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happiness and wealth
Jan. 11th, 2018 03:50 pmThere's a quote I run across occasionally that goes something like:
Every time I read it I sort of heh and spare half a thought to modern materialism, and then I go about my life. To some extent I just consider it a "Back in my day...!" throwaway comment.*
Then earlier this week I was reading an article from the BBC about the evolution of the United States over the last 3 decades. One passage in particular struck me:
These are all facts I knew - in fact, I'd argue that I've known that kids wouldn't necessarily be better off than their parents since... oh... I guess about 2001, when I graduated with a CS degree right after the dot com bubble burst. It seems like longer.
But it just made me realize that my concept of "modern materialism" was formed in the 1980s, with Madonna's Material Girl and similar songs. And I thought about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which puts "safety" as a more basic need than "love/belonging". I I thought about how, these days, the vast majority of people in the US are to some extent struggling to get by financially, and it often seems like the only way to stop struggling is to win the lottery or some other contest and become filthy rich. And I have to wonder if that quote has it backwards - our music is about things we can't take for granted having, and being uncertain about finances is a fundamentally less happy state to be in than being comfortable financially and uncertain about love.
*Somewhat relatedly, I have an appeal to all the internet wags who claim older music was soooo much better than modern music: Can you possibly, maybe, just conceivably do something to prove your point other than compare the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody to the lyrics of a modern dance song? Please?
Music used to be about "I love you" and "I want to be happy". Now it's about "I want to have sex" and "I want to have money. And people wonder why they're miserable?"
Every time I read it I sort of heh and spare half a thought to modern materialism, and then I go about my life. To some extent I just consider it a "Back in my day...!" throwaway comment.*
Then earlier this week I was reading an article from the BBC about the evolution of the United States over the last 3 decades. One passage in particular struck me:
"With parents no longer certain their children would come to enjoy more abundant lives than they did, the American Dream felt like a chimera. The American compact, the bargain that if you worked hard and played by the rules your family would succeed, was no longer assumed. Between 2000 and 2011, the overall net wealth of US households fell. By 2014, the richest 1% of Americans had accrued more wealth than the bottom 90%."
These are all facts I knew - in fact, I'd argue that I've known that kids wouldn't necessarily be better off than their parents since... oh... I guess about 2001, when I graduated with a CS degree right after the dot com bubble burst. It seems like longer.
But it just made me realize that my concept of "modern materialism" was formed in the 1980s, with Madonna's Material Girl and similar songs. And I thought about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which puts "safety" as a more basic need than "love/belonging". I I thought about how, these days, the vast majority of people in the US are to some extent struggling to get by financially, and it often seems like the only way to stop struggling is to win the lottery or some other contest and become filthy rich. And I have to wonder if that quote has it backwards - our music is about things we can't take for granted having, and being uncertain about finances is a fundamentally less happy state to be in than being comfortable financially and uncertain about love.
*Somewhat relatedly, I have an appeal to all the internet wags who claim older music was soooo much better than modern music: Can you possibly, maybe, just conceivably do something to prove your point other than compare the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody to the lyrics of a modern dance song? Please?
