random
a weird fact
by oliver james
Here’s a really weird fact: affluent
British 15-year-old girls are now twice as prone to anxiety
and depression as their poorer neighbors. These girls have
every possible advantage. They do much better at school than
boys. Hard-won freedoms denied to their mothers and grandmothers
mean they have much more money to spend and choice about how
to use their time. If any group is feeling pretty chipper
about life under American-style advanced capitalism, it should
be them.
Yet they are increasingly miserable. Whereas
in 1987 only six percent suffered from a serious mental illness,
now it’s 18 percent. The cause of this derangement is
the same as the one that has led to a dramatic rise in mental
illness since 1950 throughout the developed world and especially
in America. It’s a pathological attack of Keeping Up
With The Joneses, an obsessive and envious comparing of what
you own and who you are, of never being satisfied with yourself
or what you’ve got.
In the case of the affluent teenage girls
(but not poor ones or boys), between 1987 and 1999 their worries
about school performance and their weight soared. Their anxieties
perfectly matched a dramatic leap in their exam results and
ever-greater pressures to look like Kate Moss or Posh Spice.
Increased demands from parents, teachers and the media led
to an epidemic of maladjusted comparing of themselves with
other girls’ looks and academic success.
Comparing to other people is a part of the
human condition. If we want to be better at something, we
naturally look toward people who have already achieved what
we aspire to. Equally, if we want to cheer ourselves up, we
gain succor from observing less accomplished performers than
ourselves.
When looking for ways to improve my golf,
for instance, I compare myself with my friend Paul, who is
much better than me. But when comparing upwards you have to
be careful. To avoid feeling hopelessly outclassed, I must
put Paul’s excellence in context by saying things to
myself like, “he’s been playing for years”
and “he practices all the time.” This is known as
“discounting.” Without it, I would not be able to
learn from watching Paul without falling into despair.
On the other hand, when I play with my friend
Hugo, who is useless, it’s important that I allow my
superiority to nourish my self-confidence (this will help
in the hard times when I’m playing Paul). If I were depressed,
I would be liable to say to myself, “I beat Hugo, but
he’d probably win if he only practiced a bit more and
had a few lessons.” I would discount the fact that he
is worse than me and gain no benefit to my self-esteem. Instead,
I just enjoy being better.
American advanced capitalism has ruthlessly
exploited our comparison instinct. More than that, it encourages
grossly pathological ways of comparing, both upward and downward.
We are under continuous pressure from a very
young age to compare ourselves with incredibly talented, beautiful
and ultimately unreal people, all without discounting. Television
and magazines give us the illusion that these stars are people
just like us.
As a result, affluent 15-year-old girls are
liable to say in all seriousness that they hope to be as successful
as Madonna or Posh Spice, directly comparing themselves and
apparently oblivious to the extreme improbability of it ever
happening. Feeling they almost know these women and encouraged
by song lyrics and autobiographies that promise “you
too can be anyone you want to be,” the girls make no
discount for what has made the stars stand out.
In Madonna’s case, for instance, she
is a Machiavellian workaholic who has used money and status
to compensate for a terribly disturbed early childhood. As
for Posh, she obsessively craves attention and was willing
to do anything to be famous. Without these pathologies, a
normal girl is unlikely to be prepared to go through the awful
distortions necessary to achieve stardom.
Equally destructive is the fact that, when
these increasingly perfectionist girls read their usually
excellent exam results, or look at their pretty faces and
nubile bodies in the mirror, they fail utterly to enjoy what
they see. Instead, they look at others who are better than
them in some minute regard (“better at math,” “bigger
boobs,” “more friends”), and feel like failures.
Worst of all, when they hear of others who have done worse
or see girls less pretty, they shrug it off, discounting the
evidence that all their work has not been in vain: their best
is never good enough.
Compared with 1950, and with accelerating
speed, a “grass is greener” mentality has been made
a part of ourselves. Studies of lottery winners show that
they soon readjust their sights and begin to long for what
they do not have. They may now have a Merc and a Porsche,
a large home and no need to work – but if only they could
afford the yacht, the mansion, the helicopter….
Likewise, enormously wealthy people simply
raise the standards of what they expect, so that even if they
stay in the top hotels, drive the most opulent cars and so
on, they will always feel there is a better one elsewhere.
They are constantly infuriated by the smallest sign that what
they have is less than the best.
Continual economic growth is only possible
if needs are constantly diversifying to create new markets.
There is a necessity for ever more diverse needs so that ever
more specific products can be devised to meet them. Advanced
capitalism maintains itself by fostering spurious individualism,
pressuring us to define ourselves through our purchases, with
ever more precisely marketed products that create a fetishistic
concern to have “this” rather than “that,”
even when there is no significant practical or aesthetic difference.
It profits from the dissatisfaction and rage that are engendered
by unreal social comparisons, encouraging us to fill the consequent
psychic void with material goods and drugs of solace (alcohol,
illegal drugs, food, nicotine).
Money can even be made from restoring the
chemical imbalance in our brains that results from these overheated
ambitions and false identities, selling pills and therapeutic
services to the damaged and subordinated. Capitalism does
very nicely at both ends. It creates misery, and it cures
it. Our inner lives foot the bill.
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