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May 30, 2007
Cassandra Wilkinson in the Australian Literary Review argues against those who say increased wealth does not equal happiness. She identifies who opponents as that:
Toxic coalition of anti-capitalist and anti-modern commentators would have us believe that Australia's economic success has caused a tidal wave of human misery. Anxiety, depression and sadness are tendered as evidence that freedom is not all it is cracked up to be
Her argument is based on freedom interpreted as freedom of choice of ordinary people versus extremism:
It is in the interests of both the extreme Right and the extreme Left to pretend our values are in crisis. Crisis suits extremists of all persuasions because an impending calamity suggests you must adopt new behaviours immediately to avoid annihilation. Go to church immediately! Abolish the World Trade Organisation immediately! Have more/fewer/happier children immediately! What they all have in common is the desire to restrict our freedom. Intellectuals and elites spent centuries resisting giving ordinary citizens the vote. Now they want to restrict the enfranchisement that we experience in the modern capitalist economy.
I thought that liberal, social democratic and Marxist intellectuals in modernity argued for freedom and democracy. Wasn't that what the Enlightennment stood for?
Wilkinson plays the common person in a prosperous economy off against the cultural elites who impose their prescriptions of happiness on ordinary people and so stifle our freedom.
Disposable culture and dumbing down are the constant concern of people who think they have better ways for us to live. And while everyone likes to have a go at Paris Hilton, the real targets of this derision are not the idle rich, they are the working class, the people who buy the big-screen TVs, McMansions and cheap Korean cars. It is overconsumption and trash consumption by the masses that really gets up the snouts of the clever types Choice has become a four-letter word to many cultural commentators. For them it's just code for private schools and private wealth and overconsumption and the decay of the great social contract.
She argues that prosperity gives ordinary people choice:
Prosperity provides opportunities to explore the self-actualising behaviours and social engagement that improves our wellbeing. In addition, prosperity and the availability of a wider variety of experiences increase opportunities for sensory pleasure such as better food and more stimulating recreation that, although it isn't happiness, certainly helps the winter nights fly.
Though increased wealth is not the same as haappiness or wellbeing the real problem is the cultural elites:
The problem with looking to social reformers and intellectuals to provide prescriptions for happiness is that freedom to choose for ourselves is fundamental to the pursuit of happiness. Within reasonable limits, that includes freedom to think, to do and, yes, consume what we wish..
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Me thinks the said lady should go and see the 3 Matrix movies, and also read some of the books etc associated with it and then reconsider how "free" the "normal well adjusted" every-person really is---or more correctly, is not.
Also it seems to me that those most offended by the suggestion that we are not as happy as our TV commercials suggest that we should be, are also to one degree or another, ardent enthusiasts of the so called analytical school of philosophy, which is of course very strong in anglo-american countries.
They almost suggest that we are commiting treason by questioning our "happiness" quotient.