"When the truth is found...to be lies, and all the joy within you dies......": the truth has consequences. Would that this was merely about the serious public policy/political issues of our time, and not more basically about the entirety of all the total mass quantities of beliefs, values, assumptions, institutions, histories and so forth that are embedded in almost every human being (and not only Americans) by way of cultural indoctrinations on all sides of the political spectrum. And of course the ironies so obvious in the columnist's personal opinions which actually contribute to our situation need not be elaborated. Though, one has to confess, Douthat does mean well. Unfortunately, however, remember that bit about the road to hell's paving?
4
it is so sad. Republicans ruined the country and won't admit it or take responsibility for it. That goes for Douthat too.
17
Can having a bunch of "Stuff" make you happy? You can never get enough of what you don't really want, you think you want it and having it will fulfill you. But the more you get, the more empty you become.
Greed is the order of the day. Get all you can. I got mine, now get yours. That is the way it is. Us versus them all the time. Folks telling you who you should hate from the time you are born until they ship you off in the pine box. Many end up hating themselves. Folks feel a sense of lacking. I'm not good enough, comparing themselves to others.
Social media and facebook lives. Only post the good. Life is not perfect but we are raising a generation who believe if it's not then just take a pill. Or jump off the ship. Well the pill alone is not going to get it in the long run. There is work to do. It's bad out here. Ignorance is bliss. The more I plug into the news cycle the more depressed i get. But I want to know what is happening in the world. I'm rambling.
10
The Elites are doing everything they can to destroy the middle class in their quest for Globalist power. NAFTA, Opioid Crisis, sending American jobs overseas, Student Loans, Housing Crisis, Opening the Borders to Illegals, Mass Immigration, deliberately provoking animosity between the races and sexes.
It’s a wonder that more people don’t succumb to despair watching their country hollowed out and destroyed by greed and lust for power.
11
America is experiencing an epidemic of despair because the nation is experiencing a decline in status. We were once the envy of the world, and Americans everywhere strutted their stuff. Now decline is everywhere, and in full sight, and we're not so cocky any more. In fact, we understand deep in our bones that our best days are most likely behind us, and who can get excited about that?
7
Despair is the absence of hope. Anybody, in certain circumstances might regard life as hopeless. At this moment in history there are many candidates converging - the decline in the role of men, economic inequality, a sense of foreboding, climate change, rejection, the not necessarily acknowledged futility of belief in some external power.
It doesn't take a Marianne Williamson to understand that there is an holistic problem in America. We do indeed need a spiritual renewal. However it won't come from thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers won't stop a hurricane, a gunman, or give dignity to those who are struggling to cope with the rapid changes in our world. What we need is the "We" in "We, the people" to become the guiding principle of our politics. But American life, in its thrall to unfettered laissez-faire capitalism, has been headed in a completely different direction best summed up by W C Fields, "Never give a sucker an even break".
The solution to the spiritual problem is in policies that acknowledge worth in terms other than how much wealth one has. A financial system that regards human energy as a cost not an asset - our metrics have no way to measure non-economic contributions - is one that can only lead to the destruction of human dignity - manifested by despair in some, by anger in others. No one likes being taken for a sucker.
5
The general argument Douthat makes for everything is to minimize.
Liberals are the emotional equivalent, in his mind, to Victorian women in need of smelling salts. It's a form of denialism that may find fault with Trump, yet never sees his presidency or the GOP as a crisis.
Perhaps, he takes endless comfort in his Catholic faith, that God favors America and won't let it fail. Many conservatives do. That it's merely our job to be on the righteous side of freedom and justice, depending on how you define the two.
Despite numerous studies and books that show Scandinavia leading the world in enlightened, 21st Century governance, conservatives vilify them as socialist (they're not). Universal healthcare and education liberate citizens from economic retrenchment and ruin and foster a true meritocratic playing field among youth. They consistently score at the top of international PISA tests, entrepreneurialism, wage growth, and the happiness/quality-of-life quotient, while the U.S. scores near bottom. Douthat probably shrugs at such data.
The spiritual crisis is real, but religion has made matters worse. The U.S. is the most religious country in the Western world. Americans are as strung out on greed--be it the prosperity gospel or neoliberal cum libertarian self-interest--as they are on opioids.
We've become a nation so narcissistic, we elected a racist, malignant narcissist as president, to serve, one has to assume, as a projection, as a mirror for our own venality.
6
This crisis is an old one, and it's a human crisis. the inner cities were the first to feel it, decades ago. Those who tried to help were shouted down by the rural and exurban (then the majority population) and were told that it was a black or Latino problem inherent in the black/Latino cultures.
It now is apparent that the problem is not unique to inner cities, that it is a problem that spans all demographic groups. It can't be cured by shaming victims, or by pretending it's something limited to one population group or another. It requires a major societal intervention. This will include financial intervention, medical intervention, new drugs, and psychological breakthroughs. This is an American problem, and we must pressure those who have political power to pull together the resources to solve, or at least mitigate this very human shortcoming.
5
Imagine a country in which one half the voters support a political party intent on disenfranchising those who would vote for their opponents. Intent on deliberately withholding medical care from those who cannot afford to pay for it. Intent on ensuring that education be placed in the hands of profiteers.
Then wring your hands over 'despair'among the populace.
Give me a break
12
Fragmented families now spread all over the country, if not other parts of the world.
Loss of well-paying jobs, pensions, benefits.
A mess of a healthcare system. Public education is for the most part, failing our kids. College costs through the roof.
Salary increases not keeping up with cost of living.
24/7 news cycle with endless bad news from every corner of the globe.
A bad nightmare of a presidency.
The whole world is becoming more nationalist.
We are destroying our own planet.
Everyone's heads are buried in their phones.
Communal experiences such as watching the same TV show as others around us....or listening to the same local radio station as others around us....no longer happening.
More people working from home, a coffeeshop or library means more isolation and less interaction with colleagues, other people on the subway, etc.
R.E. 'developers' are destroying neighborhoods, one by one.
The chasm is widening between the rich and the poor.
The US has the most people in prison (as a % of the overall population) than Any Other Nation on Earth. The NRA runs our government. The US spends more on war ('defense') than the next six or so countries, Combined. We are more concerned about 'looking old' than the fact that our kids go to school with bullet-proof backpacks.
Really, what's to be depressed about?
15
What is most remarkable to me is that while rates have been plummeting across western Europe since 1990, U.S. rates spiked in the late 90s and continue to climb. U.S. rates have always been relatively high, but never higher than France or Germany - until now. In fact both countries today have rates far lower than the lowest rates the U.S. has ever had. If "secularization" is a cause, as Mr. Douthat opines, then the pattern should be the opposite since France and Germany both have far lower rates of religious affiliation than the U.S.
6
Americans are so separated from their natural selves in our technological world that we innocently dive into deep water that is well above our heads and tirelessly get taken by the undercurrent. Who or what encourages us to take that dive in the hopes of escaping some form of pain? Obviously, opioid drug manufacturers have a degree of responsibility. What about those Americans who are not in physical pain who want to escape from life? What is it about American life that is so painful that you would willingly surrender your life to alcohol, drugs or even suicide? We need to find the answers from those who have recovered from such dire circumstances and the people and forces that helped them recover. Finding possible solutions on a political, economic, and spiritual level will help this crisis, but this crisis is most often fought in the back rooms of homes. Loneliness is the true killer in American society. We need to address this crisis by opening our lives to each other, helping those in despair, connecting with another human being, and letting them know their fight is our fight too.
5
One more time I read a paragraph or two and scroll down here.
Douthat, there is nothing more pressing, more urgent, more life threatening, more dangerous that climate change, global warming, or (as I call it) global weirding.
More than likely if we decide to invest in a humane and sustainable economic/political/spiritual Nation that works for all of US we would see the suicides and opiate addictions start to wane.
But this is life. We are all going to die of something, be it old age or despair. But if we don't get something in place to subdue this climate crisis we are all going to die pretty darn soon.
5
There is a crisis of depression, isolation and desperation. Unlike climate change, however, its roots are very complex. Isolation, boredom and despair in rural America are different from those in urban ghettoes and in turn different from what occurs in suburban America.
Since you put this in the context of political debates, the question, really, boils down to this: what is the function of government? Really, what is government supposed to do?
I mean this seriously. Because neither of the two political parties actually talks about this. The GOP, by default, appears to think that the purpose of government is to make the rich richer and to exploit and abuse everyone else to that end. Needless to say, they can't SAY this, but their actions speak to this conclusion.
The Democrats, again by default, seem more diverse in their opinions, but they don't discuss the existential crises that many feel.
How about this, then, for those frustrated with the absence of coherence on both parties' parts:
The purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot be expected to do for themselves. This will be different for different people, as some are more limited in their capacities, some less, and some not at all.
But the bottom line is simple: government serves the people ... ALL the people. Any government that fails to do so (read the Declaration of Independence) should be replaced.
9
Ross, don't dismiss climate change as a leftist boondoggle that will sink Democratic hopes of winning the presidency in 2020. It is a subject that can't be ignored or minimized much longer.
We face a global threat in rapid climate change that is caused by human activities. We are seeing the increasingly extreme changes to our climate, yet many continue to deny the phenomena and ignore the advice of climate experts.
Our country was united during WWII -- and not just because of the shock of Pearl Harbor and the threat to our national security. The draft meant most American families had loved-ones who were at risk. People were willing to make sacrifices for this joint effort to, in a sense, save the world.
If we had elected officials who not only acknowledged the fact of climate change, but also promoted policies that worked to combat it, our nation could again become united in a common struggle to "save the world".
10
I am in the age group Case and Deaton were examining. Though this may not be generalizable to the entire population, from my vantage point, the answer is primarily economic. When I look at my own parents life, it seems relatively easy. They lived the American dream. My father started on the ground floor, working his way up. He was able to afford a college education for two children, own two cars, and an annual vacation. Everything was paid for without credit cards. In fact, nothing was paid for with credit cards. I later returned to graduate school. I am still paying off a student loan. I have an old car, and never take a vacation. Things were different when my husband was alive, but he has been dead for decade, leaving me as a single mother at the same time my son was entering college. I am employed but do not get fringe benefits with my job. I love my job but do not make a great deal of money. Life is a constant struggle of paying off monthly bills and hoping that there is enough left. It grinds you down, chews you up, and is exhausting. I don't complain, but it does anger me to see the wealthy not paying their fair share, and begrudging me affordable healthcare. When I had an accident this summer, I needed to go to the hospital but was afraid. Instead, I went home and to a clinic the next day. I was lectured by the doctor about waiting because it might have caused death. I was lucky. This is not my parents life. And, it is very hard.
31
It's not too much or too little money that creates deaths of despair. Both the Rich and the Poor commit suicide. Nixon said the saddest people he met were the enormously rich without purpose in their lives. In contrast, some of the destitute do not get depressed because they work to exhaustion to every day.
Viktor Frankl argued that it is more important to have a reason "why to live" than to have a way of life. Douthat agrees.
There's a simple remedy to reduce the number of violent suicides. Reducing the availability of firearms will reduce the number of suicides. People without guns may still manage to kill themselves, but there will be fewer deaths. That's what happened after guns were confiscated in Australia after a massacre; fewer suicides and NO mass murders.
9
I am personally depressed about the climate crisis and the fact that our government is so corrupt that the situation seems hopeless at times. I actually felt uplifted listening to the climate crisis town halls because the Democratic candidates were acknowledging the urgency of the issue and want to do something about it.
14
That you compare this opioid thing with the crack era in US history is something of an astonishment. The 'solution' to the crack problem was locking up hundreds of thousands of Americans, most of whom just happened to be black Americans, for decades, with a multiplier social effect well into the millions. Lost families, lost communities, lost prospects for opportunity. Tough on crime, anyone? And so now, because this opioid 'crisis' is helping multitudes of mostly rural white people medicate themselves out of their 'despair,' we're supposed to find a comprehensive solution to make them feel better about themselves by giving them religion and belief and faith? Get real. You don't think that the crack era was a social expression of despair? And what did we do, but Lock Them Up.
18
The opiod crisis is real and has to be addressed but its damage is short term relatively speaking. Climate change is a major problem for the planet and for generations into the distant future. This column is "whataboutism". Never mind climate change, worry about despair. We should worry about both.
9
The lowest suicide rates in the world are in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. Even in Syria, suicides rates are significantly lower than in the United States. The highest suicide rates? Greenland is number one. 17 times the rate of Saudi or Kuwait. But which place is a democracy, a free society? The suicide leader. Is it those incredibly long and dark winters versus the unending sunlight of the Arabian Peninsula that is distinguishing factor. If so, those Greenlanders need to take long winter vacations in sun drenched countries nearer to the equator.
I think we all know what causes suicide, despair and depression. We need healthy families, healthy communities, with safe environments. We all need to feel secure and loved. Well, in that case, we should work toward the rebuilding of communities and families. This is a crisis of civil society. The Jewish word is Tikkun, heal the world.
10
@Yankelnevich - One assumes some national "suicide" stats are inaccurately and/or under-reported for a number of cultural/political/religious motivations.
7
Another week, another dishonest column by professional member of the Republican Commentariat, Ross Douthat. First, he only cares about deaths of despair because they predominately affect white male Republican voters in red states. Second, he uses his column for an off-topic partisan attack on Democratic candidates for the Presidency, specifically the ones his Republican Party fears can actually defeat his beloved President Trump next year. Third, he uses typical Republican Playbook dishonest tactics with his argument that climate change isn't a real threat, based on a cherry-picked projection of increased heat-related deaths, ignoring the fact that population movements and wars due to drought, heat, inundation and starvation will lead to the annual deaths of hundreds of times the number dying by suicide and drug overdoses currently in the US. Some of those dead will even be white male Christians, the only demographic group Douthat cares about. Fourth, he dutifully declines to mention that much of the red state white male despair is the result of Republican Party policy, from destroying programs to retrain workers for modern jobs and shredding the social safety net, to the constant drumbeat of fake bad news from Republican sources such as Fox. And no mention of his
Republican Party’s kleptocracy working overtime to redistribute wealth upward to their donor class.
If only Douthat’s church and Party had taught him compassion and honesty, but then he would be out of a job.
23
Ross, is it conceivable that a root cause of the dispair is Republican policies that has transfered wealth to the relative few?
That transfer has gutted hopes, dreams, and opportunities of millions of hard working Americans.
24
It's lack of vision, lack of hope, and lack of future. Young Americans have nothing to look forward to but a downward spiral to the rightful place of their country, which is not on top of the world.
11
Could it be that the angst and despair we suffer societally today is the culmination of decades of hubristic thinking that we'd 'ended history' and solved the world's problems with neat, neoliberal, libertarian economic theories?
That we'd built the finest, most indestructible ship of state the world has ever known, only to run headlong into the iceberg or perfect storm of climate change (and a 6th mass extinction), the limits of growth, our own mortality and vulnerability as a nation, and Trump?
Trump is the apotheosis of everything conservatives believe, most notably, the principle driving their neat, economic syllogisms--selfishness. A bully, an autocrat, and a pathological liar. A character so outrageous as to surpass anything Christopher Buckley or Carl Hiaasen could fictionalize.
We're awash in opioids thanks to pharmaceutical giants that care only about stock prices. A fossil fuel industry that keeps kneecapping alternative infrastructure. A wealthy class that only gets richer at the expense of average Americans. Banks, the biggest culprits in the 2008 crash, rewarded for their crimes. Or Norquist's dream of drowning government, which has savaged public education, consumer protection, and healthcare in the bathtub of their psychopathic indifference to their fellow citizens' welfare.
It's an iceberg alright--of conscience. The question is, do we have enough left to care about one another such that we avoid being sunk by our near complete loss of a moral compass?
16
If you want to see hopeful change for promoting life on planet earth then vote for people who actually care to do something about climate change, inequality, healthcare for all, and affordable education for our competitive, globalized world. The GOP believes too much in punitive, regressive, and sociopathic policies that ensure that soul killing materialism is the only answer... how’s that working out ! Poisoning our water, air and our food for bigger profits for corporations isn’t exactly “ ProLife “ now is it ... republicans ? We need a leader who inspires us to do big things ... if we can give a blank check to the war profiteers then we can doggone well fund education and healthcare in our country ... you know we can ! No more taxpayer subsidies for big oil and big agri and the wealthy need to start acting like they’re real Americans and start paying their share of taxes.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has compassion and intelligence with a deep understanding where the wheels went off the American bus ... she use to be a republican but then did her research and realized it was the wrong fork in the road. Time for healing and healthy change for our country and it’s citizens...I’m voting for Senator Warren.
12
How much of this is about the aging of the population? People get old, get tired, lose their health.
4
You're not going to like this comment. Mao Zedong solved the drug epidemic in China by killing the drug dealers and forcing the families of addicts to take them back into the fold of the community. Drug profiteering by the British which led to the establishment of Hong Kong caused the drug epidemic in the first place. The solution was to reestablish community and familial ties. Mao used tyranny to solve the problem of Capitalism causing suicide and drug addiction. Drug use should be decriminalized with direct pathways back into society. Drug profiteering and legalization of recreational use is the path to increased addiction death suicide spiritual crisis and despair. Criminalizing drug use is the same as profiteering when prisons for profit leads to mass incarceration. The answer is in front of us, but we are more interested in making money.
7
First - Douthat blithly and erroneously dismisses climate change urgency based upon estimated additional deaths - whereas the real impacts are likely to be more economic and lifestyle misery among the living, which is likely to lead to more deaths of despair and millions (40+ or more) climate "refugees" looking for a reasonable place to live, enhancing competition among labor markets driving wages further down for the relatively unskilled, etc. Additional deaths is a very poor indicator for the seriousness of climate change, and, frankly quite beneath Douthat's intelligence.
Secondly, yes, the rate of deaths of despair is a sad marker of civilization's decline or betterment, and it, like everything else, requires a whole system approach, and yes, politicians tend to focus on one thing to the exclusion of others when all of the above are likely necessary to reverse dastardly trends like this.
4
In regard to the drug and opioid part of this despair crisis, I think it is important to remember the Alcoholics Anonymous groups for alcoholics. I worked with alcoholics and drug addicts for many years. I learned very soon that even with residential treatment and one to one counseling, the most effective form of treatment included an AA 12 step group. Those groups meet in almost every city, large and small, and in several places and at different times in those towns. So, a person tempted to re use or to start drinking again can always find a group meeting and kindred souls who have been where she/he is. Also in following the 12 step program it is necessary to have a AA sponsor who helps in the "fearless moral inventory" or self examination in those 12 steps and who is then available on emergency basis as well when those times come when it is tempting to re use drugs/alcohol again. Some have called this the largest spiritual movement in America, that is the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve step program with its help in the person's confronting herself and the harm done to self and to others and the ways to make amends for that harm. I have met hundreds of former addicts to alcohol and drugs who have been helped into a state of remission (but never cure). This is an adjunct program to one to one counseling and to residential treatment programs. However, I considered it essential finally as the success rate from the others was not as good without the AA part.
3
The article states that deaths from opiods are increasing substantially faster than deaths from suicide and alcohol. The article also states that the increase I'm opiod deaths is "clearly driven by change in the supply, addictiveness, and lethality of drugs — which suggests that policymakers should keep their focus on the opioid problem." Heroin, morphine and opiods are all extremely addictive and have similar pain alleviating and euphoric inducing benefits and yet opiods have become todays problem drug. The article fails to mention the heavy marketing and distribution campaign that only the opiods of the three drugs have received.
