Dan Minette wrote:
>Well, we are a lot less capitalistic than we were 75 years ago. So, its
>hard to argue that capitalism is at the root of loneliness. I can look at
>other social changes and see much more obvious causes:
>
>1) Divorce
>2) People moving away from families
>3) The decrease of religion as a force in the US
>4) The acceptance of a wider range of freedom; fewer social norm restraints
>5) The acceptance of sex outside of a committed relationship
>6) Job hopping
Of these 6, at least two can be directly attributed to capitalism. People
move away from their families or end up "job hopping" because of the
cutthroat nature of the market in these days, which says that profit
margin is a greater master than human sympathy.
Divorce and the decrease of religion I would also attribute to
capitalism. America has for the last century or so had a new sort of
religion: the American Dream. Religion (as personified by Christianity,
at least for me) generally says that if you are good you will be rewarded
and become happy in another life. The Dream says that if you get a good
job, work hard, are faithful and loyal and good and behave yourself, then
you will be rewarded and become happy in *this* life, and as such is
naturally a somewhat more pleasant religion for those who are not that
enamoured with dying. The strength of any religion, however, has always
been that it cannot be *disproved*, whereas the American Dream has been
repeatedly and depressingly disproved by probably 90% of its adherants.
People are depressed. People feel *cheated*; they played by the rules, so
why aren't they happy? Some get bitter and change. More keep going,
pushing back the time for happiness: when I get the promotion, when I get
the raise, when I get the new car, when I get the new house, when I
retire.... Some desperately try to surround themselves with all the
things they were promised: the nice wife, the nice house, the nice car,
in the superstitious (never let them tell you superstition is dead)
belief that if they have the *props*, the actual happiness will
eventually get there. Thus, the increase in divorces, as more and more
people marry because it's "supposed" to make them happy and move on,
dissatified, when it isn't working. In their minds it can't be *them*
that's causing the problem, because they've followed the rules; it must
be that other person who's done something wrong.
All of this is the logical result of a system which insists that
happiness, an undefinable and unmeasurable state if ever there was one,
can be achieved by a series of defined and carefully measured actions.
The world doesn't work this way.
So, I agree with you as far as you've gone, Dan, but you haven't followed
your thread back far enough. Your "causes" of loneliness are in
themselves effects of capitalism- mostly. The remaining two, a wider
range of freedom and uncommitted sex, aren't really. Freedom isn't in my
opinion an effect of capitalism, although the reverse is often true. I
agree that both of these make one more lonely. I also doubt that anyone
is interested in giving either one up. I'm not. I admit I'm more lonely
than if I would be if I was less of a free thinker, but frankly I've
gotten over it. I don't care. It's my choice, and I don't (often) go
whining about it because I feel I've made a trade-off. In my experience
victims of the other four on your list don't see things that way. They
seem to feel they've gotten nothing for something, and complain about it,
sometimes intermiably. But with, I feel, a certain amount of
justification.
Kat Feete
--------------------------
Don't do drugs because if you do drugs you'll go to prison,
and drugs are *really expensive* in prison.
- John Hardwick
