![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusRun a google image search on Oliver James and you'll find the website of a luxury home electronics store on the King's Road, Chelsea.
"Picture the scene," it purrs, "you’ve arrived home at the end of a tiring day, in need of some relaxation. As you enter the house, you turn to a touch-screen near the door, press a few buttons and at once a host of possibilities arises… Music and DVDs can be played in any room of the house. You can unwind in your personal home cinema. Lights of all colours can bathe your home. Visitors can arrive safely through your gated entry system.... Style. Comfort. Taste. Opulence... Oliver James."
The other Oliver James, child psychologist and writer Dr Oliver James, must find this website hilarious. He's dedicated his life to the proposition that it's precisely this sort of materialistic "opulence" -- this obsession with the latest status-enhancing gadgets -- that makes us deeply unhappy. His book Affluenza came out in 2007, but it's only now, post-financial meltdown, that the book's post-materialist message (which The Times perversely misinterpreted, in 2007, as proof that "we should take the shackles off the capitalist juggernaut") is really hitting home. James appeared on Sunday's Bookclub, for instance, talking about "affluenza".
His arguments go like this. The habits of modern industrial societies -- acquisition, competitive wealth-making, organised greed -- far from producing happiness are the source of misery, stress and a greatly increased incidence of mental illness. Over-emphasis on money, possessions, appearances and fame is linked with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, personality disorder.
Interestingly enough, affluenza is an affliction of the Anglosphere. A World Health Organisation study of mental illness showed that there's twice as much mental illness in the English-speaking nations as in mainland continental Europe. In continental Europe 11.5% have suffered from mental illness in the last 12 months. In the Anglosphere -- UK, US, Canada, Australia -- 23% have. The rate for the US on its own is 26.4%. The Gini rates (measuring the gap between the richest and poorest ten percent, in other words measuring inequality and failure to redistribute income) are also different in and out of the Anglosphere: Denmark's Gini is low, at 0.247. Wealth redistribution is a widely-accepted Danish priority. Gini in the UK is higher, at 0.36. In the US it's 0.408.
James thinks there's a clear reason why the Anglosphere suffers from higher rates of mental illness. His book The Selfish Capitalist lays the blame squarely at the feet of the neo-liberal Anglo-Saxon capitalism of the past thirty years, the culture ushered in by Thatcher and Reagan. It's -- we should use the past tense, because this culture has now ended -- it was a culture fixated on short-term share prices, a culture which believed the market could fix any problem, which pushed through massive privatization and tolerated massive inequality, which fostered job insecurity, deregulation, and a consumerism based on high rates of personal debt.
The good news is that the credit crunch has wiped out neo-liberalism. There will be some short-term pain and anxiety as people worry about money and their jobs, but with any luck, says James, there will now be a shift from having to being, from wants to real needs. People will stop thinking about widescreen TVs and start playing with their toddlers instead. Values like authenticity, vivacity and playfulness will replace acquisition, competitiveness and greed. Mental health levels will start improving.
One thing that can make us instantly happier, says James, is to stop watching TV. Studies have shown that the more TV you watch, the less happy you tend to be. TV fosters insecurities and wants, and shows models of "success", that make us feel worse about ourselves. James points us in the direction of Aric Sigman's book Remotely Controlled for more on the toxic effects of television. He also recommends Tom Hodgkinson's How To Be Idle, which is actually not about being idle but about being happy and relaxed and using your time constructively. (Hodgkinson founded The Idler magazine, whose parties I used to attend when I still lived in the Anglosphere.)
Reviewing The Selfish Capitalist a year ago, The Guardian said: " James is charting the new frontiers in psychology which have the potential to be the most significant indictment yet of the form of market capitalism that has held sway across the English speaking world for the past generation. As the burgeoning happiness-book industry - led, curiously, by economists such as Richard Layard, and political scientist Robert Lane - have well established, our hugely increased wealth over the past half century has done nothing to increase our happiness. Where James now develops the argument further is in pointing out that not only does market capitalism have little impact on improving levels of happiness, but it actually increases certain types of mental illness."