4
Yes, each of these deaths so tragic and so unnecessary. To analyze, we see this happening more in poverty-stricken areas, mainly throughout the south and midwest. The ongoing misery and despair of poverty is a crutch in this scourge. These are the same areas which would enormously benefit economically from having more money to fund Public Education- as learning creates healthy minds, self-confidence, as well as far more job prospects. They would also benefit hugely from the Green New Deal, for more better-paying jobs, and the re-birth of the successful small family businesses and farms, focused on creating sustainability, simply by taxing corporations fairly, and spending less on war machinery. When there is worthwhileness, and fair pay in work, the mental health of optimism can prevail again. And far fewer people will resort to escaping poverty via drugging themselves. So, folks, please vote Democrat~ to save lives.
6
What a thoughtful article, and especially what a striking last paragraph. I imagine the German public during the Weimar Republic between the wars was looking for spiritual solace as they paid the reparations, mourned the loss of World War I, watched their children flirt with Communism. Probably they felt that a "good war" would straighten it all out.
3
"a surge in suicides and depression and heavy drinking among middle-aged working-class whites to which economic policy might offer answers; and an increase in depression and suicide generally, and among young people especially, that has more mysterious causes (social media? secularization?) and might only yield to a psychological and spiritual response."
Excuse me, young people are not suffering from a lack of faith or meaning, it's not their phones, or social media. They do not need a "psychological or spiritual response." They're suffering from bad economic policy decisions made by their predecessors. So the solution that young people need is the same one that "middle-aged working whites" need, an economic one, except they probably need it more because essentially no generation has ever had the advantages the baby boomers had.
10
I agree with Mr. Douthat that the solutions(s) require both spiritual and technical responses to the despair today. A change in laws will reduce, but not eliminate, the pain that we suffer or that can be inflicted on others; thus, we also must encourage a spiritual reawakening so as to address further the root causes of our pain to reduce the death and destruction.
Here are a few verses from a hymn composed in 1968 that was sung this morning at my church, and appear timely today in calling for action and spiritual renewal:
"For The Healing of Nations"--
"For the healing of nations,
Lord we pray with one accord.
That redeemed from war and hatred,
of the things that earth affords.
To a life of love and action,
help us rise and pledge our word." (V.1)
"All that kills abundant living,
let it from the earth be banned.
Pride of status, race or schooling,
dogmas that obscure your plan.
In our common quest for justice,
may we hallow life's brief span." (V.3)
4
@John
I did a bit more research on this song. These lyrics were written by Reverend Frederik Kaan who originally was from the Netherlands and passed away in 2009. These and his other works are a beautiful legacy for him to have left with us.
2
We are all living the chronic trauma of intentional dehumanization by our societal-economic-political system in the worship of wealth and power as the meaning and purpose of life. This is the root cause of our epidemic of addictions, overdoses and suicides in our attempts to cope and escape, being told that there is something "wrong" with us, that we are not "good enough."
There is nothing healthy about being "well-adjusted" to a profoundly pathological society. No amount of money or individual interventions will "fix" this.
14
As with many public health issues, the solution may be a combination of all the suggestions. A comprehensive approach.
Often we tend to look at "either/or" instead of "and." If we can accept and embrace someone else's solutions in addition to our own ideas, we will find we can work together and prevent deaths.
But I sense this goes against human nature. I've seen it for many issues, among politicians as well as all the smart dedicated people who work on prevention. Too many wind up with a tug of war tension, fighting each other for resources and attention for our positions, instead of working together collaboratively on many solutions at once.
Rather than assign labels to individual Presidential candidates, and assign labels to Democrats and Republicans, what would the picture look like if everyone was put together into one? Let's move away from "we vs they" "me vs you" "us vs them" and work together.
That leads to joining forces for a vision.
1
This morning I read an article by Jonathan Franzen in the New Yorker called "What If We Stopped Pretending"; it was riveting. Essentially he said that the idea of reversing the climate crisis, even among scientists, is false and that horrendous consequences are inevitable. My view is that this tragic fact should become the basis of a new "religion," as it has for me. Strictly by accident, I have never learned how to drive and do all my errands on foot. I prepare my own food and the last time I flew was decades ago. I don't take credit for my "monastic" lifestyle -- it just happened to evolve. But now being frugal and disciplined is clearly making me feel happier than I did long ago when I was more inclined to buy stuff, like everyone else.
I also love nature and animals. (I watch NatGeoWild a lot -- and little else -- on TV.) Our planet is a miracle; there may not be another like it. No one knows to what extent we may be able to preserve at least some of its splendor. In short, I think that it might help us all to forget about personal gain and fame and instead devote ourselves to this effort in every small way that we can. This should become a movement!
Of course it's also true that our country is on the skids both politically and economically and that we should resolve at least to vote intelligently.
12
Man is curious, and somewhat selfish. Addiction comes from the selfishness, often initiated by the curiosity of alcohol, drugs and pain killers, but also religions and phobias of many types and times. The curios get hooked, too often and don't feel they need to 'get out', early enough and sometimes the just never do.
Trump's divisive political style ,pathological lying and his attacking our long standing institutions and traditional allies creates at atmosphere that encourages escape from reality that drugs/booze can provide. Folks need hope that things can get better thru efforts expended but if reality has no meaning why bother. We need a change in leadership come 2020 and a booming stock market alone does not provide the society we need to encourage living to do our best with resiliency to handle the hurdles of the human condition.
4
I was listening to a podcast with David Bach a couple of weeks ago. The comment he made that stayed with me more than any financial advice was how much pain people are in, specifically that if we knew how much pain people were in, we'd be a lot nicer to one another. Regardless of where you stand on this topic, I hope you'll take his comment to heart. Most of us are doing our best to get through this crazy world with some moments of joy. We can all be kinder to one another.
10
@Raleigh
So true. Medicine (the practice) was searching for a method to allow physicians to know they had adequately prescribed enough pain killers to actually get the patient out of pain.
This when on for years and was debated on these pages.
Getting actually OUT OF PAIN, sometimes (often) is so uplifting that patients don't want to fall back into pain again.
Sometimes that manifests itself as addiction. Alcohol, Vicodin, Oxycontin, Heroin ? Man is curious and addictive.
1
The despair of which Mr. Douthat writes is pervasive in our society and contributes to a wide variety of maladaptive behaviors including but not limited to substance abuse, suicide and gang behavior. It is a response to the lack of hope for a better life burdening both adolescents and adults.
7
In the last three years I have lost two of my three adult children to suicide. These deaths did not occur at the same time. I had no clue that either of my children were contemplating taking their own lives, and I do not understand it to this day. I live with unspeakable grief every day. I do not expect that that will get better with time.
I understand the extreme importance that many of the respondents want to point out about climate change. I agree with them about the need to be informed and active in response to what we know. Still, I believe that shining a light on the epidemic of "deaths of despair" is just as important as the issues of climate change.
We must examine these horrible deaths that not only end a beloved life but leave all those who remain in unrelenting pain.
If someone reading this column and these comments is contemplating suicide, please, please talk to someone first. Nothing is as final as death. Someone may be able to help you.
184
@Gretchen Noreen You have suffered the worst thing that can happen to a person, multiplied. I know there is nothing I can say, but I am so sorry. So sorry.
61
@Gretchen Noreen. I wish I had words to convey just how sorry I am for this horrible loss. All I can offer is to do my best to help others and to try to effect change in leadership so fewer parents have to face such situations. I send you my best.
32
@Gretchen Noreen
Gretchen, from a mother to a mother, I have lost a daughter to a drug overdose, and although people told me it would get easier with time, it's been my experience that time does pass, but healing is a whole other matter. Grief only morphs, changes shape from year to year. And it changes us. My beautiful daughter has been gone 4,110 days, and at this moment, it's just as raw and horrific as it was the moment I got that phone call. I'm wrapping my arms around you today, and sending love from across the country.
49
America functions best when a national objective is embraced. History bears this out. Leadership by the political forces of the country, directing the national effort, has given the country the stimulus that is necessary for society to advance. For example, mobilization for the economy for victory in WWII continued into the 50s, the development of the Interstate Highway System and infrastructure came thereafter along with space exploration. The advent of scientific, medical and technological advances was seen in the 60s and 70s. The 80s, 90s, and 2000s saw the development of computers ushering in the internet age. These government-sponsored innovative programs and goals have inspired us as a country. Recently, the country has spiraled into cultural upheaves that have resulted in the gloom, antagonism, and despair that we see today. Without a national objective, led by political leadership, society has devolved into culture wars that have turned the forward movement of our country into internal destruction. Dispair is a symptom of the times. The cure, a different direction.
8
Here is a thought that might break the log jam here that is retarding our growth as a society, culture, and as a country: Maybe it is only the elite that have this despair, and it is a despair which comes from a sense that you actually do not have answers anymore for what is going on, you are no longer the solution but part of the problem. After all most Americans are functioning quite well in a diverse society that includes others who are not like them, but there is enough awareness that we go together or not at all. This inclusion process is especially hard for a priest class, an elite class, that no longer gets to say that THOSE PEOPLE do not belong; this is true whether one is conservative or liberal, each has it's designated class of those we can exclude. That all are included in basic human rights is the watch word for today; with that as a baseline we can decide, just what are those rights which belong to all, and how can we insure that these rights are actualized.
3
The so-called elites aren't killing themselves. They aren't addicted to opiates. Their drink of choice is a fine cabernet. They mostly don't own guns. They cook at home and shop at farmers markets. No, no, the despair Ross writes about is not a problem of elites.
4
This afternoon while watching the Blue Jays play baseball I suddenly realized our difficulties. The Tampa Bay Rays are one of the most exciting teams in baseball but baseball has become a game which is played when Tampa Bay baseball fans go to bed.
My wife and I never if possible drive at night. Baseball in Florida in the summer seems self defeating but baseball at night in an older wealthy white community that stays home after dark pretty well describes America's and much of the world's insanity.
1
So “pull yourself up by bootstraps” as an advice given so frequently to inner cities poor, drug addicts and homeless, is not working anymore?
Democrats, please help!
Well, they will help, or would had helped already if not for vicious opposition to fund infrastructure projects in rural America from congressional GOP.
8
Reducing access to firearms will reduce the suicide rate in the United States
6
All of the above. The political collapse of the Republican Party into the cult of Trumpocracy has made the political scene in the U.S. a third world banana republic joke. The economy of working class families has stagnated for decades; while the stinking 1% Oligarch have been raking in $Billions since dear Ronald Reagan`s voodoo "trickle down" economics began to destroy the middle class 40 years ago. And do not even get me started on the sterile "Evangelical" crowd that is 95% political and 5% Christian. Their God seems to look a lot like Donald Trump. May God have mercy on their sad empty souls. America is so morally bankrupt right now it is almost impossible to know where to begin?!
15
Source of despair?!
Best look first to the corruption of Catholic-Christian faith as transmogrified into the evil Spectre of Donald J. Trump as President of the USA!
Where can any Christian with a foundation faith in the beatitudes and resurrection turn when the core and congregation of that basis of spiritual reality is blasphemed daily, flagrantly, and broadcast to all as Yellow Bellow gospel?!
4
@vishmael
What would you expect when the currency itself takes the name of the Lord in vain by proclaiming "In God We Trust".
1
I believe the way into a spiritual solution is through compassion. This would mean you, Ross, and me, feeling empathy for the young man who feels so hopeless he Wants tog his own life. Or the addict who really wants to stop taking drugs, but her body is racked with pain and she knows she must let down her family again.
The compassion helps us connect to our own spiritual center, and therefore Give a hand to our suffering sisters and brothers.
As writer And theologian Karen Armstrong explains, compassion is the thread that is found Throughout spirituality in a host Of different cultures.
Can you write about a single life that is mired in despair, and “feel with“ That person And embrace their fragility? Lend that individual a hand and help them?
If the policies we create begin with compassion, we have a much better chance of helping others overcome despair. Wants to
1
It’s clear from reading the comments here and other Comments on NY Times Articles, people are depressed and angry. There seems to be a variety of reasons for this including the rich taking all the money which is somewhat true. We outsourced our middle class to India, China and Mexico. Corporations provided the logistics but we gladly enjoyed all the cheap goods and services.
Technology is the other silent killer. Less jobs are needed to produce the same amount of goods and services and that curve is only steepening. If we are looking to tilt more to socialism to turn the tide, that won’t bring back jobs. Also take a peak at the balance sheets of countries like Canada and Australia, they are flat broke.
Scary times but our solution is to divide the country further through politics. Both the right and left divide so I guess even I am depressed. The end appears near especially when you feel the hate here. People here can no longer talk to each other or compromise. Everything is all or nothing.
Spirituality appears to be the only way.
3
Mr. Douthat is correct in his key observation: there is a malaise gripping the United States and there are multiple causes for it. Unfortunately he gave short shrift to climate change as one of the causes and to what the Democrats on stage during the CNN town hall about how they would address it.
In watching the town hall I came away with two ideas: first, climate change is an existential threat that will destroy us if left unchecked; second, all of the candidates have ideas that can unite us in an effort to save our climate from total destruction. This gave me hope and optimism that we can end our current spiral into nihilism in a way that improves the fortunes of all.
4
By far the biggest driver is inequality. The US has the most brutal capitalism on the planet and the biggest inequality and lowest social mobility of all major developed nations. This has long driven outlying unwanted indicators that tend to vary over time. The only person quoted with any sense is Bernie Sanders.
10
American despair is a product of all the forces named in Mr. Douthat's column in and readers' comments. Our species is now the most invasive on earth and is obviously destroying itself. Spiritual despair comes from this evolutionary truth. It comes from the behavior that led us to this pass. From the population's failure to live by the religious precepts of loving each other and the planet we live on — or at least making choices in our own lives that contribute to the well-being of others. Spiritual salvation will never come from following a set of rules that promise eternal life, because every such belief system includes rules that do not promote compassion or empathy. Salvation will never come of single-minded obsessions with one or two of the great evils, because those obsessed focus on the evil perpetrated by others and not their own capacity for evil. Our present despair comes of the unacknowledged truth that on a global scale we don't know how to balance — personal freedom with community, law with personal morality, momentary self-interest with long-term survival, self-interest with fair play, or intangible values with material success. Our despair comes of the stubbornness with which we ignore these competing values. I hold left and right, conservative and liberal, self-styled progressive and capitalist, all people who have enough food on their plate and a home, guilty to varying extents. Myself not excepted.
4
We helped the Colombian government kill Pablo Escobar in 1993.
There are more drugs than ever coming into the country.
We cannot win the "war on drugs."
And, like most social ills, it correlates to poverty.
A lot more poor people have a drug problem than middle and professional class.
Of course the same is true for teen age pregnancy, abortion, high school drop out rates, crime, gun violence. The list goes on.
And we have parts of the US with infant mortality rates of a second world country.
Republicans criticize the Democratic plans.
I haven't seen any Republican plans to fix these problems.
Just 40 years of tax cuts for the wealthy.
10
It can be misleading to ask "why" people do drugs. Don't forget: drugs and alcohol are addictive chemicals. They create a need for themselves, that has nothing to do with a person's emotional or psychological state.
I was addicted to alcohol and pot for decades. I did not break the addiction by solving some inner emotional problem. I broke the addition by STOPPING the drug use for about 30-60 days. If I had waited to solve all my "issues" I'd still be a drunken pothead.
5
It amazes me that people who cause the problem in the first place then complain about the consequences of their behavior. To a great degree, American despair has been caused by conservative policies and traditions.
A cornerstone of American conservatism are the twin forces of self-absorbed individualism and meritocracy. Both condemn attempts to level the playing field in favor of values like “self-reliance” and the “free-market,” both of which are myths that result in widespread inequality and, yes, despair. We have had five decades of selfish-individual free-market policy that gutted the middle class, and created a powerful oligarch class. And we have been persuaded by conservatives that all of this is “normal” because it serves the higher values of individualism and meritocracy upon which the country was built.
The same is true for gun carnage which has been accepted by conservatives as the price of freedom – because individual rights supersede the rights of the collective to feel safe and to be healthy.
Conservatives also blame the loss of religion for our “meaning deficit,” but they decline to admit the obvious – that religion has failed miserably to live up to its promise of moral example, and as a glue for community.
And declining birth birthrates cause despair too. (Over population and its effects on the climate…well – more of the price of freedom.)
Rather than benighted analysis of the problem, we need more self-reflection and contrition from conservatives.
11
EVERYTHING is on a knife-edge. That is the crux of the problem. It's not any one issue - it's not a lack of drug treatment programs, the absence of spiritual certainty, worries about job security, concerns about affording (or even finding) childcare, issues with gun violence, or the changing world with uncertain roles for men, women, and others - and so there is no one technocratic, religious, or other solution. The crisis is all of these things.
People are resourceful and resilient. Losing a job is terrible, but the mere fear of losing a job doesn't dramatically affect mental health in societies with functioning social safety nets. Drugs are addictive everywhere, but a society with more second chances makes addiction less life-destroying. Children are time-consuming and expensive; but in today's America, you raise them badly if you don't have a job, if you have a job and thus leave them home alone, if you put them in childcare, if you can't afford childcare. Life is always hard when it feels like you're failing; but confidence in divine love and innate human value helps, and for most of us today this has been jettisoned with our childhood superstitions. Illnesses are always stressful; but now you may lose the house - and the job - and your kids' college fund - if you get sick.
In short, America is no longer a secure, happy, supportive place to live. We can absorb any one problem by compensating with hope, goodwill, and good policy elsewhere. But too much is tenuous today.
15
The massive problems this country was suffering from in the 60s ( not least of which was totally unregulated pollution), actually induced large swaths of the public to organize around solutions, which they actually created! I often wonder why is it that the strongest federal laws to protect the our environment were created in the early 70s and why it is that similar movements to solve our current crisis are not forthcoming. Seems like if we can answer this question then all shall be well. Meaning comes from working together to solve problems. Has technology totally sabotaged our ability to do this?
4
At last! A New York Times editorialist has articulated the complex 21st century gestalt responsible for this mass self-extinction. Although I've treated indigent, addicted, and mentally unstable patients for 37 years as a family nurse practitioner (with two known patients who've overdosed on opioid prescriptions with my provider ID,) it was my 24-year-old daughter's polysubstance overdose/suicide that prompted me to undertake a ten year exploration to understand why bright, sensitive, caring Americans are self-destructing. While Big Pharma must be held acountable for their contribution, an explanation that embraces the science of nature via nurture is critical for meaningful public policy. Our collective self-esteem is suffering because we are defined by our monetary resources, career status, intelligence, and beauty -- on social media and off. Our trust has eroded as we've become targeted as markets for every conceivable brand, and then asked to judge the services provided from IT to health care. My daughter's calling was friendship, which engendered generosity, kindness, and tolerance -- values that don't garner much bandwidth these days. I've written a memoir that examines the biological vulnerabilies and cultural values that made life untenable for her, and for so many other Americans. Our story is a variation on a tragic family theme -- one that is causing incalculable damage. The solution is multi-faceted. But we cannot solve a problem we fail to understand.
13
@Rachel Frazin - Readers need title of and access to memoir if already published,.
