I am on a flight to Chicago and considering an article in the Globe about a recent narcissistic tendency among our (American) youth. I suppose it's easy to condemn the current generation's non-chalance about our consumerism, but this article drove home some specific points about expectations of happiness versus misery generated by this narcissism.
The article highlights a study conducted by a team lead by Jean Twenge at San Diego State University: "The researchers describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students' inventory scores have risen steadily since the test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982."
I am also in the middle of Bill McKibben's new book on the Deep Economy, which also tries to weigh materialism and happiness. McKibben talks about consumption models that allows the following equation: "the most economically productive citizen is a cancer patient who totals his car on the way to meet with his divorce lawyer". Though I gotta think there's a cheaper way to remove oneself as an economic burden than destroying a car and holding up traffic, I take his point: our society values things on their economic merits.
And, of course, our nation's materialism is built on the labor of others; others who are paid a pittance of the money we actually spend. Another example referenced by McKibben (from "Not on the Label" by Felicity Lawrence) describes a Ugandan coffee worker who was told the cost of Starbuck's coffee: his eyes welled with tears when he realized people willingly paid the equivalent of 5,000 Ugandan shillings per cup, and he made about 200 shillings -- per kilo!
I think these two memes intersect at some dark point where the set of items that define our 'self' is so large, that we loose ourselves in that crowd. For example, McKibben compares a young Chinese factory worker's intense reaction to receiving one plush toy, to his own daughter's bland satisfaction in having another to add to her pile.
The implication of the Globe article is that the constant reinforcement of "specialness" creates a kind of needy, compulsive behavior that I think of as an addiction. And I've been pondering solutions, assuming 'cold turkey' is not a viable option.
Unexpectedly, I flash to the reaction of our students to our school's dress code -- at every opportunity they stretch it, do a lawyer-act on it, loophole it, and otherwise ignore it. There are two topics we cannot escape at Admin Team meetings: parking and dress code. The kids really hate being told what to wear (and where to park their increasingly large vehicles).
But I'm starting to see this as an addict's dysfunction. An addict's behavior, our psychologist friends tell us, is marked by an inability to establish boundaries. I understand the concept as: if you can't deny yourself some random thing or behavior (fill in the blank), you can't break your dependance.
So it really bothers me when I have to explain or justify the dress code, because the reason to enforce it is basically existential. If I can't trust the kids to follow a simple, clear dress code, how far can I trust them?
In fact, the general experience of air travel provides example after example of people not paying attention to simple requests. People don't wait for their seating number to be called, they crowd the jetway door. People don't turn off their cell phones when asked, they squeeze in one more minute. I've been watching them all day. It's astounding.
Where does all this mental wandering get us? For me, this is about a generational justice: that we have squandered the earth's bounty, imperiled the earth's future, and taught our kids how to fiddle while the planet burns for the next 100 years. Yeah, that's about as dark as it could possibly get.
Well, but if we get this right, we will have basically stared down and solved the most incredibly large and daunting world problem, ever. What kind of world would be on the other side of "done"? Imagine a world all fixed up, sustainable, with power and food and water -- and justice. What else is there? I think we start building the Starship Enterprise and looking for Vulcans at that point.
The first step to recovery is recognition. And, of course, I'm not immune to the addiction. I'm flying over the New York farms described in McKibben's book, adding to the CO2, thumb-typing this blog post into my Palm Treo.
Hi, my name is Winston, and I love my car.
