Ever-thoughtful, embarassingingly cherubic Matt Yglesias comments on the new Easterbrook opus, The Progress Paradox. He thinks the book is going after the wrong question:
The real progress paradox isn't "why doesn't all our stuff make us happy" but rather, given that all our stuff pretty clearly doesn't make us happy, how do we come to have all this stuff.On the personal level, when I got my first cell phone, I was thrilled with it. By a couple weeks ago, as reported on Wonkette, I was at Best Buy complaining about how crappy my old phone was. Then it broke on Friday, and today my spiffy new one should come in the mail. Getting the new phone will make me happy for, maybe, a week or two, but soon enough it's just going to be part of the landscape. That fact is totally clear to me, and yet I still want the new phone. I'm hoping to move out of my shitty basement in a few months into a nicer place, but I'm well aware that after occupying the hypothetical new place for a while, I'll just start taking it for granted.
I think this about nails it. The answer to "why we come to have all this stuff" is pretty easy if you think in terms of sustainability. We spend a lot of time and money acquiring things that give us temporary, unsustainable "highs" -- new car, new phone, new PDA, new house, new shot of cocaine. Each gives a short lift, but not a permanent one. Some return us to the prior state of taking-for-granted; others (coke) return us to a lower state. What's needed is activities, objects, and substances that keep us off the unsustainable hedonic treadmill. Lots of little daily boosts that keep us up, without burning through our resources or our brain cells. Maybe it will be a substance, but I doubt it. More likely, a practice, or discipline: meditation, drawing, painting, writing, exercise, snuggling with your sweetie (or your cat). It's all simple stuff. We've been highly conditioned that the answer (a) has to be complicated (b) has to be in the hands of experts and (c) has to cost money.
It's time to get off this treadmill.
Posted by Chris at February 23, 2004 06:06 PMI still like my house when it's tidy, but that only happens when we throw a party.
Posted by: Avedon at February 24, 2004 04:15 PMExactly. That's why I throw a party when it's time for a good housecleaning. Two birds with one stone!