If capitalism really does make you sick, there's a possibility that the strange new world we've been living in for the past three or four months -- a world in which the gearbox of the Anglospheric capitalism we've known since 1979 has been thrown into reverse -- might make us healthy.
"Picture the scene," it purrs, "you’ve arrived home at the end of a tiring day, in need of some relaxation. As you enter the house, you turn to a touch-screen near the door, press a few buttons and at once a host of possibilities arises… Music and DVDs can be played in any room of the house. You can unwind in your personal home cinema. Lights of all colours can bathe your home. Visitors can arrive safely through your gated entry system.... Style. Comfort. Taste. Opulence... Oliver James."
The other Oliver James, child psychologist and writer Dr Oliver James, must find this website hilarious. He's dedicated his life to the proposition that it's precisely this sort of materialistic "opulence" -- this obsession with the latest status-enhancing gadgets -- that makes us deeply unhappy. His book Affluenza came out in 2007, but it's only now, post-financial meltdown, that the book's post-materialist message (which The Times perversely misinterpreted, in 2007, as proof that "we should take the shackles off the capitalist juggernaut") is really hitting home. James appeared on Sunday's Bookclub, for instance, talking about "affluenza".His arguments go like this. The habits of modern industrial societies -- acquisition, competitive wealth-making, organised greed -- far from producing happiness are the source of misery, stress and a greatly increased incidence of mental illness. Over-emphasis on money, possessions, appearances and fame is linked with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, personality disorder.
Interestingly enough, affluenza is an affliction of the Anglosphere. A World Health Organisation study of mental illness showed that there's twice as much mental illness in the English-speaking nations as in mainland continental Europe. In continental Europe 11.5% have suffered from mental illness in the last 12 months. In the Anglosphere -- UK, US, Canada, Australia -- 23% have. The rate for the US on its own is 26.4%. The Gini rates (measuring the gap between the richest and poorest ten percent, in other words measuring inequality and failure to redistribute income) are also different in and out of the Anglosphere: Denmark's Gini is low, at 0.247. Wealth redistribution is a widely-accepted Danish priority. Gini in the UK is higher, at 0.36. In the US it's 0.408.
James thinks there's a clear reason why the Anglosphere suffers from higher rates of mental illness. His book The Selfish Capitalist lays the blame squarely at the feet of the neo-liberal Anglo-Saxon capitalism of the past thirty years, the culture ushered in by Thatcher and Reagan. It's -- we should use the past tense, because this culture has now ended -- it was a culture fixated on short-term share prices, a culture which believed the market could fix any problem, which pushed through massive privatization and tolerated massive inequality, which fostered job insecurity, deregulation, and a consumerism based on high rates of personal debt.The good news is that the credit crunch has wiped out neo-liberalism. There will be some short-term pain and anxiety as people worry about money and their jobs, but with any luck, says James, there will now be a shift from having to being, from wants to real needs. People will stop thinking about widescreen TVs and start playing with their toddlers instead. Values like authenticity, vivacity and playfulness will replace acquisition, competitiveness and greed. Mental health levels will start improving.
One thing that can make us instantly happier, says James, is to stop watching TV. Studies have shown that the more TV you watch, the less happy you tend to be. TV fosters insecurities and wants, and shows models of "success", that make us feel worse about ourselves. James points us in the direction of Aric Sigman's book Remotely Controlled for more on the toxic effects of television. He also recommends Tom Hodgkinson's How To Be Idle, which is actually not about being idle but about being happy and relaxed and using your time constructively. (Hodgkinson founded The Idler magazine, whose parties I used to attend when I still lived in the Anglosphere.)
Reviewing The Selfish Capitalist a year ago, The Guardian said: " James is charting the new frontiers in psychology which have the potential to be the most significant indictment yet of the form of market capitalism that has held sway across the English speaking world for the past generation. As the burgeoning happiness-book industry - led, curiously, by economists such as Richard Layard, and political scientist Robert Lane - have well established, our hugely increased wealth over the past half century has done nothing to increase our happiness. Where James now develops the argument further is in pointing out that not only does market capitalism have little impact on improving levels of happiness, but it actually increases certain types of mental illness."
