Jan 25, 2021 07:20 PM
https://nationalaffairs.com/publications...nhappiness
EXCERPT: . . . . But that debate is ending, and a new one has begun. The focus of the "medicalization of unhappiness" debate was whether unhappiness should be considered a scientific problem. That issue has given way to the "politicization of unhappiness." Whatever unhappiness Americans feel in their private lives has spilled over into the public realm, with ramifications far beyond whether people who take drugs to feel happy should be doing so.
In this new era, life's little annoyances and minor discomforts form the ever-present baseline. Then come the ills of life that are more structural and have worsened over time. There is the mass loneliness problem, which affects roughly 60% of Americans. There is the sex problem, as fewer Americans are having sex these days. There is the marriage problem, as some women drawn into the workforce have difficulty finding compatible men, while some men fear a charge of sexual harassment if they show a romantic interest in women. There is the political-correctness problem, with two-thirds of Americans afraid to speak freely; this causes them to feel stifled and unhappy.
There are also the structural problems inherent to advanced capitalism. This includes the dependent-employment problem, as the vast majority of Americans are now working for someone other than themselves, and the intensifying division-of-labor problem, which has brought over-specialization into most occupations, making them less enjoyable. There is the college-mismatch problem, such that one-third of all college graduates have jobs that do not require a college degree. All of these trends make work less satisfying and workers less happy.
A breakdown in our social systems has given rise to mass unhappiness while also making unhappiness more difficult to cope with. When this unhappiness passes into anger, and then into malice and terror, it becomes a matter of public concern. Over half of the country's worst mass shootings have occurred in the past 20 years, with their rates accelerating in the last decade. Anger also finds expression in radical political ideologies and violent protest. Even without morphing into anger, unhappiness arising from social isolation affects people's health, which has already led to an increase in the nation's medical costs.
To manage the situation, policymakers have pinned their hopes on the "caring industry" — the nation's social workers, psychologists, counselors, therapists, and life coaches. Although the general population of the United States has only doubled since the mid-20th century, this industry has already increased 100-fold. The Affordable Care Act, signed into law in 2010, emphasized the social necessity of the caring industry by establishing parity between mental and physical health in the insurance-reimbursement context.
Today, many progressives want to shift public funding from policing to mental health while also designating caring professionals as first responders. They recognize that people's private troubles have found their way into public acts of lawlessness, and they see caring professionals as the solution. Even some conservatives think the police are trying to do too much. As Dallas Police Chief David Brown observed in 2016, "[e]very societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve."
A major role for the caring industry looms. Yet granting the industry such a prominent position in society comes with some risk. To understand what its role should be while cutting down on this risk, we need to explore the caring industry's true position in our massively unhappy society... (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . . But that debate is ending, and a new one has begun. The focus of the "medicalization of unhappiness" debate was whether unhappiness should be considered a scientific problem. That issue has given way to the "politicization of unhappiness." Whatever unhappiness Americans feel in their private lives has spilled over into the public realm, with ramifications far beyond whether people who take drugs to feel happy should be doing so.
In this new era, life's little annoyances and minor discomforts form the ever-present baseline. Then come the ills of life that are more structural and have worsened over time. There is the mass loneliness problem, which affects roughly 60% of Americans. There is the sex problem, as fewer Americans are having sex these days. There is the marriage problem, as some women drawn into the workforce have difficulty finding compatible men, while some men fear a charge of sexual harassment if they show a romantic interest in women. There is the political-correctness problem, with two-thirds of Americans afraid to speak freely; this causes them to feel stifled and unhappy.
There are also the structural problems inherent to advanced capitalism. This includes the dependent-employment problem, as the vast majority of Americans are now working for someone other than themselves, and the intensifying division-of-labor problem, which has brought over-specialization into most occupations, making them less enjoyable. There is the college-mismatch problem, such that one-third of all college graduates have jobs that do not require a college degree. All of these trends make work less satisfying and workers less happy.
A breakdown in our social systems has given rise to mass unhappiness while also making unhappiness more difficult to cope with. When this unhappiness passes into anger, and then into malice and terror, it becomes a matter of public concern. Over half of the country's worst mass shootings have occurred in the past 20 years, with their rates accelerating in the last decade. Anger also finds expression in radical political ideologies and violent protest. Even without morphing into anger, unhappiness arising from social isolation affects people's health, which has already led to an increase in the nation's medical costs.
To manage the situation, policymakers have pinned their hopes on the "caring industry" — the nation's social workers, psychologists, counselors, therapists, and life coaches. Although the general population of the United States has only doubled since the mid-20th century, this industry has already increased 100-fold. The Affordable Care Act, signed into law in 2010, emphasized the social necessity of the caring industry by establishing parity between mental and physical health in the insurance-reimbursement context.
Today, many progressives want to shift public funding from policing to mental health while also designating caring professionals as first responders. They recognize that people's private troubles have found their way into public acts of lawlessness, and they see caring professionals as the solution. Even some conservatives think the police are trying to do too much. As Dallas Police Chief David Brown observed in 2016, "[e]very societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve."
A major role for the caring industry looms. Yet granting the industry such a prominent position in society comes with some risk. To understand what its role should be while cutting down on this risk, we need to explore the caring industry's true position in our massively unhappy society... (MORE - details)