We have Freedom, Democracy, Prosperity - then why are we so unhappy?

It now appears that by removing the obvious sources of oppression, the social revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s have left us free to be miserable in new and more insidious ways. If all of the barriers to the flourishing of our potential have been removed, and yet we fail to flourish, depression appears to be a natural response. Moreover, the liberation movements have ceded to us a moral confusion unprecedented in history. The ‘ethic of consent’ that replaced the strictures of conservative morality has led to forms of behaviour that raise deeper questions about personal responsibility that we have barely begun to understand."

Feature article from The Australian Financial Review, Friday 15 October, 2004
(Review section, p. 8) by Clive Hamilton

When you look at this analysis of current events then you begin to wonder about the effect that we are having on the rest of the world when we export to them our 'democracy' ; materialism and our well being.

It seems that human beings function best when they are under pressure, when they have something to resist or fight against , when they have a need to thrive and survive. Indeed when the pressures are off, then instead of stimulating artistic endeavour and the flourishing of growth and development, we are left instead in a state of anomie which results in depression, violence and drug induced escapes from reality.

Hamilton refers to these outcomes as the 'diseases of affluence'.

While the western capitalist model is being attacked from an external source - namely Islamic fundamentalism, it is also under attack from within by those who recognise that something is wrong when all of the good things that are supposed to come from the capitalist model are not happening.

Let me state this more clearly. If we have wealth or abundance and we are relatively free to express ourselves and do what we want, then why are we increasingly more miserable?

Hamilton argues that: "We must reconstruct the idea of solidarity not on the basis of economic benefit, but on the basis of our common humanity."

The revolutions in the last few decades have been about enabling individuality. In psychological terms this is giving in to the needs of the ego. What seems to be missing from the lives of many people today is accountability and responsibility and common courtesy - functions that I would associate with the operation of the superego.

Is the turn towards religious fundamentalism in the Christian and the Muslim worlds about bringing back controls and bringing back the codes of behaviour that are the substantive basis for societal coherence?

If it is, and people do not want such fundamentalism to rule their lives, then they had better come up with a different and more useful alternative and quickly or events will simply overtake and overwhelm us!

Season's greetings to all!