3
I usually have to take an extra dose of my hypertension meds before I attempt to plow through any of Mr. Douthat’s turgid, pedantic prose, writing that makes John Lyly read like a Hemingway. However to give this annoying devil his due, he often does pick up on his intellectual radar the present day currents of malaise and unease. That malaise which most commentators have ascribed to economic and political turmoil, is, I believe, far more widespread and deep than that. I submit it stems from an unacknowledged trivialization of life in the “developed” world. A world where learning for anything other than material gain is sneered at. Where language is debased in the interest of speed and one dimensional explanation. Where emotions are reduced to sophomoric hieroglyphics. In brief, it has become a dumbed down world with idiotic spiritual underpinnings. Money and means is just an opiate for those who can afford to buy their way out of this pervasive malaise.
10
Well, can we put down as a cause for all this pure naked greed on the part of the drug manufacturers? They've done a marvelous, all-American free enterprise marketing job of taking full advantage of despair, depression, alcoholism and drug dependence to drive record sales and profits. They're helped, of course, by regulatory oversight that is as strong as a wet Kleenex.
This is precisely what results when Republicans are in charge, and can implement their policy agenda of everyone is on their own.
10
"By way of comparison to climate change, this summer’s National Climate Assessment estimated that rising temperatures could cause between 4,000 and 10,000 additional heat-related deaths annually by the end of the 21st century"
Talk about misleading! - Selective miss comparion???
It's not about heat related deaths -It's about climate change as an existential planetary threat.
Meanwhile the GOP are content with nature weeding out the weak and addled!
Or they would be addressing the root causes -Ignorance and inequality and the unrestrained incompetence and the lying inciteful populist propaganda of trumpism.
7
The root cause of many problems is
the money in politics. With the connivance of supreme court, wealthy
gained the control of the politics and
got all the breaks they desired. someone described the policies since 1980 as shifting money from needy to
the greedy. Greedy are doing well
in their mcmansions and needy need
opioid or alcohol to subdue their
despair. Although the needy far
outnumber the greedy but they fail
to vote for their interest,easily swayed
by some catchy slogans. Make 2020
election different and vote for real
and honest leadership who will promote
interests of all.
8
It would be shameful to discount or belittle the impact that the opioid crises is having on American families and individuals. The country needs leadership to take action against the despair that drives it and the addiction that results from it. However, Mr. Douthat seems to have brushed aside the fact that climate change is already impacting our planet in ways that will change the very fabric of life here. Now is the time for governments to make a doable plan and take action before it is too late. Our very lives and the lives of the generations to come after us depend upon it.
5
There is no doubt that despair is a major, pressing issue, but it (along with basically any issue) pales in comparison to climate change.
Douthat cites only heat related deaths as a result of climate change, thereby ignoring severe weather related deaths and increased disease transmission. Indeed, the WHO places climate change's death toll at 150,000 people per year, with an additional 250,000 between 2030 and 2050. That number excludes the decreased quality of life of all humans affected by pollution, those whose lives will be upended by climate migration, and increased number of people affected by more easily transmissible diseases.
Despair is certainly an important issue, but it is folly to claim despair deserves any more action than climate change.
2
The author writes, "Despair as a sociological phenomenon is rarely permanent...," but in this case it is likely to only worsen. Leadership from all parties have brought the US to this point but the current group in power is beyond feculent. The slow destruction and toxification of planet earth, along with income inequality and lack of a real social safety net leaves many people hopeless. It's easy to understand why some religious folk are waiting for the Messiah to save us. Too bad that will never happen.
6
If we believe the purpose of life is to grow in character, wisdom, Godliness, etc. then we can have meaning and purpose in the midst of pain and suffering for pain and suffering can further the growth of wisdom, character, etc.
If we believe that the purpose of life is happiness and we define happiness as momentary subjective satisfaction, then pain and suffering undermine, if not destroy, our purpose to life.
Despite all our technology we have not eradicated pain and suffering (and I doubt we ever will). The key to overcoming despair is not avoiding hardship, but learning how to thrive in and overcome it. This will only happen if we believe our purpose to life somehow transcends the momentary pleasures of life.
4
Yes, Ross, it is all moral failure. As Jesus so famously said on the cross "Please, oh father, give them low taxes and limited gummint for they know not what they do".
That was after the famous "Sermon at the Stock Exchange" where he said:
Blessed are the rich for they will inherit everything.
Heck with the poor because they are a bunch of losers and
Blessed are the weapons makers who convert plowshares into nukes
17
Stop pretending that the GOP even remotely cares about this crisis. There is absolutely zero evidence of this, beginning with Reagan ending mental health funding up to the complete duplicity of Republicans in dealing with Obamacare. The Dems may be ham handed but at least they have some ideas. And is it possible for you to write one column without incorrectly accusing anyone to the left of Mitt Romney of being a "Socialist"?
14
We had a movement of spiritual rebirth and nourishment of the soul. It was called Vatican II. And John Paul II and Traditional Catholics destroyed it in the 1980s. But you never discuss that, Ross.
8
"a doubling...[of] deaths of despair...[from] 2000 to... 2017"
What else has doubled since 2000? The fraction of all U.S. wealth owned by the richest 10% has doubled (from 37% to 75%). Among the things this buys is the media and the government. How does this affect policy? Climate change is an excellent barometer. By 2000 this topic had been a scientific 'no-brainer' for the previous thirty years. Since 2000, there's been no action and almost no discussion. Indeed, the 'Party of Deep Pockets' which currently runs Congress and the Presidency refuses any discussion that there might be a problem with our climate. That muzzle was purchased by money.
"an increase in depression and suicide generally, and among young people especially, that has more mysterious causes" Are the causes that mysterious? These people may be young, but they're not stupid. Consider just one example of the world they live in: the Sackler family made billions of dollars basically hooking America on Oxycontin. Thanks to a globalization process that works for the 1% only, the Sacklers did what Putin did with his ill-gotten billions, they hid it overseas. People are getting wealthy by literally killing other people, lots of other people. And nothing can be done about it because the system is rigged from top to bottom. Yeah that's depressing!
14
No matter what our situations, we have free will. We can make the choice to overcome our weaknesses and do our best.
Pillars of Happiness
1. Giving to others through service, appreciating, etc.
2. Cultivating a compassionate perspective
3. Forgiving oneself and others
4. Creating in many realms
5. Being curious, open-minded, and learning new things
6. Having realistic expectations
7. Setting clear personal boundaries
8. Making wise choices, in friends, pursuits, physical health
9. Spending time in nature and caring for the natural world
10. Focusing on the beauty and goodness that is all around us, rather than the negatives of life
5
@anomaly Sigh. "No matter what our situations..."
Really? I think of people suffering from mental illness (from depression, to bipolar, to schizophrenia, etc.) People who had horrendous upbringings. People whose children are sick. People born into families who have never heard of these little truisms.
It's so easy to prescribe for others. So easy.
3
@RMS
And yet, there are many thousands of people who deal with these terrible kinds of problems without the despair. Perhaps it is their willingness to accept and to seek to be grateful for the good in their lives....and there is always good.
3
@RMS
I know I sound holier-than-thou and I know there are reasons for everyone's suffering, many of which are not self-induced. But so much of our suffering is of our own making, because of our attitudes, beliefs, and bad choices. I don't accept victimhood.
And do not assume I know nothing of overcoming negative thought processes and self-destructive behavior. I have suffered from personal tragedies, intractable health problems, poor choices, and recurring suicidal depressions from age 16-50. I know that we can overcome and we can find healing.
1
Well, lessee - when I graduated with a chem degree in 2000, I submitted six resumes before being hired to an R&D lab. In 2013, after the lab folded, I submitted over 100 with no results. A friend submitted 200. I was 45, my friend was 60. Admittedly I'd burned quite a few bridges in the final days of the company.
I've moved on. I'm a disabled vet with savings, which is helping me find meaningful work that doesn't involve getting past HR or an online screening algorithm. Most older Americans don't have my resources. Not everyone's cut out to be a senior citizen health aide, and I doubt many former engineers or managers are willing to do it for minimum wage.
I'm not a psychologist, so to make an uneducated guess, ergo despair.
10
I had my first colonoscopy on Friday, one of the perks of turning 50. My sedation was fentanyl, which of course worked very well, but I couldn't help but notice the telltale signs of withdrawal the following day: the vague feeling of a cold minus the congestion, aches in my upper back and calves, and a decided lack of energy. Clear evidence of how easy it is to get hooked on this stuff.
This aside, I would advise Mr. Douthat to consider how climate change (and more broadly, severe and cumulative ecological decline) is affecting us beyond acute outcomes like heat-related deaths. We are of course a disturbance species and thus highly adaptable, but there are limits. Solastalgia is real. When Mother Nature herself, giver of everything we have ever known or experienced and the very fountain of life, is inching toward her deathbed, what meaning can possibly be left for us to live for?
I submit that a wholesale transformation of our relationship with Nature -- allowing ourselves to brim over with reverence, humility, conscientious restoration, living within healthful limits -- will allow us to heal both ourselves and the world while having a transformed economy in tune with the biosphere. Mr. Douthat won't like it, but this will also involve far fewer people. Alas, I don't believe we have it in us, though aboriginal societies prior to the Industrial Revolution offer a partial guide of how to get there.
2
Life is confusing, bad guys often win. Escapism has always been an issue in the US because outliers often become insiders. Since compunction is worse than the problem. The free market approach is currently the GOP answer to everything. The old saying that there is not enough love to go around is a truism. Obviously there is a crisis made worse by indifference. If you don't like the way life threats you there are numerous ways to be free.
1
PS. Please, dear America, go outside today! Go to the park, drive to a hiking trail and hike, take a walk in the forest, the beach, the river side. Go sit outside in the sun, or under an umbrella. Breathe deeply of the air. Walk in your neighborhood. Please go outside, we are organic beings we need to commune with creation.
6
@Mari Although I am currently visiting my daughter in Berkeley, when I am at home, I can easily follow your prescription as I live about 100 feet from the beginning of a trail that takes me up to the San Gabriel Mountains, a canyon in the mountains, a waterfall. But many people don't live in a safe neighborhood that they can walk in. And don't have easy access to the places you talk about.
2
I'm confused. How are the answers that this is a political, economy, or spiritual crisis mutually exclusive? It seems to me this is a complex set of issues where the political, economic, and spiritual answers are all related to one another and are correct answers. And from both the Democrat and Republican perspective.
"Despair as a sociological phenomenon is rarely permanent: Some force, or forces, will supply new forms of meaning eventually."
Really?! You think for the current crisis and for the people living through it right now, this is just a temporary thing. The political, economic, and sociological factors seem to be pretty deep and entrenched, decades in the making. We aren't going to get out of this by just new forms of meaning popping up "eventually". Honestly, with automation and millennials like myself constantly putting off families and community to build careers and survive, I think this is going to get worse before it gets better.
4
When our minority elected president disrespects so much without pushback from his own party he diminishes all. I think he fosters despair. This didn’t happen yesterday. Any news on those weapons of mass destruction?
1
Huh, I wonder if Ross has considered whether the policies followed by Republicans for the last 40 or so years - decimating the unions, tax cuts for the rich, cuts in social services, etc., may have contributed to some of this despair?
10
If religion and spiritual beliefs were such antidotes to despair, then life in the middle ages in Europe would have provided a wonderful happy existence. There is no historical empirical support for Douthat's viewpoint, and in fact life has gotten better for most of the world as we've moved through enlightenment and more emphasis on knowledge and science and human rights.
6
@Larry Figdill And the current "happiest" countries on earth, mostly in Scandinavia, are not, overall, religiously observant. https://www.atlasandboots.com/happiest-countries-in-the-world-ranked/
http://www.o-re-la.org/index.php/analyses/item/1424-finland-recent-trends-and-patterns-in-religion-secularism-and-atheism
(According to the second article, about 27% of Finns believe in a "Christian god.")
1
Alvin and Heidi Toffler came up with an assessment of modern society in 1970 which still carries a lot of freight for me in present day circumstances. The Tofflers likened future shock to the culture shock that foreign travelers often experience when nothing seems to work any longer. Open air markets and haggling over prices, and navigating public spaces where people have different rules of engagement and vanishingly small personal bubbles, to say nothing of the language barrier, can result in total meltdown, paralysis, and even depression for expats in the first few months or even years of living abroad. In America's present day context, "Future Shock" is essentially what I would define as "rate of change disorder." We live in a society which is changing so rapidly that there is no longer any solid ground to stand on. The experience of modern life is akin to standing on a beach at the waters edge and feeling the waves washing the sand out from under your feet. If you stand in one place long enough, the waves of change literally wash away whatever you counted on to support you and give balance to your life. Future shock exacerbates all the other problems mentioned in Douthat's essay and exposes much of modern life as empty and futile, perhaps the metaphorical personalization of "The Emperor's new clothes." At the same time, we face truly existential challenges that go unanswered in the face of our rate of change paralysis.
4
While I don't mean to diminish the seriousness of deaths of despair, Mr. Douthat seems too blithely to dismiss the consequences of climate change, citing a mere 4 to 10 thousand additional heat-related deaths in the U.S. by the end of the century.
Mr. Douthat overlooks the health impact of climate change globally. According to the World Health Organization, "climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050; 38 000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000 due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due to childhood undernutrition."
Mr. Douthat also ignores the threat of mass extinction due to climate change. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services finds that one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction. Its chair, Robert Watson, explains that "The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
Given the scope of this crisis and the urgency of addressing it, Mr. Douthat's belief that death of despair is "a more immediate crisis" is woefully misguided.
4
There are more symptoms that should be considers as well. Increased use of tobacco and marijuana seem like additional manifestations of despair. Vaping proposals could be includes as well. Add the growing role of guns throughout society, the loss of corporate concern for anything but profits (at the expense of workers and consumers, which once were among corporate core constituencies) and declining belief in any role for government as a bulwark against the excesses of the free market. We are rotting from within, the political process has ossified and tribalism is on the rise. Douthat is right. There are no easy answers.
1
How does our drug problem, and it's rise, compare to other countries.
I suspect ours is worse. One reason it is worse is we recognize that other nations have fully recovered from World War II and they are competing well against us on all fronts including social and economic. Further, religion is playing a lesser role than in prior generations and whether your a believer or not it does provide hope when there is no hope.
3
As a Christian, I believe in the prophetic nature of the Bible. Because the current state of things was basically foretold, I am not blindsided by a sense of despair, for the Scriptures warn of the current atmosphere of unrelenting and deep anxiety, frustration and exhaustion and the causes for that:
"...There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power... -- 2 Timothy 3:1-5
"As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed... Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places... At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other... Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold... " -- Matthew 24
Apparently, it's always darkest before dawn.
3
Young American men in many areas join the military either because there are few job opportunities or in some cases, because they suffer from Mountain Dew mouth; facing losing their teeth at an early age, because their families can't afford dental care.
When working people line up in parking lots overnight for free dental or medical care it says all we need to know about our priorities as a country.
Pete Buttigieg has spoken about the epidemic of despair and loss of identity that's affected working class men after losing a well-paying job.
We need an FDR shovel ready employment plan that gives dignity and meaning back to all citizens. And we need a sense of kindness, community and caring back as a country.
14
if you are despairing because you are seeing your white supremacy and white privilege disappearing into a multicultural, minority white future then i have no sympathy for you. and the sooner you fall victim to to your despair's final solution the better.
6
Very unfortunate that many Americans are in a state of despair because there has never been a better time to be an American than in the Age of Trump. This president has set a tone of optimism that has never before been experienced in American life. I can't imagine the negativity that would have gripped the nation had HRC won in 2016. As far as I am concerned much of this so-called despair has more to do with spiritual weakness than anything else. Americans have rejected God and now they are suffering the consequences. I hope that those in despair can find hope again. Thank you.
2
Thanks, as much for the clear expression of the smug Christianity behind a lot of this Trumpist nonsense as for the very, very odd claim about everybody’s new-found optimism.
9
Explain why despair, as shown by suicide and addiction rates, is highest where Trump is most popular and where religion is strongest, and it is lowest where Trump is reviled and religion is weak.
8
@Dave,
That's maybe how you see it.
Ross, you make some good points, however, you do not realize that the Middle and Working classes have been stuck in a proverbial economic whirlpool for decades. All you have to do is drive through “fly over country.” The small towns have been decimated by the WalMarts that have destroyed their small “Mom & Pop” store fronts, McDonald has destroyed the small diners, and now the small towns are ghost towns. Poverty among Americans has risen, most Middle and Working class folks never recovered from the Bush Recession. Then there’s meth and opioids, always alcohol (which still IS the entry drug of choice!).
In a small town near us, a couple in their 70’s committed suicide. Why?! They couldn’t afford medical help for the one who was sick! This IS because Republicans have cut Medicare funding, have used Social Security as their personal piggy bank as did the Bush II administration! Yes, there is a “spiritual” crisis, but it has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with the greed, corruption and lack of compassion by the Republicans! A pox on their party!
14
Somewhat right on this but I am not certain ‘despair’ is the problem, if I am reading this right. Illicit drug and alcohol abuse are rampant among the wealthy as well as the working class and poor. Difference is for the well off the personal consequences are differed or can be hidden. The problem isn’t unique to the United States either. Maybe rather than ‘spiritual’ cures a dose of cultural reality would serve - that no society is entirely just and none can provide self worth or meaning. Meaning and purpose come from all the selfless small things we do as individuals to take care of family, friends, neighbors, self and strangers. None of which happens when one is perpetually impaired by drugs or alcohol.
3
Simplistic, falsely equivalent, and typical. There are two approaches to problems of drugs: harm reduction and use reduction. The three caricatures of so-called Democratic proposals are all variations on the former, and are not mutually exclusive. The three mentions of what is obviously Douthat's preference are all variations on the latter, and fit the authoritarian model of the current administration. And all of those latter variations have been tried and failed. On the other hand, harm reduction policies, when appropriately used, seem to work, even in countries that still have significant wealth discrepancies such as Portugal.
3
I'm looking out of my window at my hummingbird feeder where they will not share, even though the feeder is regularly filled and there is plenty for all of them. The others are constantly on patrol for the bullies around the feeder, quickly dispersing when he, or she (how do you tell humming birds apart?) show up, or, maybe, they're all bullies when given the opportunity. Is that what our problem is? Are we all bullies if given the proper stimuli, or are some disposed to be bullies who cannot allow others to coexist peacefully with all the other hummingbirds?
2
Destructive capitalism. Last week David Koch died. I wished I could be inside that mans head from the time he was told by the best doctors money could buy that they could do no more to his last breath. For perhaps the first time in his life he had no control over it. Much like the millions of desperate Americans who suffer everyday from state and federal policies David & his brother purchased to pursue their fortune.
For these two morally bankrupt brothers, there was no issue of "public good' too trivial to destroy. Zoos, public transportation, public schools, residential solar panels..and then there's the big things, Obamacare and the environment. The irony is that the thing David loved most in life, his money, could not by him time. Nor could he take it with him.
A few days after his passing, the fifth cat 5 hurricane in three years was about to hit the eastern seaboard. I turned on the news. They were in Florida filming citizens preparing for the worst as we now watch like a Ground Hogs Day ceremony. And there it was. People were boarding up their homes with plywood stamped Georgia Pacific, a Koch subsidiary. Somewhere in the afterlife, David Koch was smiling. Destructive capitalism.
