words! My head concurs, but my heart won’t be gainsaid. Therein my joy.
In smaller, poorer, more communitarian countries, neighbors matter more. I’m guessing that Ukrainians today, while they hate their circumstances, feel proud to be Ukrainian and excited to assist their homeland. Every person is important. For our democracy to succeed, its participants need to take pride and feel important. We can’t shrug off self-governance as no big deal. It’s the biggest deal imaginable, dammit! Look what happens when we lose focus!
How to recover the impassioned necessity America felt in its finer hours? Beats me. But for sure it’s the responsibility of each of us to teach and preach and screech that being good and doing right and selflessness and truth-telling and generosity and kindness aren’t lunacy for losers but the only way we can win the game of life.