Dissatisfaction In Modern Life

In November of 2004 Prince Charles came under criticism for comments from his diary that were leaked to the press, which included: “What is wrong with everyone nowadays? ... Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities? ... People think they can all be pop stars, High Court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability. This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history.”

It seems the Prince's comments were unpopular because he dared question the popular notion that people with enough vision and hard work can succeed in achieving anything that they aspire to. This popular idea is a relatively modern one, and perhaps is found in its strongest form in America and the concept of the American dream. That is the idea that anyone can make it big if only they work hard enough in the land of opportunity.

Someone once said that happiness can be measured or defined by the following simple equation: Happiness = Reality - Expectation. I think that was/is a pretty accurate assessment. It helps explain one of the more curious aspects of life in modern advanced economies & societies; and that is that although living standards have risen exponentially in the last 50-100 years it is doubtful that levels of happiness have risen substantially and in some regards may have decreased.

This seems rather incredible in light of the developments that have made modern living conditions far more comfortable than those enjoyed throughout most of recorded history. In just over 100 years the list of improvements has been nothing short of breathtaking; including electricity, running water, motorised transport, reliable food supplies, literacy, television, vacuum cleaners, computers, mobile communications, birth control, antibiotics, travel and leisure activities which have become available to a majority of persons living in highly developed modern economies.

While the reality of modern life no doubt reflects the incredible amenity and convenience of modern living compared to life in the hard labour of the agrarian economy that is of course only one part of our equation for happiness. The rapid growth in living standards has been more than matched by the rapid growth in people's exectations. This is where the Prince of Wales made a very salient point. People's expectations are unrealistic. A Gallup poll in 2003 found that 31% of Americans believed they would become rich one day, and amongst 18-29 year olds it was 51%.

Now in a very real sense most Americans, British and Europeans are rich compared to the majority of the world's people who live in less developed countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They are also rich compared to their predecessors in the developed world. But this is not the type of rich they're thinking of. What is the definition of rich? In the past for many people the farmer next door with a few more acres and bullocks would have been the standard. However in the modern world because of the pervasiveness of media such as television, print and internet, the definition becomes more skewed. No longer is the average person looking next door to keep up with the Joneses but he/she is looking through the pages of Forbes 400, or lifestyles of the rich and shameless for an indication of what level of wealth is to be desired.

This reality-expectation gap not only exists in terms of wealth but in other areas such as relationships. Modern men and women no longer compare their prospective partners with average joe or the proverbial girl next door but with reference to the übermen and women of celebrity, fame and fortune. Their imagination thanks once again to modern media images leaps to near impossible ideals (or at least statistically improbable ones) of Vogue/GQ model looks, and the easy style and confidence of Hollywood millionaires. It's like a seductive dream that seems almost within in reach because of the pervasiveness of its presence through television, film and trashy magazines to the extent that we now to celebrities by their first names e.g. Tom, Nicole, Jen as if they are people we know. As the philsopher Alain De Botton puts it, "One often leaves the cinema after seeing an enjoyable Hollywood film thinking, My life is terrible. I want to marry a princess and live in a castle or something. The work of art was enjoyable, but it was a fable—a fantasy—and it makes us dissatisfied with our own lives."

In the movie Beautiful Girls (1996) Michael Rappaport's character captures this essence of fantasy: "Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you've been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels."

The upshot of all these unrealistic expectations is of course dissatisfaction. Most people in modern economies while enjoying high standards of material comfort will never become millionaires (at least in 2006 US dollars) nor will they marry a supermodel, Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt. They will instead have to deal with such things as job insecurity (if not unemployment), mortgages, failed relationships, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and the vague sense that some of the promise in life that they had been lead to believe in was a lie.