The Progress Paradox - How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse

by Gregg Easterbrook

In The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook draws upon three decades of wide-ranging research and thinking to make the persuasive argument that almost all aspects of Western life have vastly improved in the past century – and yet today, most people feel less happy than in previous generations.

He reports that American life expectancy has dramatically increased in a century, from 47 to 77 years. Our great-great-grandparents all knew someone who died of some disease we never fear; as recently as 1952, polio killed 3,300 Americans. Our largest public health problems arise from unlimited supplies of affordable food.

The typical American has twice the purchasing power his mother or father had in 1960. A third of America's families own at least three cars. In 2001 Americans spent $25 billion -- more than North Korea's GDP -- on recreational watercraft.

Factor out immigration -- a huge benefit to the immigrants -- and statistical evidence of widening income inequality disappears. The statistic that household incomes are only moderately higher than 25 years ago is misleading: Households today average fewer people, so real dollar incomes in middle-class households are about 50 percent higher today. Poverty is down. In 1960 22 percent of Americans lived in poverty; by 2001, the figure had dropped to 11.7 percent. Although Easterbrook adds, the current situation, in which one person in eight lives in privation in a country as wealthy as the Unites States, should be seen as a national shame. He has equally harsh words for what he sees as a number of truly unacceptable situations in our world today, from the lack of universal health care, to business leaders who steal from shareholders and employees, to the deplorable state of hopelessness many live in around the world

But back to the good news. Since 1970 the number of cars has increased 68 percent and the number of miles driven has increased even more, yet smog has declined by a third and traffic fatalities have declined from 52,627 to 42,815 last year. In 2003 we spent much wealth on things unavailable in 1953 -- a cleaner environment, reduced mortality through new medical marvels ($5.2 billion a year just for artificial knees, which did not exist a generation ago), the ability to fly anywhere or talk to anyone anywhere. The incidence of heart disease, stroke and cancer, when adjusted for population growth, is declining.

The national crime rate increased slightly in 2001 following nine consecutive years of reduction, the longest-ever U.S. drop in crime.

America soon will be the first society in which a majority of adults are college graduates.

So why do people report a sense that things are getting steadily worse and that even fear that catastrophe is imminent? Why do we not live in state of gratitude that we (anyone living at middle class standards or above) now live better than 99.4 percent of the humans beings who have ever existed?

Easterbrook presents a few rationales. One is the unsettled nature of progress. Progress causes some problems to be truly solved, like polio thanks to vaccines. But often as not, problems exist in a chain of cause and effect.  One problem is solved, and a new one crops up. We can now travel anywhere in the world but we’re dealing with the resulting problems of energy consumption and its environmental impact.

The author also contends we have an active preference for bad news. He observes that news organizations love the word “crisis” and use it as often as possible. Also, in the United States, highly speculative bad news is often given considerable play while confirmed good news is barely reported. The media creates an impression of a country getting worse by obsessive focus on smaller and smaller risks. Easterbrook says “Today we have the knowledge necessary to detect small risks, the leisure in which to notice them, and the wherewithal to act against them. But everyone misses the larger point that big risks are in decline.”

He speculates about the psychological reasons for feeling bad in the midst of progress. Both "choice anxiety," where the vastness of society's options is a burden, and "abundance denial," where people somehow manage to convince themselves that they are deprived of material comforts have an impact on our feeling of well-being. We have also blurred needs and wants. Almost every man and woman of history ordered life around needs, and usually this meant a hard, meager existence. Today there are millions of people who rarely lack for anything in the needs category. Yet wanting is insatiable, though you can placate it now and then.

What’s the whole point of worrying about our state of dissatisfaction? Studies show that the percentage of the population that is happy has not increased in fifty years, the truly harmful aspects of unhappiness, depression and stress, have become ever more prevalent. Easterbrook also believes the sooner we accept how good we have it, the better off the whole world will be because if we would just realize that we have this wealth and good fortune, we could be using it to alleviate hunger, provide health care for the millions who lack it, and otherwise address the ills that actually do exist. For example, he believes we could radically improve the lives of the poor (see “Nickel and Dimed” ) through the free market via “living wages” that raise the American minimum wage to $10 per hour. It would mean accepting slightly higher prices which we would only be willing to do once we embraced the notion that the vast majority of us are wildly prosperous relative to history and the rest of the world.

How do we enhance our sense of well-being? Easterbrook highlights the findings from the emerging field called positive psychology, which has focused on studying what causes sanity and happiness rather than focusing on pathology. Here are some of his suggestions:

1) Cultivate learned optimism

Martin Seligman wrote a book called “Learned Optimism” which tells you exactly how to do that. One striking point, though, is that part of learned optimism is learning to expect tribulations and occasional blue periods. That way, when problems inevitably occur, dealing with the problem is just part of the normal course of life. Seligman has an entire website devoted to positive psychology at http://www.authentichappiness.org/.

2) Practice forgiveness

Research has found that people who do not forgive the wrongs committed against them tend to have negative indicators of well-being: more stress related disorders, lower immune function, and worse rates of cardiovascular disease. He makes the point that forgiveness can have either a spiritual or secular basis – they are equally effective at making people better off.

3) Make gratitude a part of your life

“Gratitude research is beginning to suggest that feelings of thankfulness have tremendous positive value in helping people cope with daily problems, especially stress, and to achieve a positive sense of self,” according to Robert Emmonds of the University of California at Davis. Also grateful people tend to suffer less anxiety about status or the accumulation of material possessions. Grateful people tend to be more spiritually aware and appreciate the interconnectedness of all life. To be grateful doesn’t mean to take a naïve view of the world. But the grateful person may achieve the ability to be aware of life’s drawbacks and yet thankful to be alive, an attractive combination of views.

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Comments

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