7
When I was a small child, over 65 years ago, I first heard the story of my grandfather and his friends who stood up to the KKK and ran them out of our parish. He didn't do this for himself, he was white and immune from their threats. He and his friends did it because they understood that they had an obligation to "the least of our brothers."
In the pursuit of greed and selfishness, we have abandoned the basic principals of genuine humanity. Many people don't understand exactly what we've lost, but they know somehow we are morally bankrupt. It is no wonder that Americans are in despair. They have never met men like my grandfather and his friends. Their examples are the Republicans in Congress and others who refuse to speak out against morally bankrupt leadership. My grandfather would not recognize the party he supported, but he would surely speak out, regardless of the ramifications. I thank him again for his gift.
6
By way of comparison to climate change, this summer’s National Climate Assessment estimated that rising temperatures could cause between 4,000 and 10,000 additional heat-related deaths annually by the end of the 21st century.
Get back to me in 80 years. This number is ridiculously low.
1
@Jay Dwight
Part of the despair in the increased numbers being reported is about the possibility of an uninhabitable planet in the future due to Climate Change. Minimizing the climate crisis as a distant issue only adds to my own personal despair.
1
I agree with the democratic socialist, it's the economy (stupid).
People cannot earn enough to get through to the next paycheck, let alone save for college for the kids or retirement. You can work 2 or 3 jobs 7 days a week, work yourself into utter exhaustion, and you still can't pay your rent/mortgage/transportation/utilities/school loans/etc and still feed your family. And then conservatives tell you it's all your own fault, you must be lazy and irresponsible or you'd be rich.
No drug treatment or religious revival is going to solve that problem. Only a living wage can do it.
9
Gee, Ross - I remember in the 1980's, when minority communities were being decimated by the crack epidemic, and when the gay community was ravaged by the AIDS epidemic, that these deaths were widely seen by conservatives politicians and pundits as the expected result of immoral, irresponsible conduct on the part of the victims. There wasn't anything "mysterious" about it; put them in jail and let them die was the standard conservative "solution" to these problems. Why is this scourge any different and require such special attention? Because it's primary victims are white, working-class and middle-class males? What about it, Ross? Huh?
8
Thanks for the estimated number of new deaths; I didn't know them.
Don't need to pit this against climate change awareness though. It wouldn't surprise me if they aren't connected. I know some young people struggle with despair when they learn about what sort of physical world they'll be living in as adults. But more obviously, people living in low-grade depression and despair aren't in a position to care about their environment. They might well think, "What's the point?" Or "Just one more terrible thing."
There has been a dissolution of family, community and shared meaning and purpose throughout our nation. Conflict, chaos, isolation, hopelessness thrive in a nation where there is no dominant hopeful narrative of who we are and where we're going. This is, of course, multi-factorial in causation. Foremost, we must rise up against the powers of selfish greed, winner-take-all competition, and reclaim a narrative of shared humanistic values: respect, concern, and helping each other, uniting together in common purpose for the common good.
1
@elotrolado . . . The causes, of course, are many.
Sorry, Mr. Douthat, but as usual for a conservative, you appear unwilling to look at the fact that the depression, anomie, anxiety and despair you describe have arisen in precise coordination with the rise of far-right conservative rule in this country.
Starting with Nixon, and solidifying under that most over-rated of all our Presidents, Reagan, this governing "philosophy" has led to a consolidation of plutocratic power in a corporate and inherited-wealth oligarchy through radical tax cuts and deregulation, with the effect of upending the strong middle class economy that existed post-FDR-New Deal and replacing it with extreme income disparity and a growth in poverty and homelessness. Simultaneously, your Party (the one formerly known as that of Lincoln, but now the Know-Nothing Party of a resuscitated Southern Confederacy) has renounced science and education, accelerated the wholesale desecration of our environment, and exacerbated global climate change, all for the immediate gratification of the most rapacious level of greed seen in this country since the late 19th century. Our planet now seems doomed for future generations.
Is it any wonder that depression, anxiety and despair leading to suicide have rapidly increased? The opiod crisis is just a symptom. What is going on is the destruction of our country and the world by an obscenely despotic form of plutocratic autocracy. And you, Mr. Douthat, share some responsiblity for that as a cheerleader of that movement.
10
All of the above. The spiritual bankruptcy of our elites who have cut themselves off from their fellow human beings leads to a culture where people can be easily discarded if they to do not provide profit or pleasure to the wealthy. This in turn creates and economic and political foundation for despair.
Jesus won't save us we need to change.
4
Chris, Jesus has nothing to do with any of this. Greed, corruption and lack of compassion are at fault. Look no further than the Republican Party who has attempted over and over again to destroy the ACÁ and take healthcare away from millions of Americans who are desperate for help!!!
4
It is tempting to believe that the spiritual crisis at the
core of this society, though not confined to ours alone, can
be understood, summarized, and have plausible solutions proposed and vetted in a mere op-ed, whose readers live lives very different than those who have already collapsed into despair, self destructive fantasy, or deluded fury.
The loss of belief in an individual future better than the present seems central to all forms of self destruction. This can occur across all economic strata. The despair among
those trapped in urban or rural pockets (all too large) of structural poverty is comparable to that experienced by a white (formerly) working class that sees its privileges and status hollowed out by external forces far too large to oppose individually or locally.
Both are trapped in webs spun by drugs, and see no escape to something better.
A fundamental point is that the society, collectively, isn't really committed to nurturing or educating all its youth. It's not even clear it wants to understand that phrase's meaning and what it would entail. Our social fractures, mythology of individual success, and aggrandized selfishness, inhibit beginning the dialogue needed to do this.
As a result, youth left on their own without support from a family (of whatever composition) won't develop the internal fortitude to overcome disappointments and defeats, which makes sinking into and being trapped by despair all but inevitable.
3
No words about a rough control of capitalism as the main solution to the situation of despair.
5
It’s called the inflection point of 72.
Maybe we should call it the GREAT INFLECTION. What am I talking about? This: Bit.ly/EPI-study. (Scroll down half page to graph #2)
From 1945 to 72 GNP rose 100% & the median (meaning everyone’s) wage w/ it. This is also back when the country was building interstates, expanding healthcare/voting rights, fighting Cold War & landing on the moon. Maybe this was when America was great?
From 72 till now GNP has gone up another 150% but the median wage has been flat. (My own wage, adjusted for inflation is the same as it was in 1990 despite years of experience & an added advanced degree from a tier 1 univ). That’s 47+ years of flat wages.
As some wages have gone up (tech/health) & some in good unions have floated (7%) workers have had 47+ years of declining expectations despite a booming economy that’s grown 150%!
This cannot happen w/out complicity by elites in both parties. (See Hillary-$400k for speeches to banksters)
Our system is based upon free contract, so the way this has been done has been to undermine the agency of bargaining power of the masses.
Pre’72 was Demand-Side Econ; Post 72 is Supply-Side. Today when Warner/Sanders/Deblasio advocate for demand side policies the media far & wide call it “radical”
Elites, especially GOP, & people like Douthat have delivered this: Opioid crisis, protofascism, Trump/Putin. Decency is indeed a middle class characteristic.
Great Inflection indeed!
Oh & haven’t been to the moon since 72.
2
yes, it is clear that we have a crisis of suicides and overdoses in this country. The solutions are simple, drug enforcement, drug programs to help addicts, and red flag laws to get guns out of the hands of those that are depressed and likely to commit suicide. this will take money. This will take time. And this will take politicians getting off their soap boxes and actually doing something for the American people. And it will take conservatives, eliminating the support they get from the NRA.
4
You want a cause. I'll give you a cause. Neoliberalism.
What began as a social, economic and political experiment in the 1980s is now the de facto law of the land. Hyper-individualism resulting in massive inequality and downward mobility, perpetual wars, and a market-based economic model that puts profits over people are the main tenets of Neoliberal thinking.
It's capitalism on steroids and there can only be one winner and many losers. The philosophy is so welded to the United States it supersedes democracy as THE governing principle. The forces behind it are so rich and powerful anyone challenging it will be crushed or singled out as a traitor. The deaths of despair are collateral damage, nothing more than the weeding out of the weak and helpless. They have no one to blame but themselves and certainly no one to turn to for help.
That is the essence of despair.
4
What an odd, unenlightening comparison -- that of "deaths of despair" to projected near-term deaths from climate change -- as though essentially cherry picking one metric from climate change somehow informs us of the importance of the former.
As though climate change isn't an existential issue.
How about this comparison:
The number of Republican elected officials who have essentially gone mad in prostrating themselves before Trump in ratio to the homeless in America who suffer from mental illness.
9
Interesting to read all the comments from other American expats like me. I sometimes wonder if I’m too critical when I just want to shake Americans still living in the US and shout: “Wake up! Your country is becoming an awful place. Can’t you see it? It doesn’t have to be this way! You don’t have to make yourself helpless! Yes, you can have universal healthcare coverage. You can ban guns. You can have a living wage.”
But I guess we and other expats just can’t understand what sacrifices are needed to live the greatest country on earth. We’ve forgotten having lived so long in places where happiness is not so burdened by greatness.
7
@617to416
The reason for this is quite simple.
Most Americans have never had the opportunity or seized the chance to move abroad and look at this country and what's going on here from afar.
As a duo-national and expat I know this to be true.
And if anything, the last two and a half under the Trump administration has shown just how far we've drifted away from being the land we might have once been able to take more pride in.
It's no surprise so many are feeling lost, despondent and in despair.
I know I am.
2
There was so much left out of this opinion piece. We know how to significantly reduce drug abuse and deaths. Research shows that both of these increase significantly with the increase in income inequality. Research also says that suicides increase under conservative policies and administrations. Drug policy is crucial and we know what works. The past 40 years of our war on drugs hasn't saved lives it has ruined the lives of thousands and destroyed communities. Especially the lives of people of color. Here's some saner policies that work. We need to treat drug abuse as a medical problem not a criminal problem.
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/misuse-prescription-drugs/how-can-prescription-drug-misuse-be-prevented
5
Well said and true!
And maybe the worst part, is knowing that we in fact have solutions and resources to right to all these problems, but refuse to try. Instead, we are being swallowed whole by greed, ignorance and malice, the trajectory of which does look hopeless.
4
Mr. Douthat ... why the trichotomy? Or, any notion of mutual exclusivity? Seems to me that your schema merely serves to provide a basis for taking a few shots at Dem candidates, and, of course, climate change.
As to a spiritual etiology, sure ... but, please don't suggest that social salvation can be found in a church ... especially a church that is a historical and contemporary monument to corruption and sexual deviancy.
At the very least, what America needs is inspirational, progressive leadership ... not the atavism and devolved, rank kakistocracy we have at this moment.
9
Mr. Douthat:
" some force, or forces will supply new forms of meaning eventually."? It seems to me that modern conservatism has been all about quashing any attempt to find new forms of meaning. What is your last line warning us of: fascism? Or should we all be waiting for a new messiah?
Like most of your columns your logic seems to be the product of a blender, absent of linear thought. Our young
cannot see a future and many of parents don't either. Climate change represents the destruction of any and all futures. The reduction of this fact in your column will not make it go away.
It is said the hope springs eternal in the human breast. No future, no hope. It is also said that, when hope is gone, all is lost. I'm surprised that you didn't blame all of it on "the sixties". You know, that period when people sought new forms of meaning and many were filled with hope for a new tomorrow. A time when many of our current problems were addressed and dismissed. Including climate change.
4
Pretty amazing how your language deflects from the actual problem. It is not "a crisis that kill thousands of Americans". The death of thousands of Americans is the direct, intentional, predictable, calculated result of policies and strategies devised by individual with a clear and cold blooded understanding on the consequences of their actions. Trump is absolutely fine with mass extinction and the exploitation of the environment. Greed is good. Let the Amazon burn. All he needs is a gold cladded penthouse with nothing living at all and some grass on his golf course, and of course his own imagined divinity. Let the people who vote for him believe wind mills cause cancer. The Koch brothers will merrily burn as much coal as possible, all the while being too senile to even notice the difference of 5 billions more or less. Purdue Pharma was thrilled with its sales figures, never mind the overdoses. Zuckerberg and Dorsey are absolutely cool with scrambling peoples minds and enabling authoritarianism. That we are crushing people with college and health care debt on purpose.
The NRA has no problem with spiraling gun deaths and maximizing the weapons supply for gang violence in Latin America.
So let's not pretend "there is a crisis". Lets face it that "there are people" who make policies that kill.
This is not the Age of American Despair. To despair, you would need to see the problem. The problem is personal. This is the Age of American cynicism and (self-)destruction.
8
The last time this situation existed was in Weimar Germany. Capitalism and socialism had failed to protect people from war and economic collapse.
At the time, Peter Drucker, in "The End of Economic Man," said these failures could only be addressed by a philosophical revolution different than the ones that had come before. The age of religion, the age of reason, the age of capitalism all had to be replaced by an age with a spiritual basis.
While he wrote this, he bet on another alternative. He became a management consultant. He was so right. The solution turned out to be a synthesis of capitalism and socialism: managed capitalism, where the role of the state was to support capitalism but curb its excesses.
This worked during the era of FDR and the unions. It broke down because capitalism worked relentlessly to defeat being managed, and the state lost credibility, starting with Vietnam but officially with Reagan.
The other alternative was Nazism. It was defeated in war. To the victor belongs the ideology. Ask Japan.
Today, the terrain has changed, radically. A spiritual awakening remains an alternative. But how? We have expectations about how it would look. A prophet. Miracles. The Second Coming. Judgment Day.
But God doesn't just show up. Never does. We are stuck with cause and effect. Maybe the only solution is that each of us become rigorously helpful. Could that happen? Maybe with enough celebrity endorsements? :)
Actually, the answer is... Oops, out of space.
1
The building is ablaze.
Douthat focuses on the temperature of the air.
And the GOP turns up the A/C.
5
We could make at least a little headway by fighting fewer wars around the globe. Less war, less PTSD, less suicide and addiction.
6
"[I]t’s as important to pay attention to the would-be cultural healers — from the old churches to the New Agers, the online Nietzscheans to the neo-pagans, Jordan Peterson to Marianne Williamson."
Classic Douthat/Brooks strategy: claim it's *as important* to pay heed to serious thinkers as it is to shills and mountebanks like Jordan Peterson.
They do this time and time again.
1
Conservatism killed the American dream and all that remains is despair.
6
Interesting article in the Sept 6 Wall St. Journal:
"It's Kind of Like An Addiction": On the Road with Trump's Rally Diehards"
So perhaps some are going from one addiction to another. No doubt they get a huge hit of dopamine to see their "hero" in the flesh.
Tagline beneath the headline: "A small band of the president’s most devoted fans will do whatever it takes to attend his campaign rallies"
Perhaps if they did "whatever it takes" to improve their lot in life - to get an updated education, say - they wouldn't feel the need to listen to such an empty suit and false prophet!
5
Do not toss out climate change. Our fears include fear for our environmental security as well as economic security. I teach at both the high school and college level. This fall, I am taking an evening class on grief offered by our local church. I figure it will help me speak to my students - for the many who are are informed, they are scared and worried for their futures and grieving for a stability they won't know. As a science educator, I am constantly trying to teach without terrifying. How are young people today able to plan for their future? I thought that was tough during the cold war- for many now, it is paralyzing.
3
Thank you fro teaching and for your compassion.
I have always (for over 50 years) read and thought too much, first for fun and curiosity, then for market and securities analysis, nowadays mostly out of concern. I came to the lousy conclusion a few years ago that, due to the fact that the ‘growth curves’ for population increase, resource depletion, income inequality, pollution levels, and media/tech proliferation are all ‘going vertical’ that it was no longer reasonable to believe that many humans, percentage-wise, are going to survive very much further into the future.
We are now almost completely at the mercy of a wide array of dysfunctional systemic vectors that we as a species set in motion over the last century. There is no stopping most of them from ‘playing out’, period. The odds of meaningful ‘political solutions’ are, at this stage, near zero.
We are so thoroughly engulfed in the dangerously uncontrollable primary and ‘knock-on’ effects of our disastrous momentum that it would behoove most of us to put much of our current focus into prayer, courage and spirituality.
I grieve for the dying plant and animal populations, for the poisoned seas and air, and I pray for forgiveness for our all-too-human profligacy with what we’ve been given. I pray for all people, everywhere, as they come to their own senses of recognition, and maybe even acceptance, that the future for most of us will quite likely be somewhere between extremely challenging and overwhelmingly terrifying. This has probably happened to 1000 human worlds.
2
Me too Jim. I pray for our grandchildren who are so healthy, smart and beautiful and who will have to face the Climate Crisis in ways I cannot imagine. We must do everything we can to vote out of office every single denier, so we have a chance, a small chance of beginning to heal out Earth!
1
I'd agree most of the long list if things causing the malaise - income inequality, no safety net, lack of spiritual foundation, college debt, climate change, lack of hope, Trump and on it goes. The good thing is it actually can all be fixed. I hope we start in 2020.
But I'd also add to it our phone, FOMO, internet news and device addiction. People don't get into nature enough and the endless, negative headlines endlessly add worry not joy. I searched for a story in the news, clicked on a random site to read the story and was 'fed' the accompanying headlines as 'most popular':
Danielle Burnett Arizona hiker
Arizona hiker plunges 500ft to her death at Yosemite National Park
Heather Gumina aka Heather Waters Pleasant Valley
Foul play? Pleasant Valley mom of three missing for over one week
Jennair Gerardot murder suicide
Cheating husband blames self after wife shoots mistress then self dead
Adrieanna O'shea Tennessee
‘Help me!’ Tennessee teen, 19, dies after being mauled by 5 dogs
Leigh Perkins Greene
51 year old Morganton school receptionist indicted sending inappropriate photos to student
Tiger Woods' Ex-Wife Has a Baby on the Way With This Ex-NFL Star
The One President Pope John Paul Refused to Shake Hands With
Actors Who've Sadly Died So Far in 2019
The Truth About Donald and Melania Trump's Only Child
How are you going to be happy if this is what you fill your mind with everyday. Go sit outside, hug a tree, walk and leave your phone at home. That's what weekends are for.
5
Agree! People are addicted, yes to drugs and alcohol but also to social media. We were on a long four mile hike on Wednesday, we didn’t meet but four people the whole hike. When we walk in our nearby forest we seldom meet anyone. Everyone is on their screens!
Life has no meaning and it does not need one. When someone drinks a cup of tea they feel the weight of the cup in their hand and taste the tea. Who needs more meaning than this? There are some 4,000 religions in the world and Americans are free to practice any of them. So if these despairers can’t find one religion that suits them whose fault it s that?
1
Donald Trump is a reason for despair. I’ve never felt so down about America. Add him to the reasons for increases in all areas of drug abuse and sucide
2
We need more hope and change, none of which is coming from Ross Douthat and the Republicans, or their collective religious fervor, and their conviction to bring about end times.
5
It is just a joke - you realize that it is columns like yours and Bret Stephens that lead people to despair, right??You don't recognize climate change, can't stop backing capitalism over humans (cops are killing themselves because of low pay, long hours, and no vacations to recover -10 days a year doesn't do, Mr. Douthat!!) and you are paid handsomely to write these weird ideas that pretend to recognize the woes of the people, while continuing to ignore the environment, and the NYT writes about Fitch downgrading HongKong - Fitch is a criminal organization, just like the republican party has become..That is our despair, my dear, when we see the Tsongass is going under , when we see huge hurricanes devastate cities, and it is just death and despair -you right wingers have brought this upon us..I am sure you have a good health insurance plan and your stocks are doing well, that is really all that matters, isn't it??
