Peter C. Whybrow -- American mania: when more is not enough
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Here are two approaches to reading "American mania": (1) View it as
a description and analysis of American society.  Or, (2) use it to
analyze your own life, looking for help with your own attempts to
make intelligent decisions about what is best for your life and
needs.  This book and Whybrow's analysis are valuable in both ways.

Whybrow claims that too often we are not rational and not
intelligent when making decisions about how to spend our money and
how to spend our time.  There are actually two claims packed into
that: We both (1) make poor decisions and (2) we do not choose
consciously.  This book is a guide to correcting both of those
problems.

He encourages us to stop measuring our social success and even our
well-being based on an excess of material goods.

Often when we spend extravagantly on material goods that do not even
make us happy of content, we go into debt.  When we go into debt, we
have to work harder and longer.  When we work harder and longer, we
become stressed.  This is the process that Whybrow warns us about.
We have, he believes, created many environments that are ideal for
creating stress and anxiety.

Whybrow refers a number of times to the writings of Adam Smith.  He
wants to balance the acquisitiveness and self-seeking described in
"The wealth of nations" with the communitarian attitudes advocated
in "The theory of moral sentiments".  This is a balance that he
feels we have moved away from and lost, to our detriment, since the
1960's.  In fact, he devotes most of a chapter to a discussion of
how to obtain this balance.  See chapter 9.

Whybrow claims that we as a nation are genetically disposed to an
excess of materialism, self-seeking, acquisitiveness, etc.  It's
because, he claims, we are a nation of immigrants, and immigrants
are self-selected to be adventurous, hard working, inquisitive,
etc., all trains which give us a predisposition in a land of excess
material goods to spend and purchase irrationally.  Possibly, but
another explanation for our tendency to over-indulge, over-spend,
and over-work in an attempt to pay goes something like this: our
grandparents came to this country to gain a better life and they
wanted a better life (better than their own) for their children; our
parents (our grandparents' children) wanted a better life and they
wanted an even better life for *their* children; now we want that
better life and we want a yet more better life for our children.
So, it's not surprising that our children (adolescents, teenagers,
young adults) end up pampered, self-indulgent, self-centered,
self-seeking, and spending too much money on too many things that
are not enriching and not doing much to make us happy.

Whybrow does, briefly, consider the effects of the extremes of
wealth and poverty and the extreme disparities of income size in the
U.S.  But, for his purposes, he considers that mainly to explain our
desires for excess, unneeded material goods: members of the middle
class are being enticed into attempting to live in a upper class
lifestyle.  He does not spend much space considering the reality
that many in the U.S.  face, namely that they are barely able to
afford and pay for *necessary* goods and that one reasonably large,
unexpected expense (car repairs or a set of tires to replace
dangerously worn ones, medical or dental care for themselves or
their children), let alone "unnecessary" but very valuable expenses
(placing their child in a school that is not dangerous, a child's
college expenses, for example).  For these, material goods, the ones
they purchase, are a necessity.

Whybrow considers the aggravating factor that full-time,
predictable, long-term employment is becoming less common in the
U.S.  This transformation is a structural change in American
industry and commerce, in part caused by information mangagement.
And, as that change happens, Americans over-extend themselves,
trying to maintain the pretense that they are still middle-class by
going into debt, and perhaps even working extra hours just in the
hopes of not being laid off.  We should ask: are those extra work
hours misguided, or is that a rational response to precarious times.
Is that borrowing and spending frivolous, or is it a justified
response to harder financial times?  Those of us who are fortunate
enough not to be forced into that predicament, and keep in mind that
current trends indicate that we will all be contractors someday,
should try to walk a mile in their shoes.

We should Whybrow to ignore those faced with more threatening
economic times, I suppose.  The people whom Whybrow treats as
clients and who likely are the case studies that he describes in
this book can, after all, afford his care and fees, so they are, we
can guess, not people who are struggling to pay for groceries.  But,
many in the U.S. are.

It's worthwhile, also, to consider another, small, class of people
that Whybrow does not talk about: those for whom vast amounts of
money comes to them, successful musicians, for example, and who
cannot resist the extravagant lifestyle, the excess women and sex,
and the alcohol and drugs that do more damage to their lives than
good.  But, that's a topic for yet another book.

We, members of the human species, have evolved (1) to be curious and
seek novelty and also to take risks.  We have also evolved (2) to be
conservative and to seek safety and security and also to form
alliances and friendships and kinships that help to obtain and
preserve that security.  The need to obtain balance between these
two tendencies is a theme that Whybrow returns to a number of times.
He believes that our success in finding and living within that
balance makes all the difference in living a successful life with a
reasonable amount of stress and emotional discomfort.

And, in terms of evolution, Whybrow believes that traits like
curiosity and the willingness to take risks breed true across
generations.  That's part of his argument that our being a nation
composed of a high percentage of immigrants, effectively people who
have self-selected to be curious about living somewhere different
and willing to take the risks to do so, is what explains the large
number of people in the U.S. who spend excessively, seeking novelty
and obtaining the material goods others have.  I'm doubtful that
this story based on evolution is very important for Whybrow's
attempt to explain the problems he sees or his attempts to help us
with our lives, but I don't believe that the possible weakness of
the genetic argument affects the value of his book.