If capitalism really does make you sick, there's a possibility that the strange new world we've been living in for the past three or four months -- a world in which the gearbox of the Anglospheric capitalism we've known since 1979 has been thrown into reverse -- might make us healthy.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 05:52 am (UTC)also, the fall of the bubble economy didn't seem to stop capitalism in its march at all -- certainly it must have had a major effect on practices of banks etc. but it's very much a capitalist society still.
how overextended are japanese, anyway? you certainly see adverts for credit cards and, much more so, personal loans, but i'm under the impression credit is relatively rarely used there.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 09:16 am (UTC)The Japanese (like the Germans) are savers, not overspenders. They don't use credit cards much at all. This means they spend when they have money, and don't when they don't (revolutionary concept we could learn from!). Short-term loans are, however, becoming more popular in Japan.
Gini levels in Japan (ie levels of inequality) are significantly lower than those in the Anglosphere, which reduces envy, depression and relative deprivation.
On the question of TV, Japanese watch huge amounts of TV, which often seems like a kind of semi-chemical pick-me-up; endless comedy talents laughing and eating tasty food. Although artistically null and void, this is probably better for your mental health than Western TV.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 10:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 10:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 02:10 pm (UTC)also you're always unfair on your fellow anglo-saxons - if somehow they suffer more from wide-screen tv-ism and stuff that simply means that their immune system must be more sensitive to it and if anything they deserve more sympathy and understanding. the whole world is on the same trip.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 03:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 09:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 03:12 pm (UTC)http://www.mikemillsweb.com/filmandvideo_soulcold.html
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 04:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 06:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 06:41 pm (UTC)the reason i asked about credit is that i've definitely read that japanese don't use credit cards much (though i have noticed that between 2003 when i first started going to japan and recently, you can use them much more readily at stores.)
but i had no clear idea about those loan agencies. their marketing (you see them on trains all the time, as i'm sure you know, and their logos also loom over tokyo) looks really suspicious and the interest rates can be really awful. i'm not sure it's entirely rosy that these huge corporate banks are getting involved -- i'm sure there are pros over yakuza and other shady outfits, of course -- but that's mainly out of a distrust of large corporate banks than any direct evidence.
and interesting point about japanese TV -- though there's also a great deal of glitzy TV drama that certainly, judging from the haircuts of the heads in the ads, at least, shows a fairly affluent lifestyle, no? but it's possible that i'm misjudging it, or that that's not currently in vogue at this time as tastes change.
i find it interesting that you suggest uniqlo is the primarily successful retailer right now (and i'm wearing a shirt from uniqlo as i type this (!!) because it does seem plausible. on the other hand, of course the mental image of japan is louis vuitton boutiques. i saw no shortage of high-price luxury/designer goods when i was browsing in october, as the dow (and nikkei) were cratering...
i have gotten the impression over the years from japanese friends and from what i've read, that, unlike americans, the japanese are content to save up for a large purchase rather than buy it quickly with credit and then pay it down (or not bother to pay for it at all, in many cases in the US.)
i think it's hard to judge tokyo retail with an american eye thanks to population density. just because shibuya is incredibly crowded with shoppers on any given day, it doesn't mean they're the same shoppers with any level of frequency.
and japan does seem to still have more of an eye for quality and durability than the US does, which i think is one of the major problems with our consumption (kinda goes back to the point you made about Re:S earlier.) i have a porter wallet that cost me about 7000-8000 yen three years ago. it's showing few signs of wearing out at all, despite cosmetic damage (it's not as pretty as it once was). compare to the rest of my life, spending $10-20 on a wallet that lasts a year or two. i wonder how pervasive that is. i'm not suggesting that nobody in the US sells durable wallets, but more that i sort of accidentally bought one because i liked it in japan and decided to splurge than i thought about the fact that it would be so durable (i wonder how japanese consumers behave, though.)
there was an interesting article i read a bit ago (which i can't google up right now, can't think of anything distinguishing enough) about the rise of retailers like H&M (notably scandinavian, though!) who sell cheap disposable clothes in up-to-the-minute fashion vs. the durability of clothes from the past, told through the vector of a woman who was still wearing the wool winter coat her mother bought for herself in the 60s.
then again, i wonder how long this uniqlo t-shirt will really last... =P