3
It isn’t strictly an American thing but if you consider the current “reality” culture on TV and other media; it seems that many people equate winning with causing another to be filled with more self-loathing than you are.
4
Ross... you gloss over the most telling statistic in your horribly ignorant narrative, but do not comment on it at all
1999-2017 age adjusted suicide rates
Female:
white: 4.7-7.9
black: 1.7 2.8
Hispanic-2.6
amer indian: 4.6-11.0
Male:
w: 20.2-28.2
b 10.5-11.5
His:10.3-11.2
ameri Ind: 19.8-33.8
this is only a story of despair for your heartland whites? is that what bothers you? why are blacks and Hispanics so much resilient (or females?), or is it that they have been beaten down for generations and are just used to suffering? Being on an Indian reservation, being treated as less than human speaks for itself!
where is your outcry about their despair?
who gutted the "heartlands" white rural economy
who busted the unions, raped the pensions?
4
Marxism and religious faith are incompatible. Religion is losing to socialist trends. Wherever radical socialism has prevailed misery soon follows. Opioid of the masses indeed,but it beats widespread tragedy of fentanyl and heroin.
@Lane
Much like divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth, the heroin and fentanyl epidemics are most prevalent in what are supposedly deeply religious rural communities, which are not places where "radical socialism has prevailed." I live in Ohio; I know. Try again.
2
@Lane. As a gay man, I can tell you religion never offered me a thing. As for socialism? Having recently returned from Sweden and Norway, there is no doubt in my mind the America would benefit greatly from many of those policies.
1
This is the most outrageous piece I have ever read from Douthat. I am astounded. I had no idea he was a climate science denier. Or such a draconian authoritarian. Or religious crank. Who knew what horrors lurk behind the veneer of education, culture and language? I won't be opening any of his articles ever again. It's a trip to nowhere.
2
"Fat, dumb, and happy" described Americans for many decades. Now the fat and dumb are still in place, but the happy is waning. That's a good sign. It means that Americans are becoming aware of their own blundering stupidity and the knowledge makes them unhappy. The next progressive step is doing something to remedy the problems, which restores happiness in the long run.
5
You need to write this pap for the National Catholic Register. Organized religion has failed our society, especially now with white evangelicals running roughshod over our democracy. You only push their agenda with this nonsense. We are never going back to nodding in the pew. You are a retrograde who seems impervious to viewing the world in any other way than what your priest imprinted you with.
3
The American drug problem is decades long. Why all the hand-wringing now? This isn't the age of American despair, this the age of the chickens have come home to roost.
1
We might try looking for actual evidence instead of just armchair philosophizing. There are many other countries out there with many differences and what is their situation precisely? And here, I believe the "deaths of despair" rate varies between groups when you divide Americans in various ways. Are rich people in despair? It wouldn't be unusual that despair varies with wealth or income. I've read that Latinos and Blacks suffer less despair despite being relatively poor. Research might point to particular causes.
Are we only concerned about the deaths from despair or actually the level of despair itself. Has despair even increased or is it only deaths from it? It seems likely that it has but I haven't seen any evidence except death rates. It's easier than ever to kill yourself either on impulse or via irresponsible behavior. Cultural and religious strictures against both suicide and drug use are down, but I would think less so than in some other countries.
Despair has always been with us. Access to fentanyl and easy access to alcohol has not. The proximate cause of her suicide epidemic is easy access to extremely dangerous drugs, not despair.
On the other hand, inequality causes despair and predisposes to suicidal thoughts. If Ross wants to do away with inequality, he must reform our political system and get money out of politics. That means he must become a progressive. That is a horrible choice for Ross and. But he’s a bright fellow. Eventually you’ll come to that conclusion.
As for the rest of us, it’s time to get moving. Get the far right and the oligarchs out of power and restore power to the middle class. To do this join makeitfair.us. Look up the American anticorruption act. If we all act together, we can restore America.
4
You may have it wrong. You suggested we look to the spiritual touchstones of the past and said, "So if we’re going to answer whatever is killing tens of thousands of our countrymen, it’s as important to pay attention to the would-be cultural healers — from the old churches to the New Agers, the online Nietzscheans to the neo-pagans, Jordan Peterson to Marianne Williamson....".
But instead, you might have pointed out the failure of these ancient touchstones. Yes, the failure of the Church, and pagans for that matter, to avert or treat the social malaise we are seeing rise again and again and again. Let's look somewhere else and not be fooled again.
2
1st comment I read (and only one so far) started "I'm 69" so I'll offer upfront that I'm 76.
The subdividing of issues and causes of despair is a mistake. They are symptoms of the larger problem. All those things are interrelated.
Climate change can't be thought as separate from the opioid epidemic or economic strangling of the middle class. These all go together, and you can throw in the epidemic of mass murders and disparity between public opinion on gun control and what is (i.e. isn't) happening legislatively with respect to it on a national level.
Taken all together these problems are more than difficult. Climate change is an issue of monstrous proportions, and its consequences even now are tremendous and continuing to grow virtually uncontrollably.
All together we appear to be spinning out of control. Despair is absolutely no surprise as a result.
Don't listen to the deniers and those who are concerned merely with their own situations at the expense of others.
The youth are our only hope. A new generation of inspired, motivated and committed youth must lead our way forward or we are indeed doomed.
1
Of course we know what Mr. Douthat’s solution to the problem would be:
Make Roman Catholicism the state religion and incorporate its dogma into civil law. And then find a way to make every couple have twelve to fifteen children.
3
Everything that divides us is thanks to social media. This is what happens when the unhinged and uninformed, the paranoid and the bully, the trouble maker and the insecure, all have equal voices. It might have seemed like a good thing, but now we can all see that it clearly is not. The natural filtering of noteworthy ideas from academic meanderings to proclamations for the ages is gone. There is no guidance, no class of elite thinkers and doers, no models of decorum and diplomacy, of compassion and common sense. Ordinary people, the majority of us humans, instinctively understand the need for admirable leaders to guide and to believe in, and there just aren't any because the problems created by seductive equal access to all have become the unrecognized subtext of a human culture falling apart at the seams. Despair is understandable.
3
Nearly 35 million kids have experienced one or more types of trauma. We now know so much more about the long lasting neurological, emotional, social, academic and bodily effects of PTSD; often dormant through childhood but erupting with a vengeance in adolescence or young adulthood. May be just a piece of the puzzle but, nonetheless an important piece at that.
3
You know what causes me despair? The idea that my grandchildren may grow up in a world that is actually ending because no one can control the climate or the pollution.
You know what might bring purpose and economic renewal? A full on effort to shift the economy to using renewal resources, bring jobs and a sense of a future back.
So, you know, maybe a climate crisis forum is what we need.
7
John Calhoun's Rat Utopia Experiments come to mind. But one would expect a human behavioral sink to be far more complex and devastating given our similar, yet far more complex social behaviors, communication, mores, etc. This surge in despair deaths may be an early sign of the oncoming sink, as the downtrodden of society react to the collapse of the social fabric which was their sole safety net. Just like with climate change, it's always the poor and marginalized who suffer first, and the most.
2
I don't understand why Douthat is asking us to pick among those factors that cause deaths from drugs, alcohol, and suicide. Can't it be caused by political, economic, and spiritual crises?
3
It’s because he wants EVERYTHING to be thought of as a spiritual crisis, preferably Christian, and if at all possible Catholic. And then the solutions all boil down to the same things: restore Ozzie and Harriet, go to church, stop reading the wrong books, and please, please, please, stop with the sex stuff.
Basically, it’s Pleasantville all around.
Problem is, he can’t wrap his head around the fact that Marx was at least right about how, “in capitalism, all that is solid melts into air.” His problem’s the same as Creflo Dollar’s—he wants a Third Great Awakening, while pushing the economics that chew all that up.
3
Bernie’s not my first choice, but he’s right. Inequality is driving this - and everything entailed in that deceptively simple word.
6
It's very simple. Our society rates the value of an adult human being according to the following equation:
Amount of success achieved +
Amount of disadvantage at the start
In the past, I think our evaluation of people was more nuanced.
But I also think "disadvantage at the start" was a more complex concept, considering diverse economic, geographic, and familial disadvantages.
Today it's real simple: white males are privileged and should either be rich or they are failures (I'll credit Fran Lebowitz for explicitly saying this, but let's face it, it pervades popular culture).
This coincides with the hollowing out of the opportunity structure, so that there are fewer paths to economic success, and more paths to failure. White men who find themselves in poverty are not only losers because they are poor, but because they had so many privileges (the fact that the pyramid structure of our economy renders this impossible is to be ignored). So, they kill themselves.
Of course, the solution to this would be to do away with racism and sexism, but also the social expectations, and competitive conspicuous consumption; but don't get your hopes up.
2
Recently I was driving along a pockmarked state highway in a gritty city in a blue state. I thought about how in earlier eras, the business class contributed to infrastructure because things such as roads were critical to running their businesses. To move goods, but also so that labor could get to the places of work. Now the paradigm has shifted, and the owning class argues that labor should pay for the roads so that they can have jobs. I used to joke that we were becoming a feudal society, but the joke is becoming less funny.
7
I don't disagree that we need a bigger conversation about these deaths that our society can and should prevent but I'm troubled it has to be framed in opposition to discussing climate change and framed as something happening now versus in the future. Climate change is happening now. It is killing people, now (from heat waves that have intensified to bigger, slower hurricanes as we've just witnessed). It will also contribute to these deaths as rural and poor communities suffer more from climate change and are driven to further despair. We need to address these questions comprehensively. This is a classic way to divide us, "see Democrats care about forests and climate change and not you". Addressing climate change is essential to protecting people, this is not an either/or issue. Let's discuss opioids, loss of identity, increasing housing and educational costs, and climate change. We need progress on all these fronts to make life better for people. Stop the divisiveness Mr. Douthat and look for real solutions. you'll find few with the GOP.
5
In my own 66 years of life, I’ve come to believe a lot of the problems we have now have their root in ineffectual government. In my youth, even when things were tough, there was always a pervasive sense that good would ultimately win out, that the people in charge were there because they had the best interests of the country at heart, even if you didn’t always agree with them about what those best interests might be. In short, you believed that by in large, they were operating from a point of integrity. When that is taken away it results in all kinds of unforeseen side effects. Trust is gone, so you no longer feel confident that leaders are attempting to do the right thing. Instead, you expect corruption, self-dealing and falsehoods in service to their own agendas, often personal financial ones. You don’t have the sense that things will get better, or even that ‘everything will be OK’. Instead, you start expecting, even planning for, things to NOT be OK. Now, you’re not going to find a job, you’re not going to be able to feed your family or afford a home. This has profound effects on pretty much everything. Paranoia sets in, depression sets in, people become very inwardly focused and start obsessing on their own survival instead of the larger common good. It instills “me-ism” instead of community engagement. When you feel like the captain and crew have gone mad, the ship sinking with you on it becomes a frighteningly real possibility.
4
Despair is defined by a lack of hope.
Hope has been slowly - and continually - disappearing over the past 50 odd years.
Our government lies to us.
Wars are fought over lies and last decades - why?
Our rights are disappearing.
Labor is now a 'cost' not an an asset. Those costs are to be minimized.
Wages have stagnated while inflation has robbed any savings that people might have had.
A dozen people are worth more than 40% of ALL Americans combined.
Crimes are not punished. Drug running (Iran-CONTRA and more), torture, and more are OK when government does it.
The rich and powerful have their own rules.
Government no longer serves or represents us. How many Americans are in prison?
The Republic is dead.
We are slaves or serfs in the now faltering empire that replaced it.
It is hard to have hope when you have little control over your own life. Despair is the natural result.
3
Money means different things to different classes.
To the top 1%, wealth is just a measurement of winning.
To the top 10%, wealth is the difference between sending your kids to a public or private school, buying a vacation house, and traveling the world or staying home.
To the working class and poor, wealth is life and death, will your kids go to college or not, will you work 3 jobs instead of 2, will you feel safe that you can buy a car, can you afford a house, or the rent, or schoolbooks, or healthy food on the table, or can you afford to have a child, or are you free to work your dream job, or follow your dream at all.
It's easy to say that shifting money from the 1% to the working class and poor is simply redistribution of wealth. But it's not. While we've been busy redistributing money away from the working class and poor for 50 years, we've been destroying their lives, and hope, and dreams. We've understood this since Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. So the socialist is correct, and the other reasons are just window dressing and bunk.
6
Buttigieg has it right. The drug crisis needs to be and can be tackled on an individual basis.
On the other hand, while individuals can take small steps to help alleviate climate change, it requires a collective response to really accomplish anything.
1
Douthat fails to appreciate that man’s artificial life support system is affecting our ability to survive, and it’s not about deaths from excessive heat but the collapse of the whole system by the effects of global warming. Suicide and self destructive behaviors by individuals and humanity as societies self destructive behaviors are both existential threats.
2
I wrote a comment earlier after following your link to Nietzscheans and then reviewed Nietzsche's philosophy and then read the NYTimes Picks and realized that the discussion about our despair has stimulated an interesting discussion. Perhaps the key to understanding what is going on in our country is wrapped up in the several threads expressed. Nietzsche discussed many issues that occurred during the last Gilded age, the rise of Nationalism, and the rise of Industrialization. The "picks" described a series of causes of despair, and several other comments similarly. Most were concerned about economic opportunity and financial security, some about the environment or Health Care Insurance, Climate Change and a few about the anxiety in our society. Perhaps not so dissimilar from the late 19th century. So, is there is despair, and if so is there a common thread? Is it a cultural malaise, or ennui? or is it generated by the fear of the changes in our society brought on by our pervasive technology or the persuasion industry? It is an interesting discussion.
1
I think you missed one little point here, Mr. Douthat. Climate change is part of the reason for the despair. People see literally no hope for the future as the rainforest burns, the hurricanes increase in timing and ferocity, and the current administration fights to force California to roll back emission laws.
2
The bottom line is despair. The technocrat, the Socialist, the culturalist are right but partially! The cause is multifactorial, multi-pronged and therefore cannot be addressed one factor at a time. Despair has to be addressed in myriad ways for it's myriad causes. One size does not fit all!
1
",,,especially when you include other indicators, collapsing birthrates and declining marriage rates and decaying social trust, that all suggest a society suffering a meaning deficit, a loss of purpose and optimism and direction, a gently dehumanizing drift."
Yes, and how'd that happen?
I was a child during and after WWII. Americans were grateful, appreciative, community-minded, optimistic--the social bonds were strong (not perfect, of course). Highways were built, education was expanded and financially supported, middle- and working-class families had a little money in their pocket to spend, and it only took 1 breadwinner to buy what it now takes 2 to buy (maybe with multiple low-pay jobs [including teachers] in 2019. A tax rate of 90% under Rep. Pres. Eisenhower.
And here we are: the "richest country in the world" with proliferating signs of alienation and all the symptoms that go with it--moral and ethical malaise, if not collapse economically and politically; and a severely debt-ridden society ($1 trillion deficit; #13.5 trillion consumer debt).
How can the country be so wealthy (GDP), and the people be so poor (in debt and in spirit)?
Follow the money:
Stop the rising inequality and share the wealth. Newsflash, trickle-down & deregulation didn't work
Get the money out of politics so the Kochs, corporations and special interests can't buy their politicians and parties.
Behave responsibly--start at the top. Take care of people & the planet for future generations
14
The majority of Americans are depressed because Trump and the GOP are are in power. Everyday is an onslaught of dismal news that benefits only the richest. Global warming nurtured by the policies of the greedy free market steam roller are not a recipe for a content and happy nation and global community.
5
I would add to this that America is also suffering from serious public policy gridlock. Whether it is the border, health care, inequality, guns, drugs, prisons, the Byzantine and infernal tax code, the quagmire of the Middle East, education and student debt, homelessness or infrastructure it is all the same: problems fester, nothing gets done.
Whether there is a connection between personal despair and political stagnation, or what it is, is not clear. But certainly the American malaise is broad and deep and shows no signs of letting up. The US is not the country it was 60 years ago.
4
Unlike Ross Douthat, conservatives often dismiss such statistics about American life -- from higher suicide rates to lower life expectancy and infant mortality. Today these exceed the rates in Canada and most of Europe. (When I studied in Europe four decades ago, U.S. rates were similar or lower.) I've read conservative media and listened to conservative talk shows on this subject. They typically reject these social statistics as either unreliable or unsuitable for America, a country based on "freedoms." I never thought American suicide rates might one day eclipse the rates in Scandinavia or France. My brother, a married father of two, took his life at age 45. A smart, successful female classmate of mine, part of our group who studied abroad, later married and the mother of two, took her life at age 35. The recent suicides of police officers here in New York would have shocked me 30 years ago. But twenty-first-century American life and all its social stresses are different. American "freedoms" have little to do with our American social reality now.
2
Increasingly, it seems, "collapsing birth rates" are mentioned as a sign of social decline. Perhaps we should consider high birth rates as a source of many of our problems, ranging from global warming, pollution, and environmental destruction. I know that a book written two or more thousand years ago -- when the global population was less than 200 million -- tells us to be fruitful and multiply, but maybe we should rethink this. I understand China's one-child policy was widely condemned as an infringement of human rights, but really was it such a bad idea? Maybe not a policy, but as driven by social norms, a collapsing birthrate should be a sign of advancement and not decline.
6
Political corruption took down the mighty Roman Empire and it's well on it's way to taking down the US. The average citizen has zero voice. The corporate interests have bought our politicians at EVERY level (from the local level on up) and this is not a GOP issue - they have been sold to the highest bidder on both sides of the aisle. I see this with my local Board of Supervisors up to our President. How do you fix that?
7
American despair? Right wing conservatives (mostly Republicans) wrote the book on despair. Worried about the spiraling cost of health care? Let's take it away! Struggling to make ends meet in a dead-end job? Don't raise the minimum wage! Feel like the little guy can't catch a break? Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires! Living on disability due to an on the job injury or illness? Let's strip worker safety regulations! Sick from drinking polluted water or breathing dirty air? Do away with onerous environmental protections and the EPA! Worried that your children will not be able to afford higher education and make a better life for themselves? Here's $200,000 in crushing student loan debt at loan shark interest rates! Can't afford to buy a first home? Rent one at lease rates driven sky high by predatory real estate speculators enabled by historically low interest rates! Ross, it's an economic crisis of epic proportions driven primarily by extremist right wing politics masquerading as "conservative values". Don't think so? Just turn on Fox News.
24
The biggest threat to my personal well being, and that of my friends is the administration of Donald Trump. We fear for an economic collapse, for bungling into nuclear war, for the loss of health care, for the end to clean water and clean air, for the racial and racist hatred he spews. In short, I live in a perpetual state of panic that he will be re-elected. Neither the world nor I will survive that.
12
Humans are the only animal acutely aware of our limited existence, but able to fool ourselves into forgetting that on a day-to-day basis. Right now, Americans seem to be forgetting how to fool ourselves and are choosing drugs to escape. Note the vast number of shows on Netflix with the descriptions beginning “In a post apocalyptic near future...”
2
"I have no complaints about the decision, but I wish that some network would set aside a similar amount of time for a more immediate crisis, one that is killing tens of thousands of Americans right now — more than the crack epidemic at its worst, more than the Vietnam War.." Hear! Here!