Whybrow spends some time explaining the brain and neurological basis
for our problems in terms of serotonin (calming), norepinephrine
(activating, and dopamine (modulation of brain pathways with a
central role in curiosity and novelty seeking behavior).  Again,
that's interesting, but for us lay people, those of us for whom that
explanation is not going to lead to any ability to deal with our
behavior, I'm not convinced that this explanation is useful.

Whybrow is a bit obsessed with the idea that we live in a temptation
rich environment.  Much of that temptation is created by marketing,
but even state governments add to it by running state lotteries,
even though, Whybrow claims, the costs for the resulting needed
rehabilitation exceed the earnings.

Another theme that Whybrow returns to repeatedly is that we as a
society are transitioning toward more and more risk taking, toward
more self-seeking behavior, and away from a communitarian lifestyle,
away from an inclination to spend time with family and friends.
Whybrow also describes a drift or transition away from civic
mindedness, away from social activism and social involvement, and
toward a self-seeking and self-interested and even selfish
lifestyle, toward a more materialistic society, and toward focus on
celebrity, fame, money, and possessions.  He claims that this drift
is causing an increase in stress and anxiety, even while it may be
bringing an increase in wealth and material goods to some (perhaps
for only a few, depending on how you measure).  He views this
transition as a failure of the kind of balance that Adam Smith
envisioned and expected, a balance where greed and acquisitiveness
are held in check by social concerns, by our empathy for others, and
by, in Smith's words, moral sentiment.

In terms of leadership, the elites whom we follow and attempt to
emulate, are transitioning from being generative, humanitarian, and
communitarian toward being competitive, self-seekers who follow a
winner-take-all set of values.

I'll agree with Whybrow about how we are often led to unwise choices
by the ready availability of buying opportunities.  Online merchants
and brick and mortar stores, too, try to make it as easy as possible
for us to make purchases.  They would be incompetent and misguided
if they did not.  Online merchants, in particular, try to enable us
to make purchases with as few clicks as possible.  And, the ready
credit and payment mechanisms provided by credit cards are key
enablers of this all to easy ability to make purchases, whether we
need them or not, and whether we can wisely afford them or not.
Advertising, promotion, and marketing push us further in that
direction.  And, because it is important to their viability and
profits, corporations have become very good at this.

We, as a species, are weak on our ability to determine when we have
had enough of a good thing and to act accordingly.  We did not
evolve, as a species, to be able to deal with abundance.  When we
evolved, there was not much survival value in the ability to deal
with abundance, whereas there certainly was survival value in being
able to deal with scarcity.  I suppose there is some truth to this,
but, to me, it smells of the arguments in favor of a "paleo"
lifestyle.  If you need some caution about that, read "Paleofantasy:
What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live", by
Marlene Zuk.  It's an entertaining book, and one of Zuk's points is
that we have evolved plenty, and continue to do so, since
paleolithic times.

Whybrow's claim that we (now) live in artificial habitats sounds a
bit like more of this warmed over "paleo" theory.  Yes, we do, as
Whybrow claims, need to adapt (or adjust) to our artificial habitat,
but we humans live in so many artificial environments and have done
so for so long, that talk about evolving to be able to live in them
seems a bit hopeless.  And, if we want to talk about individually
adapting to the environment that each of us lives in, I believe that
can best be viewed as making smart choices, which Whybrow is
certainly advocating, rather than some kind of genetic adaptation.

Here are some of the causes of our difficulties, in Whybrow's view:
(1) our drift toward a celebrity model of success; (2) the ready
availability of cheap food with lots of calories; (3) the mass
marketing of food, especially food with artificial flavors,
appealing textures and colors, and lots of calories; (4) our drift
toward a more sedentary lifestyle and lack of exercise; (5) our
confusion of freedom to buy with real freedom, e.g. political
freedom; and (6) mass marketing and big box stores.  In general
Whybrow advocates wise living and describes how we are not doing it.
Mostly, it's what your mother tried to teach you.

We are seeking prosperity, social success, financial success,
abundance, etc. while ignoring whether it brings happiness and
contentment and satisfaction with it.  Prosperity and various kinds
of success are good; they bring other and additional kinds of
benefits.

In some sense, this book is analysis and recommendations on how to
live your life well and intelligently, on how to align your efforts,
work, and time with your real needs and wants, and especially hoe to
*not* go chasing after things that would make you crazy and stressed
and sick.  That's a lot; that's very valuable, if you take it
seriously enough to think through your own situation and choices.
And, perhaps one of the biggest benefits of "American mania" is the
amount of details and stories woven around these issues and the help
they can give in trying to think through those problems.

I have one serious reservation about "American mania": Whybrow
assumes that the good life is a communitarian one, a life with lots
of connections and time spent with friends and family, and a life
where that time spent with others is what makes life valuable.  But,
I'm a loner.  I'd be a member of The Loners Society", except that
loners can't have a society.  I'm most happy when most of my time is
spent alone, with a reasonable amount of time with my wife, and a
small amount of time with friends.  So, while I'm all in on
Whybrow's advice to think through our life choices carefully and I'm
very much in agreement with his claims about the importance of
empathy and "moral sentiment" for our lives, still I've got to push
back a bit about his encouragement to spend more time with family
and friends.  After a bit, that bores me.  That's to be expected I
think, since I'm a computer programmer and computer programmers must
be able to spend large amounts of time working alone.  (We're not
the only ones, by the way.  Think of writers and mathematicians.)
So, for me, I attempt to follow some of Whybrow's advice, but look
for ways to get life's satisfactions and contentment from time spent
alone, too.

01/26/2016

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