The Detroit Free Press has been running a five-part series this week on "Anger in America." I've only read the first article so far but browsing through today's letters to the editor responding to the series is astounding. So many of the letters attribute the high level of polarization and hostility that is evident in the U.S. to the conditions of overwork and time pressure in daily life. Below are a few of the most salient examples:
Moving too fast
The rapid pace of our daily lives is what's making us angry. We have created a culture in which we think we have to "own" everything. We try to get rich instead of just making a living and enjoying our relationships.
It takes more and more time to make a living because employers expect more and more hours from workers -- without respect for families, time for relationships, relaxation, sleep, etc.
Beverly J. Matthews New Castle, Ind.
Find time
America is frustrated, which seems to lead to all this pent-up anger that spills out in the morning commute in the form of road rage.
Today, life in America demands so much time from all of us that we're frustrated by the lack of time to do the things we really want to do. When we're 85 years old reflecting on our lives, what's going to stick out, all the hours spent commuting to and from work, or the days we made time to spend on the important things?
Amanda Wampler Rochester
Wrong lessons taught
People are just plain tired of not being able to do what they want to do. You have to excel -- win, win, win -- or you face the big "L" on your forehead. Look at how hard we push our kids in school.
We need to go back to a much simpler lifestyle, where one income was enough to survive. Where we taught the value of, "It's not whether you win or lose; it's how you play the game." We need to teach our children the meaning of "please" and "thank you" before we teach them the square root of 100.
Gerald J. Robbins Rochester Hills
Interact with others
People are angry today because communication and relationships are deteriorating. We live in a world in which people can bank, shop, pay bills, communicate with coworkers, even take classes online, without human interaction. We, as humans, need that interaction, and that is leaving a hole in our lives, which leaves us feeling empty, alone and angry. We need to remember the importance of being involved with others, whether it is in our homes, families or workplace.
Susan Formento Chesterfield Township
Slow down
People in America are angry because they accept mediocrity in too many areas of their lives. We've forgotten how to dream and strive to be our best. Everyone is so busy because they are terrified to stop, look inward, and make a brutally honest assessment of who and where they are.
Matthew Cote' Dearborn
Create peace
I think people are angry because we are always in a hurry now, with e-mail, instant messaging and cell-phone calls. Your time is not your own, so you hurry everywhere, and others whose paths you cross are seen as intruders in your space.
Susan Scharfenkamp Troy
Is there a Detroit Take Back Your Time committee???? Read all of today’s letters to the editor of the Detroit Free Press here and here.
Posted by sandwichman at October 14, 2004 04:16 PMI love this site. I'm assuming you started it only a few weeks ago. Am I correct? Keep up the good work. I have long been interested in this whole question regarding the obsession in this country for more work hours and greater consumption. I retired early several years ago after concluding that the money I was receiving just wasn't worth the effort and drudgery. I am consuming and earning a helluva lot less but strangely I am actually saving a lot more.
When I was working I had this need to spend money to justify the largely pointless nature of my job. Since the only value of my job was money, I natually spent a lot of money to make my job seem worthwhile.
There is another reason to heavily tax the rich which is probably counterintuitive. We will be doing them a favor by perhaps enabling them to slow down. Will higher taxes lower producitivity. At some point, yes. But no matter. To me, lower productivity would be a benefit, not a cost, of higher taxation.
Posted by: tstreet at October 15, 2004 07:58 AMI like the idea of working less. I've been working parttime most of my life--except for a few stints out of college.
Things are in the saddle and ride mankind-- that's part of the problem, as one of our venerable transcendentalists put it.
The Detroit "anger" and disgruntlement reminds me of Maslow's grumbles--
Psychologist Abraham Maslow made an important contribution when he wrote of the distinctions between “low grumbles,” “high grumbles,” and “meta-grumbles.”
Low grumbles are complaints or comments about life “which come at the biological and safety level” when our very basic survival and safety needs are threatened.
High grumbles involve matters of esteem, “questions of dignity, of autonomy, of self-respect, of respect from the other; feelings of worth, of getting praise and rewards and credit for one’s accomplishments and the like.” Maslow goes on to say, “Grumbles at this level would probably be most concerned about something that involved loss of dignity or the threat to self-esteem or to prestige.”
Meta-grumbles concern ideals — the quest “for perfection, for justice, for beauty, for truth . . . complaints about the imperfection of the world, . . .or about other blocks in the free flow of communication.”
In Maslow’s view, “Human beings will always complain. There is no Garden of Eden, there is no paradise, there is no heaven except for a passing moment or two. Whatever satisfactions are given to human beings, it is inconceivable that they should be perfectly content with these.”
degustibus..........
Posted by: degustibus at October 15, 2004 02:00 PM
I fully agree and endorse the contents of this blog. So far -- if you start to promote things like light beer I will have to rescind. However, I have linked to you on my own always unread, often unreadable, and generally unwritten blog -- deliciouspundit.blogspot.com.
What apt timing.
I blew up at work the other day, and although not an American myself, I work for an American company.
Yes the pressure made me blow. But more, the absolute cluelessness of my betters - oops, sorry, superiors - led me to explode in frustration borne of anger.
Why am I angry? The reasons are mulitplicitous. But in short, for me a least, the mantra has been 'we have to work smarter'. But like anything else you face today - from advertising to office memos, from political promises to corporate propaganda - the inverse of the message is usually closer to the truth.
We've walked through the looking glass, and it's broke.
Work less. Now!
Posted by: bmo at October 24, 2004 11:44 AM