Even if the author does not reach an explicit conclusion it’s obvious that implicitly he support the religious/spiritual approach. I wonder if he also supports Maryanne Williamson suggestion to turn back the current Hurricane by collective spiritually.🙄
2
Lack of a living wage?
4
Mr. D
Have you considered that climate change—and our so-called leaders who not only deny but exacerbate and even profit from this existential crisis—is contributing to people’s despair? Let’s connect the dots and address the powerlessness and inevitability of a ruined planet that leads to depression, drug abuse and suicide.
3
The main thing that separates this country from Canada and Europe is the large percentage of the US population that believes in fundamentalist Christianity with all its bigotries and hostility toward education. It turns many people into hateful fools who sit around and wait for the rapture or whatever to deliver themselves from their miserable lives. Fundamentalism is deeply pessimistic, not optimistic, and oddly is the opposite of what Jesus preached. Fundamentalism has shaken this country in the same ways that fundamentalist Islam has shaken many majority Muslim countries.
13
@J. C. Beadles In addition to what you correctly noted, America is also distinct from Canada and Europe in how it sacrifices the idea of the common greater good to individual liberty. This is reflective of how Puritanism molded American character, which emphasized individualism over everything else. Unfortunately, it further engendered a cultural and social environment based on exclusion and solipsism. Above all else, it provided religious warrant to racism in America.
@J. C. Beadles
Sadly this is true. As a Christian, it is appalling and, because they are so certain of themselves it is of no use talking with them about it. If people knew the history of Fundamentalism they may not have such great faith it is from the Christ of the New Testament but rather 19th century religious error.
Why must Mr. Douthat relativize the dangers posed by one crisis to another crisis? Does the fact that I might die today from a drug overdose mean I can worry/act later about the fact that we are making the planet uninhabitable for future generations ?
3
Deaths from drugs and alcohol
are up. And so are suicides.
The reasons? Douthat lists them all
except for one he hides.
It may be only marginal,
but all factors compound.
Or it may be quite cardinal
when your mind is not sound.
When he who is our president,
the one supposed to lead,
is hateful, mean and decadent,
your despair grows. You need
a healer at the helm,
a leader who gives hope.
Then matters which do overwhelm
don’t push you to the rope.
One final thing, and not so small.
America has changed.
Our values used to make us tall
but now we act deranged.
5
If only Mr. Douthat were really a wise Socratic gadfly without a prescriptive agenda.
2
OpEd’s these days focus on pretty obviously irrelevant topics. Douthat’s is another fine example.
The nation has declined rapidly since Reagan changed the FDR social contract unilaterally.
Globalization tooted by another OpEd writer, Tom Friedman brought the rest of the ills with the fat stamp of approval by Trump and the GOP.
Yesterday Bari Weiss brought back the tired topic of Jewish exceptionalism (the editor closed comments mid-way and didn’t publish most of the interesting ones way after closing time with no chance to respond, a pretty tacky practice).
Let’s wake up and vote progressives in. Only way out is Bernie and Liz.
1
What we need are unions that require companies to recognize the humanity of their employees. As in, for as long as the people they're employing are people, they need training, days off *just because life is long and time off is necessary*, sick days, and bereavement time because funerals take longer than three days to plan and execute. And enough with ridiculous experience requirements for entry-level jobs and college degree requirements for perfectly trainable positions. You have to give the non-college graduates and people trying to change careers a chance.
And we need to stop obsessing over work as though it were supposed to consume us. I just finished interviewing this week at three places, and two of them insisted that they spent more time at work than they did with their families. And those are the successful people. No wonder we're surrounded by despair. For most of us, our jobs aren't worth the entirety of our lives, and having to devote more time than it's worth to a mediocre job without being able to nurture your family and community ties will make you wonder why anything in this country is worth it.
6
It’s great that the major media is finally mentioning this. First step is to have a government that represents the people, and then to have that government pass laws to support the people and not the solely the wealthy.
3
In the film "It's a Wonderful Life" George Bailey contemplates suicide on a snowy bridge over a dark river. A discussion in heaven occurs. Clarence, George's guardian angel, says, “Is he sick?” The “God” being says, “No. Worse! He's discouraged.”
Being deeply discouraged, feeling hopeless is the ground for despair. Why are so many Americans discouraged? Perhaps our dreams for ourselves have crashed and burned. Working hard, living with integrity doesn't seem to pay off. Sneering jackanapes are running the show and the rewards go to the least deserving. A real leader would rally us, put forward an agenda of hope and empowerment. Of course, that leader would need to genuinely embody concern for others. We can outlast Trump. We must.
6
Sadly cultural resurrections only occur after death and destruction of the previous dysfunctional culture. Recall what happened to Japan and Germany. History is pretty clear about that. My only wish is to be proven wrong as China's long shadow looms over the western horizon.
3
The solutions are in plain sight and include all three: technocrat, socialist and cultural. The main problems are this country is a ideologically militaristic country. It is ideologically wedded to the individualistic and capitalist dogma that many Americans, rich and poor, old and young, college educated and high school educated across racial lines (albeit more so among whites), instinctively reject high taxes and most forms of social safety net. It is militaristic because the budget for its military is ever increasing; it prioritizes spending on the most lethal and advanced weaponry over other pressing and critical domestic needs; it military footprints (bases) ensure its hegemonic domination.
Americans make their choice every four years, and unfortunately it's the same choice with different political party, and many are paying with their live.
4
No worthier cause is the climate crisis to band together our hearts, minds, and toil.
But talk about secularism—the deniers are killing our hope for the future of our children, and the next generation is understandably terrified.
Mix this existential worldwide crisis with student debt, stagnant wages, rampant gun violence, and inequality, and you get Depression Stew.
We have to start fighting the climate crisis like our hearts and minds depend on it. Because they do.
7
As an octogenarian , I am facing the incurable despair of having to accept that I can do nothing about all the ills in society. I was always brought up to know there was a resolution to a problem..."find a way or make one". Oh that my one vote in 2020 could turn into a magic wand to banish the decay.
4
Take action. Go to meetings. Do phone banks. Register voters. You will feel better soon.
2
As Jim said, no one gets outta here alive. Or, put another way, life is terminal. Given that fact, depression and a feeling of hopelessness are quite understandable. The solution is to believe that one is here for a reason, could,be to worship God, to properly raise a family, to help others, or any number of other worthy goals. That’s all I have to offer on such a difficult topic.
Ross,
How about this for a solution:
Put people back to work in manufacturing, energy, agriculture, textiles, etc. not through traditional means but through a green technology reinvigoration of the entire economic system. Retooling for a zero-greenhouse gas emission economy will take an effort akin to the mobilization for WW2 that will engage, employ, and give purpose and meaning to millions who are disaffected, unemployed, lacking purpose in life, and will restore a sense of civic pride and community in the pursuit of a common goal. With a new emphasis on a truly green revolution we will have domestic jobs that can’t be exported anywhere. And get this, we will be saving our species from extinction at the same time! Yes, this will be hard, and it will require the populace to combat ideological morass that the neoliberals and fossil fuel corporations have thrust upon all of us resulting in globalization, severe economic inequality, and unabated pollution without accountability that is threatening life on Earth as we know it. Yes, that may mean we don’t have a truly free market in the energy sector of the economy - but we never have!
So few commentators, editorialists, and policy wonks seem to understand that fixing the climate is a grand opportunity to fix so many other problems that have resulted from the very same economic processes that have also led to life-threatening climate change. You actually can’t fix one of these problems without addressing all of them.
13
Spiritual crisis? Try correcting the huge trend of income inequality and greater exploitation of the working class before you tell me a lack to religion is to blame. Opiate of the masses indeed...
11
Check out the rich, complex conversation going on in the Democratic primary and you will see the light. This is not the age of despair if you’re a conscientious, pro-social citizen who wants to learn, collaborate and solve problems. Find your courage, Mr. Douthat, and while you’re at it stop indulging in “on both sides” monologues.
6
" My God our hearts are restless until they rest in You." St. Augustine
It all comes down to a belief in a higher power to restore our lives to sanity.
Read your history. Mythology never worked before and it certainly won’t work now.
2
Ross, if you think the main effect of climate change will be tens of thousands of elderly people dying from heat stroke, than you are still mired in some of the denial that goes on with your fellow right wingers. Try thinking about hundreds of millions of displaced starving economic migrants in the warmer, less developed countries around the world. Think about a world wide extinction epidemic changing the biosphere. Try to envision the political chaos and warfare attendant on these changes. This is the problem even with some of the more informed conservatives like yourself. You temporize, throw out false equivalences, and find any excuse for inaction, to suit your religious and material concerns.
6
Malaise?
1
Another element of despair: exclusion. "So if we’re going to answer whatever is killing tens of thousands of our COUNTRYMEN..." In no way, shape, form, nor genetic combination am I one of your "countrymen." Think this is petty? Imagine if every mention of citizens were female. Lessee: "So if we’re going to answer whatever is killing tens of thousands of our countrywomen..." That works, eh? Feel included? At least the word "women" includes the word "men." Update yourself, please.
1
@SeeDay, Hey, SeeDay, why don't you get out the vote and elect a government to mandate a new language, a new set of pronouns, and a new curriculum for our schools so you females--who are the majority--can show us how to remove the despair. Meanwhile, I'll go see what football games are on the tube.
Despite what you write, Ross, there is no equivalent response from The Republicans . . . they are only interested in "winners" who will MAGA . . . they have no interest in "losers" who find themselves in a crisis of any sort.
5
Ross worries about a “collapsing birthrate” and I worry about overpopulation. Ross is Catholic. I’m a realist/environmentalist.
Sorry, Ross. I’m right and you’re....not.
8
Ever-finding creative ways to downplay climate change. This is a very clever one Ross.
4
Guns, Ross.
Let’s talk about guns.
3
This article makes me think of Abbie Hoffman, 60's hippie/yippie radical, author, oddball, drug addict, suicide. Drugs. The problem is drugs and drug addiction.
1
Douthat, always the Republican sycophant, left out the Republicans in his ridicule of the Democrats. Trump: "Fake News." Pense: "It's all God's plan to punish the non-christians." Mitch Mcconnell: "It's Democratic Party lies, whatever it is." The average Republican Voter: "I've got my gun and I'll kill anyone who disagrees with me." Ross Douthat: "It's a spiritual crisis and everyone will be very happy and there will be no problems if everyone becomes a conservative Christian."
4
The NYT is all about despair. Sad.
2
The American disease is simply me first, me second, me third and the rest are losers like the Idiot in the WH often says. Disdain for education, science, the role of good government and the constant mindless, pathetic public displays of piety and patriotism are the rot of the disease. All of these supported by a religious fervor in our ignorant American exceptionalism. Yes, exceptionally ignorant, drug addled, obese and unwilling to recognize the absence of personal responsibility for our acts and lifestyle. And don’t get me started about their imbecilic view of American Christianity...
7
Ross cries like Jobe on his pile of ashes and asks god why thing have gone so badly. It is the Greed and Fear that we have been spoon fed intensely for the last 40 years. It is the Kock Brothers and their ilk that just want more and more because they want more and more. Then they turn around and sell us stuff that they assure us will make us happy. More Chicken, Oil and Giant Pickup Trucks, and we are not happy the chicken is making us fat and sick, the oil is making us hot and raising the tides, and the Giant Pickup truck is not taking us on adventures, but has us stuck in traffic going to the second or third job. As we try to support them and ignore them at the same time. In short we have been conned and none of us wants to admit it. Oh and don't forget that man behind the pulpit one of the worst enablers of the lot.
1
@Edwin Cohen, Edwin, you think Ross has a giant pickup or a 400 HP SUV?
I’m 69, but remember distinctly the day my father came home from his job as a production supervisor and proudly announced he was now able to pay for my college education. He had gotten a $50/week raise.
A four year degree in 1968 cost about $10,000, all in. My first job out of school paid $8,500.
Today, that same degree costs $150,000. And, if you’re lucky, your first job might pay $50,000.
And while the country was badly divided in 1968–cities aflame, the Vietnam war—at least we didn’t have active shooter drills in kindergarten. Or mainstream crackpot “journalists”. Or income inequality on a scale so crushing it’s literally impossible to break from that cycle. Or the spewing of hate by a president who thinks he was elected to preside over only those who voted for him. Or...........
Is it any wonder there’s such despair in our country?
447
@HJS I teach in a public university in California where a degree does not cost $150,000. You can, of course, choose to pay that much, but that is like exotic car owners thinking that all cars cost $100,000.
16
@John - here, in NY the public degree costs about $100K, unless you live in a town with one of the universities, if you earn more than FAFSA allows. There has been recent legislation for grants and scholarships which reduce the burden significantly, a little late for people my kids age or older.
Other state schools cost - without aid - as much as $35K per year, getting closer to that $150K.
How much college costs depends on where you are, what you make in salary, and what degree you are pursing (as your local branch may not support it.)
No not all cars cost $100K. But not all people live in California, either.
33
@HJS you are so on point
10
Reading this is salt on badly bandaged wounds. I feel a world full of negative information disguised as entertainment has contributed those wounds. Try as the NYT or any enterprise might to leaven that news with "modern love" or "what do I do with my Sunday afternoons (today's subject drinks all day long). it's a constant barrage. We know too much. Our despair puts us at a lost and saps our strength. The suggestion seems to be that this shall pass. Oh, I hope so. Let's work to make that happen. Put the phone aside. Give. Listen. Share. Say hello to a stranger today. Smile at a child that isn't yours.
The ills, degradation, and violence that we are experiencing in America is a result of the lack of a formidable education within our country. If we place a premium on educating our children properly, they will be able to make thoughtful, choices for the country in which all may be safer and more secure in the prospect of a productive future .
And when a segment of our population remains largely uneducated we are in a position to choose leaders that are equally lacking in this very precious commodity. And education is not only about the infusion and retention of cognitive information, it is also about cultivating an emotional IQ that allows us to make sound choices .
An educated person , someone with a college degree knows that we have leaders who are diplomats as well as leaders who are dealmakers. Diplomats communicate ,so that the hoped for outcome is that everyone comes out a winner. Dealmakers operate with the belief that there must be a winner and a loser. Diplomats are keenly aware of their perceived adversary, while dealmakers tend to be focused only on themselves and the outcome that they wish to have as a “winner”.
And so if we look at the violence, the disorder, the chaos, and the lack of confidence that we have today in one another we must realize that these are symptoms of a problem that should have been dealt with long ago.
2
For my part, my despair is linked to climate change, I see it a sort of short hand of all the failings of the modern era, where we should have leadership and courage to address a problem we have misinformation, political cowardice, complacency and greed. While the world heats and burns and I feel I have no agency to change it, I feel a deep despair.
5
"...[A]n increase in depression and suicide generally, and among young people especially, ... has more mysterious causes (social media? secularization?)," laments a man who sees secularization as the root of all evil and thinks if he repeats it often enough, people will flock back to church [pun intended].
No, social media and secularization are not the causes of our current despair. Try indebtedness. A society owes its next generation a good education without impoverishment as the price tag, and the next generations are not getting it. Nor are the race-to-the-bottom jobs without benefits and decent salaries a tonic for young people whose anxieties are based on a reality in which they cannot afford a home or start a family. Nor are the obscene, low-or-no taxed profits of major corporations a beacon of hope. Quite the contrary. Corruption starts at the top and trickles down. Young people know what's happening. We read the details every day in the New York Times. As Stephen Hawking observed, "We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity."
I don't think he meant kids starting out. He meant the people at the top.
8
You suggest as one of you your possible solutions a spiritual revival.
Given that America has one of the highest church attendance rates, maybe we too much religion.
4
Great article. Issue oriented town hall meetings forces candidates to present more developed positions. The CNN climate town hall meeting was very useful and instructive. And agree that the alarmingly high rate of suicide is mainly ignored because dead people can’t vote, most are from working families, from depressed areas and because it brings us back to cause and effect for the 2008 economy collapse. It also raises the question of why the same people who collapsed the economy benefitted from the bailout. Yet, the question persists of why the economic recovery has been so feeble and uncertain, notwithstanding the “apparent low unemployment rate”.
The Sackler family proposed settlement from the OxyContin related deaths by offering about $12B seems like real money, except they made $36B plus interest and the Sacklers want to go international - is there an English word stronger than Chutzpah?
And, speaking of which, the elites (eg Stephen Ross for Trump and David Goldman for Biden) want voters in 2020 to go “centrist”, so that dirty money can continue exploitation of the American people and destruction of the nation without fear. The golden age of thievery has to end; it’s killing too many Americans from opioid addiction or despair! Even the GOP is dead!
People know that we are killing ourselves, and our planet.
There is no inspiration from our leadership, and aspiration becomes more and more coupled with corruption.
Lies abound, the truth is mocked.
It is not only the United States of America that is in pain and in crisis - the despair is global.
We will become well when we stop despising the natural world, and learn to live within our biological boundary, and leave our political boundaries behind.
5
if our society actually cared about the people who make up our society we would not have such a deep and wide swath of suffering. The extent of corporate and war machine welfare while "crying" out against "welfare cheats " proves my point. Prudue Pharma and the people pulling the strings of Prudue would be bankrupt by now and in prison for the deaths they have caused.
If we really do care about people we would have a society that bolstered people's lives by policies and organizations whose ethos is not money but human dignity.
4
Why do pundits always seem surprised that overall problems are best solved by decomposing them into smaller and smaller discreet problems? That's how auto mechanics (if they are any good), plumbers, telephone repair persons, medical doctors, computer programmers, engineers, and scientists solve problems. It's how you do it. It's how you fix things.
Imagine trying to "cure cancer". Can't be done. Because "cancer" is a group of diseases, each one of which responds, if at all, to specific treatment. We've cured some cancers, like pediatric leukemia (I had a cousin die from it at 21, and friend's daughter, now in college, cured by age 5). Others we've made amazing progress on, some, still baffling.
I'm not one for spiritual, mystical stuff, being much more a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy, but I do recognize that despair, seeing no path, no light at the end of the tunnel, is very, very real and difficult to overcome, even with support and professional help.
But I think both Pete Buttigieg AND Bernie Sanders are right. (you omitted Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, both of whom inspire hope as well as practical solutions) And Marianne Williamson is off her rocker, IMHO.
Was a time when I thought Republicans might have some solutions, but that was when people like Christine Whitman, Charlie Crist, William Weld, and even Mitt Romney (in his Massachusetts "Romneycare" mode) had real solutions and real approaches to problems. Heck, even Nixon did!
Instead, there's Trump....
6
We have NEVER recovered from 9/11......I am sorry for all Americans who suddenly had to cope with a national crisis of death, destruction and a well planned, purposeful attack on our country.
Fear consumed us, anger ate away at us and frankly, our bravery challenges became quite openly apparent. We did not rise to the challenge as did the "Greatest" Generation after Pearl Harbor......We withered into fear, religious bigotry and hate. And our impotence acted out in ways this country may never recover from.
After El Paso, I realized we always need an enemy to blame. After 9/11, it was Muslims and now, it is Hispanic immigrants. We have leaders who beat that drum to keep us distracted, keep us frightened and easily manipulated.
Sometimes, I wonder if, indeed, Bin laden won his battle as we appear to be losing ours. Our despair is discovering simply, how weak we have become. Tough lessons we continue to ignore at the risk to us all as a nation. "Home of the Brave" sadly, no longer applies to us.
