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The Progress Paradox

6:04pm Wednesday, 12th November 2003

Yet another major tome wondering about the "Paradox of Progress" - ie, why we in the developed West are less happy than you'd predict, from our levels of prosperity - written by US critic Gregg Easterbrook. I'm always interested in the solutions proposed in these arguments - there's been quite a few recently - which always tend towards liberal-left policies.

Easterbook's list of unhappiness triggers - envy, lack of sleep, future-shock, "bad news" media - might be remedied, he suggests, by a raised minimum wage, universal health care, restraints on gargantuan CEOs, and more foreign aid. Richard Reeves has waged an admirable essay campaign to get the UK government to accept that, after a point of affluence, intangible well-being becomes more important than tangible wealth. (A major Demos theme, I know.)

What I'm wondering is whether the notion of a "creative commons" could become more than a geek's buzz-phrase or a cute IP contract? Might the term begin to describe a prosperous society's guarantees of security and enablement (citizen's wage, shorter working week, free media, etc), which then allows for the diversive exploration of personal meaning, fulfilment, happiness (which I'd call a "players' agenda")?

Comments

1
What do you mean "we". The unhappiness cited reveals the ethical poverty of the provincial mind unwilling or unable to grasp that the world is far from comfortable and that progress still has a long way to go. Shame on you.
Posted by back40 back40  at 1:45am on Wednesday, 19th November 2003
2
What an extraordinary pair of comments! Where is the shame in what?s said in the Pat Kane?s posting? Surely putting in a word for a playful approach to the world we live in has to be more positive and constructive in humanising terms than invoking shame and publishing long gloom-ridden tracts on argibusiness and angst? And as for happiness being a chosen lot... is that not just a little too self-referential? I?d have thought that in the way we trade everything from casual compliments to deepest intimacies ? in what we say and do or choose *not* to say or do ? we actively add to or diminish the happiness of others. That may seem liminal but I think it?s profoundly important. Yes, happiness is constructed but it?s not a sole-trader scenario. And to wall the self away from the other in such absolute terms looks like taking self-actualisation just a little bit too far. The world needs more Lego moments. And players.
Posted by jackdalton jackdalton  at 10:31am on Wednesday, 19th November 2003
3
"Where is the shame in what?s said in the Pat Kane?s posting?" It is the shameful navel gazing of the rich, selfish and bored. With eyes studiously averted from the real issues of humanity a listless, half hearted effort is made to find entertainments to reduce the ennui of a meaningless life.
Posted by back40 back40  at 5:28pm on Wednesday, 19th November 2003
4
There are ills associated with wealth. Kids nowadays are getting type two diabetes. One of the symptoms of diabetes is depression. It is not sinful and evil to overeat and under-exercise. -It's just bad for your mental health. Even tho' health care is getting better and better and the air is getting cleaner and cleaner etc. people feel bad partly because they are somewhat messed up physiologically.
Posted by JerryB JerryB  at 5:18am on Thursday, 27th November 2003
5
To me the Paradox of Progress that causes me the most concern is the conflict between mans ability to learn and understand the world he lives in via science and the strong need of religions to preserve their faith by not beleiving anything in conflict with their religion. . They want us to beleive and have faith in the pre-science myths that man turned into the worlds major religions. If I was an alien being and had studied mans history of progress and the 400+ years of open conflict between religion and science I might come to the conclusion that the concept "My Religion is Better than Your Religion" was one of mans biggist problems and one of the most important obstacles for progress without significant paradoxes.
Posted by Gary Gary  at 10:36pm on Sunday, 14th December 2003
6
At this point, with our multitude of inadequate plattitudinous cliches about what we need to be happy, how can we say that we know the veracity in application between the two statements "happiness is a choice" and "happiness can be caused"? Maybe it makes us more happy just to believe in the first; choose your life and you have no choice but to like it... At the very least happiness and certain consistent conditions are correlated, like social integration, a feeling of belonging, the experience of power, and an interpretation of the world that allows for goals and meaning. Is it any wonder that as these traits and beliefs within people come under attack that they report that the jeep they bought did not fill their happy hole? Paradox? Only because we are hanging on to utterly disproven schemas relative to the aquisition of happiness.
Posted by Shawn Shawn  at 9:31pm on Monday, 15th December 2003

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