3
We never recovered from Vietnam Nam....Reagan (I was a college Republican at the time) was a brief, bright shining lie that turned into Newt, Boehner, McConnell, Ailes, Rush, and the rest of the alt-right.
2
To some extent, could it be collective karma? Reaping what the country has sowed?
Since America's Iraq invasion (based on false pretenses of nonexistent WMDs just to gain oil access, with many being complicit in selling the lies) and its never-ending wars that followed, it can be said that the country's biggest export has been death and misery.
Or have we all forgotten this?
5
It's not political, economic or spiritual, It's all of them, combined. I should know, I feel my life dripping out of me like water from my hands. Even as highly educated, with a deep and rich work experience, contributions to my community, and life long discipline of always learning more, the job market has no work for me that does not have me in deep despair at the end of every work day and earnings fail to compensate enough to afford anything beyond mere subsistence and certainly not to replace anything major like my aging car that I will not be able to drive forever.
Where I live now, I cannot reach out to others because they are overwhelmingly staunch trump supporters who behave much like him and feel emboldened in their behavior because of him. In short, my life is surrounded by crass, bullying, often religious zealots who pin all of their woes on me if I out myself as not one of them.
My work is mind numbingly repetitive data entry of pharmaceutical orders. My eyes are on a screen all day, there is no talking and the sound of clicking mouses is quietly deafening. I'm hyped on coffee until my hands shake trying and failing to finish assigned work, the only antidote is alcohol to slow me down to get to sleep. I am being used as if my mind were a machine. When I get home more than anything else I need time to rest my mind not unlike a factory worker needs to rest their aching feet.
If I were to ask for just one thing, it would be a job that does not kill me.
6
I wonder, does the despair Ross Douthat writes about come from a genetic flaw in Homo sapiens? Is the animal that we really are doomed to fail its evolutionary possibilities all because of a misshapen genetic code?
You’d think, by now, after two thousand years of religion, of philosophy, of science, we could have created, for everyone, rich and poor, brown and white skinned, a heavenly garden on earth, a place of happiness and sustenance, a place where love triumphed over hatred, but this has not happened.
Greenland melts, thousands of species of plants and animals go extinct, the air and water, the oceans and soils, of the earth, once pure and clean, are sick with poisons. Plastic sacks swirl in gigantic garbage patches in the Pacific Ocean, poor people die because they cannot get basic health care. The rich become richer. Men and women continue to hate their human brothers and sisters. Wars, murder, addiction, atrocity, racial and religious hatred, have not gone away.
We can’t get our love of revenge out of our human systems.
The despair Douthat writes about is real but political solutions will not fix it, for the causation of our despair is deeper and broader than politics. It’s in our genes.
“Homo sapiens,” in translation, means “wise man.” I don’t think we should hold our breath waiting for the human animal to become wise.
4
Mr. Douthat is spot on here and I urge my fellow leftists to resist the temptation to nitpick. This perfect storm of despair has been gathering force at least since the Nixon administration and shows no sign of winding down anytime soon. While I'm inclined to place most of the blame at the feet of the Republicans, as Joshua Heschel once said, "In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible". What I will say is this, the "right" has doubled down on its worst instincts. The paranoia, the tribalism, the xenophobia and the racism are driving us toward a civil conflagration. People like Lindsay Graham and Rob Portman, people who have reckelssly abandoned comity for short term political gain, are going to have to decide to put country before party and career, or we are surely in for one long, dark night of the soul.
4
Don't be so quick to blame your favorite bugbear, 'secularism'. Most of these deaths of despair are happening in communities with the highest participation in church. These are also places full of loss of status and increasing poverty. All of the magical thinking that comes from religion has done little to reverse these trends.
7
Mr. Douthat is onto something in his "diagnosis" of the problem. Where he falls short, though, is in his "prescription".
The fact is, many whites who are economically deprived, particularly white males, voted for Trump. Their parents had opportunities in the workplace - because they didn't have to compete with women or minority applicants during that time. Now, however, white males believe they are being "left behind" because they must compete with people their parents never faced in the workplace. They see a level playing field as "evidence" that they are being discriminated against.
So what do they do? They cast about for a quick fix. Literally, in some cases, with the opioid crisis. But I would argue that their vote for Trump was another "quick fix" they tried. After all, he told them that as whites, they were the "real" Americans.
They thought he'd wave his wand and get them their jobs back. Or make healthcare affordable for them - but not for those brown skinned folks, of course.
So Trump is just another drug they're taking, because this group of voters cannot understand that they must pull themselves up by their bootstraps like the rest of us were told to do, decades ago. Success came easily to their fathers. So it should be for them.
So they'll try anything for a quick fix. Drugs. Trump. Now, the rest of us had families who needed generations to achieve some success. We know there is no quick fix. And this is a lesson Trump voters still need to learn.
1
Funny how Douthat thinks that he can speak for Democrats, but won’t actually try to put into words possible explanations or prescriptions for despair from Republicans.
How about: What have we spineless Republicans become?
Without morals, having sold our souls, what is the use of living any longer?
3
It is none of my business but 'Journalists Matter Too', and I cannot help wondering if Mr. Douthat is suffering a case of the blues.
Some of us are more susceptible to the change of seasons, and having been fortunate these first days of September to hear from friends, regardless of their political views, that sacrifices are being made to send their offspring to school and college; new beginnings are taking place with a certain amount of stress, anticipation and not enough time to stretch out.
We are living longer and keep hearing that it is all for naught, while America verges on becoming a nation of Insensible Sensitives, bordering on morbidity. Two decades ago, this reader told her boss, an economist who was helping New York City pull through, that we were living 'The Age of Mediocrity', and with reason, he snorted.
With no clear governance policy, with the rise of violent deaths by mass murder or one own's hand, with all the sorrowful tales taking place of illness, old age and drug abuse, some in the realm of reality, others on paper and the screen, we are not all planning to sit on the bench with 'Despair'.
Ask what Ionesco meant in writing, 'The Living are becoming rarer' after World War II. Keep telling Americans how weak and vulnerable they are, and eventually it will become a 'Credo'. One that not all of us are buying, but a troubled perspective, where we live in uncertain times, uncertain, as the weather changes of bleak grey dawns and thin horizons.
1
The Dems aren't having debates about these 'deaths of despair' because they privately think that those who are experiencing this despair deserve it as punishment for their past 'privilege'. Talking about the despair of working class whites brings up internal conflicts in the democratic coalition that they're working to cover up.
3
It's basically a spiritual crisis.
In America,more and more people appear to be embracing the idea of humans as' highly evolved apes'.......but not me.
Nietzsche predicted that when his belief that 'God is Dead' percolated down to the 'masses' (his term), it was going to lead to some profound psychological and sociological changes in society.
We may be approaching the 'place of our final destination'.
Or am I missing something here?
1
Yeah, you are. It’s called evolution.
1
The concern of drug, alcohol and suicide is a problem of homo sapiens developed frontal cortex, their own mind has become their enemy - it has nothing to do with economic, trade or immigration. Once we addressed our survival issues, our mind, if not grounded on a stable state, start revolting against our life forces - it becomes like the mind of a monkey, which is drunk, and bitten by a scorpion. There is no remedy for this state of mind - it self destroys itself. How we overcome having a culture producing these type of persons - look deep in the pop culture and deep culture. Our pop culture has to focus on simplicity of life and stop glamorizing money, wealth, power and physical beauty and start praising soft traits of life - simplicity, sacrifice, love, compassion and wisdom. The deep culture also has to change - nature is not for human exploitation, oneness in diversity, individual success is inferior to group success. These are not solved by government policies - a total change in American soft culture. Most of the educated American are doing this change and ensuring a stable mind, the poor and less educated are behind the trend and Trump presidency has emboldened them to hold to the past. This has to change - they need to adopt this change. Our Churches are failing on their task.
What else would you expect, with a poisonous doctrine of "if you're poor and unemployed, it's your own fault" ascendent--and accepted throughout the Trump districts where opioid deaths and suicide are highest? It has been one of the ongoing triumphs of the Conservative cause to have marketed this doctrine as a great panacea, beginning with Reagan's "Government is the problem." And as they have overdosed on this ideological snake oil, so have the people overdosed on whatever will blunt the pain of the inevitable self-hatred that results from their economic displacement. (I can recall Rush Limbaugh admonishing his listeners, as the economy crashed in 2007, that the survivors and the wealthy were "smarter than you," and adding that he expected his listeners could rise to the occasion somehow.) The extremism of hatred for any collective sollution to collective problems has poisoned our national life, and it is claiming its victims daily.
2
"Deaths of Despair"? Oh, c'mon.
"Both SUICIDES and ALCOHOL-RELATED deaths were as common in the mid-1970s as in 2017; the combined death rate from both was 23.5 per 100,000 in 1975 and 23.6 in 2017." JEC "Long-Term Trends in Deaths of Despair" (9/5/2019) (emphasis added)
What we have is a drug problem -- actually, a drug purity problem*. Of course if you outsource drug distribution to criminal gangs, there are bound to be the occasional labeling discrepancy.
Chinese production of fentanyl appears to be by far the biggest source -- direct mail to U.S. distributors and to Mexican gangs for transshipment over the SWB.
Commenters! Ideas of how we solve that problem will be welcomed.
* 29,406 Deaths involving other synthetic opioids (predominately fentanyl) CDC (NCHS) (2017 preliminary estimate)
1
I followed your reference to Nietzscheans and found the Book Review of Bronze Age Mindset, by Michael Anton. It describes an Alt-Right view of the world, that is appealing to some youth. After reading the review I conclude that for some Alt-Right, the ideal "rulers" should be, smart, aggressive, beautiful, male, body builders who have the morals of Pirates. The anonymous author of the book seems to have been a well read man, apparently close to Steve Bannon.
Despair? I think we are in a giant bubble of twisted information devoid of real insight, that evolved from Walter Cronkite's evening news to a 24 hour news media assault, the purpose of which isn't to enlighten us but to entice us materialists to save the economy by constantly searching for "Stuff" to buy, like we were cows to be milked.
2
Dr. Volkow, the renowned addiction expert would disagree with Douthat and warned about prescription opioids in this paper in 2011. Ross and company is carrying water for Corporations who are misdirecting the public dialog away from the culprits Purdue, Johnson and Johnson, and McKinsey who respectively manufactured, distributed, and weaponized marketing of OxyContin and MS Contin. These corporations want America to believe it was Mexican Cartels, and Chinese Fentanyl that addicted over a million Americans and is killing them 40k at a time. The victims were addicted by Purdue and friends. What Dr. Volkow provides is the scientific inclination toward addiction.
Despair is not necessary or the cause of most addictions. The Taoist tradition says: “ A man with no food has one problem. A man with plenty of food has many problems”. Understanding addiction can be facilitated when we realize that Addicts have one problem. The many problems of everyday life only exist for those who are not addicted.
Ross works diligently to reinforce simplistic biases. His religion and his “conservative” beliefs govern his biases and those biases that his fellow travelers share. Among other memes are loss of community and spiritual decline. These losses are inaccurate and self serving. When the ACA was inaugurated it was opposed by racists/racism, lies, and false equivalences. Would the productivity, GDP, and grass roots prosperity be undermined? No. But that meme prevailed.
2
Most Americans live shallow, meaningless lives in which quantity has replaced quality and self-gratification has become the only motivation many people have. It’s no wonder people despair when they realize that’s all there is. Add to that the relentless drumbeat of the culture of greed and you have a real recipe for cultural disaster. Perhaps what we need is a serious existential battle to strip away all the “noise” and bring us back to our senses so we can re-focus our attention on rebuilding a nurturing, supportive society.
3
Mr. Douthat contrasts "A drug crisis driven by the spread of heroin and fentanyl" with "a surge in suicides and depression and heavy drinking".
There is no difference ... alcohol is a drug.
1
In the first place, the deaths projected by the National Climate Assessment are ONLY deaths directly related to exposure to extremes in temperature (hot or cold), in the US. As Douthat conveniently avoids mentioning, the NCA link states: "Those estimates don’t include health effects that are harder to quantify, like mental health or long-term health impacts." In addition, they don't include the vastly higher death rates outside the US, especially in developing countries that are much closer to the front lines of extreme temperature increases. But Douthat is a Conservative Republican Christian, so why should he concern himself with people outside the US?
Second, the Trump administration at least has created the Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission, whereas it not only continues to deny the reality of climate change, but it actively pursues policies to exacerbate it. So it is entirely appropriate, even desperately urgent for Democrats to call attention to an existential threat (yes, Ross, it really is that serious) that is completely ignored by Conservative Republicans.
Finally, the complexity of the climate change problem is such that a globally coordinated strategy is required NOW (actually 40 years ago). We have already lost too much time due to Conservative Republican stupidity and greed. There is no time to put climate change on the back burner while we work on "other" problems.
2
Oddly, nowhere does Mr. Douthat mention immoral drug companies pushing opiates into our society like evil grandpas pushing mints on the grandkids. He seems to want to offer us 6 possible solutions from which we must choose, but it does not take rocket science to show that our lack of a living wage, guaranteed health care, the oppression of massive student debt, a consumerist society, and the overwhelming sense that our environment and government have been hijacked by pitiless criminals is more than enough reason to despair. There are good reasons to despair.
2
You can have it all, money, job, family, fortune, fame and still be an addict. And you can die from an overdose. Addiction is a truly democratic demon. It does not care what you look like or how you pray or where you live.
These 'deaths of despair' are as complex as the people suffering from addiction or depression. The solutions require a multi-faceted approach, time and money.
What our society needs to understand is that addicts are not simply being selfish and exercising their free choice. It is not a matter of personal 'willpower'. It is not a moral failure that the addict must just 'get over' like the flu.
Treatments cost. Time and money must be invested in the various forms needed. Not every one can get sober in a basement and a dollar in the basket. Depression requires multiple counseling sessions with qualified professionals.
Bottom line? If America cares where is the money and time needed going to come from? The GOP does not want comprehensive health care for us. How is an addict going to get the treatment required and have living expenses taken care of during treatment? How would a suicidal person be able to afford weekly/daily sessions with a professional?
Until America gets over the 'it's your fault, buck up' attitude and is willing to set up empathetic and compassionate care, we can debate what is needed all we want but we won't get anywhere.
The biggest cause of despair is a president who cares nothing for anyone but himself, is no help at all when disaster strikes because he is busy concentrating on how he looks after making a mistake, who spreads nothing but fear, who is the world's worst businessman and doesn't even rise to entry level diplomat, who destroys science that is telling us what we need to do to improve our environment in favor of his own view of things because he is such a "stable genius," and who seriously aims to make us hate each other as much as possible. Why is anybody remotely surprised there is despair when the likes of this is our "leader"?
1
As I see it, this problem is simply endemic to our species. Homo sapiens have many strengths, but we have probably just as many if not more weaknesses. I would argue just to let this play out, I suspect it’s part of our evolution.
1
There is an opioid crisis because people were encouraged and directed by their physicians to take a pain drug that required higher and higher doses to achieve less and less pain relief.
The dangerous addictive qualities of OxyContin were ignored by the manufacturers and distributors of the drug. When people who were highly addicted and desperate for relief they turned to the street for heroin and fentanyl in unregulated and unknown potency and in dangerous combinations.
Recreational users found themselves in an immediate crisis of playing with dynamite, regulating their use with myths, apocrophia and the usual old wives tales that abound in an underground culture.
The manufacturers and distributors of opioids are now recognized as the culprit--no different from the cigarette manufacturers.
Does losing so many friends and family members to deaths and suicide make for more despair in these communities and society in general? Is such despair more easily acted upon because guns are so readily available?
Is the misbegotten legacy of the "just say no", War On Drugs heralded by Ross's hero Ronald Reagan a leading reason for such lazy malfeasance by our politicians?
Until Trump is defeated, the GOP can't be counted on to help solve the opioid crisis--they're to cowardly. I note that only Democrats were scorned by Ross here for their own explanations and solutions. But please, spare us the hand-wringing over spiritual crises of despair.
Interesting that the opioid crisis has the Douthat's of the right looking for spiritual causes. When the crisis was crack cocaine the finger was pointed to the lack of morality and weakness of character. Two populations struggling with drug addiction, one, victims of greedy pharmaceutical corporations, these poor people got lost having strayed looking for manna but not from heaven. The other population was morally weak, a criminal class that was victimizing itself. The victims of the opioid crisis need treatment and understanding, the users of crack cocaine need be punished with sever and long incarceration. What ever could be the difference between these two populations? Mr. Douthat's pseudo-intellectual essay so perfectly illustrates the institutional racism at the heart of so many of our countries problems and the moral, ethical, and political bankruptcy of the American conservatism.
1
The US response to the inflationary Arab/OPEC Oil Embargo was a series of ill conceived policies aimed at lowering inflation.
Union busting, Hedge Fund promotion (creative destruction of thousands of businesses), abandonment Anti-Trust enforcement (Wal-Mart/Amazon), Corporate Farms (and promotion of corn) at the expense of the Family Farmer, Foreign autos subsidies in the south, allowing Investment Banks to be C-corps (Federally backed banks with access to Federal Reserve loans), and finally full acceptance of Communist China into the WTO, although they don't have Free Markets, Free Speech, Free Religion, Free Elections or Free Unions.
In the end we whipped inflation. Now, we've suffered a deflationary spiral for decades, excepting the over inflated assets of housing and stocks, mainly due to hedge funds pools gobbling them up.
Hedge funds own tens of thousands of houses in major cities across America, raising rents 10- 15% very year. These were homes of the disaffected that were foreclosed on, to clean up the sub prime mess. This, because government money was spent on wars, led by incompetents and chicken hawks.
People at the losing end of this equation are responding.
In the end the lesson is this: Humans are not "a brand" and are not "economic units". We are social animals yearning for family, community, and connection. In the US, we are battling a system that is at total odds to who we are. Humans are Beings. It's time to acknowledge it.
1
@Almighty Dollar
Thank you for such a great comment!
The seeds of the future are sown in the past.
I agree with Ross' position. This is a crisis.
But I also think it's seen as more of a crisis because it's affecting whites. If only the plight of minorities was treated as seriously when these kind of problems hit them as hard.
No mention of technology fueling despair?
1
Ross, when in the world will you ever admit that conservative economic policy is anti-life?
How about a reality based approach to the despair that most Americans feel? It's not existential at all. Life in America is simply a God-awful grind. A struggle. Most American's face a terrible economic struggle due to a mercenary, profit-oriented health care system. College Loans are breaking the backs of young people, and the elderly cannot afford to retire. This is the source of our despair. Other western countries support education and health care for all of their citizens.
What is the ratio of depressed and suicidal rich Americans to depressed and suicidal poor Americans?
I think that it is unavoidable that an economic system in which a few persons own more wealth that half the nation will result in extreme hardship for millions who are unable to cope with the probability that their tomorrows will be worse than today.
What we had, beginning in 1933 with FDR's New Deal, was a leveling of the playing field. Help for poor nobodies were expanded by government and the ability for the ultra-wealthy to control the economy was tempered by government. Balance. Parity. Eisenhower's 90% marginal tax rates were an enormous stimulus to the country. The result was hope, creativity and a large, healthy middle class. Knowing the game wasn't quite so rigged was a powerful stimulus.
The root cause goes beyond getting people back to church. How can they go back to church when they are working all weekend at their second jobs? The game got really rigged again, in favor of corporations and ruthless billionaire predators. It needs to be leveled again.
319
@The Poet McTeagle
FDR was the President of White Protestant and entitled America. I am a not an entitled White Protestant and entitled American, I am a Canadian whose believes in inclusiveness and government of all the people and inclusiveness and giving citizens as much democracy security, healthcare and education as warranted in 2019.
For too many tribalism and entitlement is much easier than inclusiveness.
Here in Quebec inclusiveness and democracy is still a wonderful new toy.
5
@The Poet McTeagle Nope, the hope of the 1950's was driven by the fact that World War II had been won; America alone had people and factories and labor HERE was in huge demand because it was actually worth more than anywhere else on earth. Having just WON (decisively) a war with a regime that will be remembered as one of the most evil in history was a massive morale boost to civil society, regardless of ones Churchgoing impulses.
As others have commented even that was only a time when it was great to be a WASP, the world was more nuanced for everyone else, even in America.
5
If people had hope there would be fewer destructive behaviors. Young people need to get adequate schooling. The real fear of having tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when starting life keeps many young people from pursuing their life dreams. Without adequate schooling, jobs are grinds and alcohol and drugs seem the only way out - there is no time nor money for travel or relaxation, only cheap, immediate escapes.
By the time middle age hits, decades of no exercise, poor diets brought on by cheap fast food starts taking a toll. Body fat carries its own destruction, self-hatred, stunted intelligence, failing health, inability to move properly, loss of energy, loss of love of life. All brought about by a dead-end job and the inability of push out of its trap.
The greed of our politicians, grasping big businesses and very rich are ruining our country and is very depressing. Our climate is killing us. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lack of oxygen in the air is not only contributing to asthma and other health-related problems, but also to mental health problems. American fast food is filled with bad fats and sugars. In other countries, fresh fruits and vegetables are produced locally and markets sell tasty produce, not tasteless, engineered and very expensive stuff brought in by big agri-business.
When our leaders become greedy, mean and selfish, people feel they must too, if only to protect themselves from real threats to their well-being.
1
Oh, Ross, if we could convince people that they would be a whole lot happier if they just went out and bought something, the problem would be solved. Plus, there's the added benefit that we ALL would be better off since our economy (not to mention the all-important stock market) is dependent on growth, growth, growth and growth is dependent on us buying lots and lots of stuff.
Yep, we should inculcate into the minds of our youth that 'he who dies with the most toys, wins.'
Sir: An interesting and compelling point of view. I'd rather describe the condition as "exhaustion" than "despair." The weather in the great valley of the moderate, decent middle of America is created by the peaks on the extreme left and right of it. We are tired, and though those who lose hope create a sad current in our society, most are not despondent -- this will be the hidden force of a great renaissance, I believe. Given the opportunity to vote for meaningful and real change, American voters always come through. They will vote against this toxic dialogue when a clear alternative is presented. That's not likely to happen in 2020, but it will happen.
3
Thank you: this is an excellent article, and it invites a discussion that America desperately needs to have. It’s almost as if ALL of the potential causes cited here are in play.
If I had to pick one, I go with lack of meaning. We are a completely materialistic society now. There is no real religious conviction, but only rigid fundamentalisms; no sense of value except that of money and possessions. This is even (and maybe especially) true of science, which at the moment is fanatically mechanistic and materialist. There is nothing in the universe except matter, consciousness is an illusion produced by neurons firing in the brain; everything that happens is as completely deterministic as the motions of a car engine.
Life has therefore no intrinsic value to us. As Willy Loman says of his life insurance policy, “I’m worth more dead than alive!” We think we don’t really think this, but actually we kind of do. And, I’m a registered Republican, but we really must admit that starting with Reagan, it’s been getting worse. Since the 80s it has come home to me with greater and greater conviction that my value is summed up by the kind of car I drive, the size of my stock portfolio, the price of the shoes I wear, and the neighborhood I live in.
Life has no value. That’s my two cents.
3
My hope is that this is the darkness before the dawn. The United States was begun by visionaries- flawed by today's standards, of course. That vision of the country as a "land on opportunity", a "melting pot", of equality and based on honesty and hard work has been dismantled by those who believe only in the "Market". So life has been structured for a different soul crushing set of values. Money is the ultimate value. Just seeing the most recent twist of the Epstein saga, the way he easily integrated himself into MIT with "donations" is to see corruption eating its way into the highest reaches. DJT, of course, is the leader we chose... unbelievable.
The changes necessary are big. One party is set on continuing the trend toward kleptocracy. They will do anything they can to subvert the changes needed. They worship at the alter of the greenback. Of course, there are cultural issues and of course the other party is infected too... we all are. But to unlock the next phase where hope is restored, we have to feel the pain.
1
Douthat ignores history and human physiology. Our body produces opiates naturally. And almost as soon as you take opiate derivatives it rewires your brain chemistry. Never take them period. There are other pain relievers out there that do not have the immediate addictive effects that opiates do.
This is also not the first time that epidemics of heroin/opium or other opiates have manifested in a society and greedy drug makers in cahoots with policy makers are always at the root cause.
Recall the 1st and 2nd opium wars, Britain vs China anyone?
3
Mr. Douthat, I'm scratching my head, trying to figure out the connection between the issue of climate change and your serious but shallow attempt to address mental issues and substance abuse problems.
1
We don't need magic. Just policy. Let's bring our secular democracy up to the standards of the leading industrual democracies in terms of health, education, and welfare. Let's have Denmark buy USA. Universal nationalized heathcare with family planning, universal public preschool, Enlightenment values. Enought both-sidesism from the bankrupt moralists of the right.
Lots of speculation and moralizing, yet in your analysis of what is "killing tens of thousands of our countrymen" you neglect to mention the word GUNS. According to the Pew Research Center, 60% of gun deaths in this country are from suicides. If it weren't so easy to off oneself with the click of a trigger from one of the 360 million guns in America, perhaps these deaths of despair would be far fewer.
1
Why do I think that the hidden message in this column is that it is the lack of organized religious beliefs that is lacking in Americans? Unfortunately for Douthat and others like him the reality is that science basically killed belief in organized religions. That genie is out of the bag. No putting it back in.
1
This column could only have been written by someone who is too young to remember the 1960's.
I suppose it's a sign of age to say: "You think you have it rough, you should have seen what life was like back in the day."
Fact is, rural life has always been dispiriting and desperate, which is why so many rural folks have for generations sought jobs and life in cities and suburbs.
Suicide and despair there is nothing new or different.
As for drug overdoses, there have always been addicts and drug deaths. If there are more deaths now, the potency of Fentanyl is all the explanation necessary.
And alienation: try imagining being told you have no place in America if you refuse to go kill babies in Vietnam,you have abrogated your patriotic duty. Or you are simply stirring up trouble by protesting whites-only bathrooms, lunch counters and motels.
Life in America in the 50's and 60's was measurably bleaker than it is even in the Trump moment.
Have to agree with Bernie: If economic justice prevailed, there would likely be fewer suicides among the bottom 50% who have little financial security and fewer options in life.
Insufficient money, for the individual, has always been the soil in which hopelessness has grown.
1
It was not bleaker, you didn’t have it worse, and I’m absolutely tired of hearing that.
We have climate crisis. The bleakest existential crisis that humankind has ever faced. And the younger generation is, more than understandably, terrified—while the older generation (which holds the power and the money) does next to nothing as the clock runs out. Add the end of world as we know it to student debt, gun violence, inequality, stagnant wages, inability to access health care.
Depressed? I get it.
Yes, we're in the frightening times of American despair, Ross Douthat. Too many people are addicted to drugs (like anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, opioid pain-killers). And to alcohol today. The over-medication and self-medication of Americans is unquestionably responsible for suicides in our economic (and spiritual) crisis.
To the other deaths of despair should be added all the mass killers and their victims, the suicides-by-cop, and deaths from other risky behavior that people engage in when they've just given up.
Benjamin Franklin said in 1787 that "Much of the Strength and Efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing Happiness to the People depends on Opinion, on the general Opinion of the Goodness of that Government as well as of the Wisdom and Integrity of its Governors."
The first and foremost duty of those in office is to bolster the confidence that the people have in them and in their institutions. When elected officials attack the very institutions of government, ignore the reputation and dignity of the government they are part of, treat their political rivals as enemies of the state, and fail to even pretend to a degree of unity (even when change and reform are needed), they are like a neighbor of who was out in a boat on the middle of a lake with a shotgun, intending to shoot ducks, but who, when he saw what he thought was a snake in the bottom of the boat, shot the bottom of that boat right out from under himself.
This what our esteemed president does every day: shoots more holes in the bottom of the ship of state, of which he is supposed to be the captain.
1
Annually, 22,000 ‘good guys with guns’ exercise their sacred Second Amendment freedom to own a gun for ‘self-defense’ and as a ‘bulwark against tyranny’... by blowing themselves away.
Fact: about 90-95% of suicide attempts using other methods fail at the objective — they do not end in death. About 85-90% of suicide attempts using a gun are ‘successful.’ Because that’s what guns do — effortless, instant, effective, inexorably deadly.
Curiously, this is not something the ‘conservative’ Republican defenders of gun owners’ rights and the NRA frequently discuss. You’re about as likely to successfully defend yourself against a violent crime using a gun as you are to be struck by lightning. On the other hand, you’re quite likely to grab a gun and end it all — for yourself and often for other family members as well — in a fleeting moment of despair, with no possible second thoughts, no turning back.
And then there’s the other method of self-destruction so popular among the ‘conservative’ rural population — addiction to opioid medications, with tens of thousands of inevitable deaths by overdose.
Meanwhile, the nation tolerates over 300 million guns in circulation, parroting NRA propaganda; and victims of the aggressive manufacture, marketing and distribution of opioid drugs decry government regulation of any kind, including the consumer protection and drug enforcement that could have nipped that epidemic in the bud.
Some people refuse to be helped and curse those who try.
2
While it's likely that all three of these take their toll, it's telling that economic factors were the ones glossed over here. Addressing these problems might actually cost the author and his paper something. I guess it's a coincidence....
2
why do you have to choose? Why can't all 3 three reasons be a factor?
2
The GOP opposes virtually all government programs and laws that enhance stability in a nation:
- national health care coverage and access for all
- free education including higher education
- equality for all citizens
- gun control and limits
- a democratic election system
- belief in science
What the GOP gives our citizens is the opposite, along with contempt for women, blacks, Hispanics, migrant children, the sick and the poor.
Ross is just handing out "fake concern" to match the "fake news" and the latest: "fake weather reports."
Gaw! These are POLITICAL crises, Mr. Doubt That. Religion may be a primary CAUSE of them, since it is nothing but a lie and a power/money struggle for the hearts and minds of the weak.
Regarding the subjects of climate change and suicide, the two will be more and more related as more and more lives are immiserated by the growing impacts from climate change.
Ask some farmers.
1
In recovery now 14+ yrs. My own experience suggests that the answer Ross—and everyone—seeks defies categorization. Like most everything in the human condition, the answer is rife with complexity, much more than the human mind and its penchant for compartmentalization can tolerate.
Here's what I will say, however. As a child, after learning Santa was a hoax, I was asked—again—to "believe" in a deaf, dumb, and blind god who never explained anything. While hunkered down in the completely black catacombs of elementary school during Cold War nuclear attack drills. While listening to Mom get beat to a pulp every night by a maniac, the tears and rage boiling in me beyond all telling. While achieving the self-fulfilling prophecy of underachiever because of my socioeconomic upbringing in an American society whose "dream" wasn't meant for us.
That was my experience. My solution was/is most aligned with "spirituality" (if one needs to categorize at all), devoid of religion. I look into the cosmos and see the miracle of existence—and my conciousness of it—trumping anything else, my dis-ease with this human condition included.
2
“This is obviously an economic crisis! People are despairing because their jobs have been outsourced, their wages are stagnant, the rich have hijacked the economy. Tax the plutocrats, raise the minimum wage, give everybody health insurance, and you’ll see this trend reverse.”
Bernie is right.
Add to the problems you have outlined, the deaths caused by suicide with guns. Even more people die by shooting themselves that are killed in the horrendous shootings our country is experiencing.
With all due compassion, these folks are probably just coming to grips with the fact that we live in a world where Donald Trump is their "leader".
Too many people in the world. Overpopulation causes stress throughout the animal kingdom. No surprise that it would happen to us also. And our online interconnectedness only makes it worse.
1. The defect of American character; Racism, creates a “spiritual” deficit. This defect and deficit were, for 50 years, cynically exploited by Rightist forces to induce swaths of the population to conflate their actual interests by appeals to their hatreds. 2. The strategy was a boon to The Right, and, with the political power conferred, it began a project of class warfare against the middle and working classes. The result destroyed what once was the world’s broadest and most prosperous middle Class while, hoisting a new American Oligarchy. 3. Decades of this let American Racism fester, and as it did, the resultant rage from The Right’s class warfare and, shameless disinformation campaigns further degraded American democracy. 4. The Right’s assault also included tax and spend policies intended to enrich the wealthiest while, deliberately, hoisting a mountain of debt upon the government. This, has been used by The Right to block all investment in our national interest. Our collapsing infrastructure is the most obvious consequence but also, has diminished our global stature. This reality adds frustration to the racist segment of the population which, thanks to decades of propaganda, blames this situation on those occupying their compendium of hate. 5. These decades of Rightist assault resulted,finally, in the hoisting of an openly racist, degenerate criminal administration to lord over the country - accelerating our national decline. THIS is why we find ourselves here.
It would be hard not to argue that there seems to be some kind of social malaise hanging about in the air these days.
Let's face it.
The world is a mess. Not only here in the U.S. where we're being ravaged by the musings of a mercurial and vindictive president whose secret agenda includes amassing his own personal wealth, destroying the environment and creating a race war in order to maintain his grip on this country's seat of power -- but everywhere where nationalism, white supremacy and xenophobia have became the new world currency.
Is it so surprising that so many may try to escape?
1
Mock the Climate Town Hall all you want. The truth is young people are in despair because their elders have abused their stewardship of this planet and are leaving nothing for future generations but natural disasters, starvation, pollution, and war. And if the nihilism of older folks (well I won't be around anyway so why should I care) isn't a form of despair, then I guess they truly are just terrible people. The vast majority of Americans from both parties are concerned about the environment and the future of our planet, and the GOP are stuck in the dinosaur age. We all know how that turned out.
1
It is absolutely reprehensible to go off like this about Democrats, and never to so much as mention Trump and Republicans’ complete indifference to this and many other tragedies.
1
I'm mostly with Bernie on this, but it's important to note that the coastal elites (of both parties) have not only written off everyone between the Sierras and the Poconos, they've loudly and consistently dismissed them as deplorables, gun nuts, people who vote against their own interests, and now even as white supremacists.
If I was unemployed and had all my pleas for help dismissed as yearning for some kind oil disappearing white privilege, I'd probably head down to the bar on Friday nights, too.
1
I think that if we could find a politician who would quit trickling down on us most if not all of the alcohol and depression deaths. Maybe just maybe we could try to drain some of the money from the top one percent. We can at least try it.... kinda like chicken soup it can’t hurt
Despair will kill some of us. Climate change may kill all of us. Another false equivalency trolled across these pages to conflate a lack of religious faith with the rise in whatever apocalypse RD has as top of mind on Friday night deadline. Suicidal ideation is helped along by having a loaded and accessible firearm in the home. Drug and alcohol treatment facilities have been de-funded by Republican congresses for decades. And all this would go away if we would only accept Jesus as our personal Savior, preferably in the HRC church.
Perhaps a broader interpretation of how we got to this place would be helpful, Mr, Douthat.
1
Calling the opioid crisis an “epidemic” is a woeful misuse of the word in an era when the actual meaning of words means less and less. Even opinion columnists should try to avoid inflammatory click bait.
Regardless, Douthat places the crisis on the same footing as climate change, a convenient way for do-nothing conservatives to justify their inaction on BOTH fronts.
Come on, Ross. One problem is immediately resolvable, with a combination of better health care where physicians can provide earlier detection/intervention, destigmatization of addiction, safe drug using spaces, prosecution of the pharmaceutical pushers who triggered this crisis.
As for climate change, well, let’s check back in ten years when we can all mourn our inaction — and the utter ineptitude of the Trump Administration and science denying Republicans.
1
A visual metaphor for America today could be that of the ex-star college quarterback - now out of school - making loads of money on Wall Street. The problem is he's miserable and lost and without a moral core. The myths he once believed about himself are worthless.
1
Thanks for this. Your best effort, and it makes up for a lot, in my appreciation of you. Maybe you have an inner Jesuit, like David Brooks.
Ross, I'm curious how these depressing stats compare with those in far more secularized European countries? You know, the ones right-wingers like to diss as Communist because they have strong social safety nets.
I see the cause as being politicians that have given multinational corporations the freedom to run roughshod over workers rights and ability to earn a decent wage and to actually murder innocent citizens with painkillers. The American dream for many has been killed by the greedy few aided and abetted by a political party that I shall call The Enablers.
2
I thought all these "deaths of despair" were going to end when Donald Trump was elected. I thought he was the 21st century's Great White Hope. He told us "I alone can fix it."
What happened? What went wrong?
Ross Douthat bemoans CNN's decision to devote seven hours of programming to climate change and wishes they would focus on the more immediate crisis - deaths by despair. He finishes by stating:
"Despair as a sociological phenomenon is rarely permanent: Some force, or forces, will supply new forms of meaning eventually. And it matters not only that this happens, but which forces those will be."
I believe the despair that wracks us is rooted in a reality that is and has been stubbornly ignored by those in power. We on the ground know full well what we have wrought and are facing the consequences we thought would be longer in coming.
It is maddening to live through the deliberate blindness of those who imagine the status quo can be maintained by decree. In Trump we see the end result and face of this blindness - stupid beyond belief, absurd in the extreme. And yet, those who could have done something are doing nothing. STILL!
In the face of such monumental lunacy, the first thing you feel is anger. Then, when those waves of rage net you nothing, there's nothing left but despair. All else pales by comparison. People feel hopeless because they've been rendered powerless by those who think their wealth will shield them from what is coming. That the rich will tumble like all the rest is no comfort.
Yes, some force will eventually "supply new forms of meaning" but not until this mess has run its course. It won't be pretty, but at least it will be real.
1
On Jan. 29, 2002, George W. Bush named Iran, North Korea, and Iraq as "the axis of evil" in his State of the Union address. Ronald Reagan reset the trajectory of government and public service when he declared in his Jan. 20, 1981 inaugural speech, "... government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Richard Nixon declared "I am not a crook." President Johnson, with his advisors and generals, systematically and intentionally lied to the country about Viet Nam, and seeded profound mistrust in us about government and its leaders.
Douthat asks: are the roots of our despair economic, sociological, or spiritual? The wars that Bush began, ostensibly in response to 9/11, grind on in the Middle East. The G.O.P.'s history and philosophy have predictably led to Trump, with his dedication to dismantling government, scapegoating, and corruption, aided and abetted by Mitch McConnell and others. Beneath it all runs a twisted thread of mistrust of our national leadership and the efficacy of government itself.
It was exquisite leadership that brought this country through the Civil War, the Great Depression and WW II, and it's leadership that we so desperately need right now, national leadership that will unify us in addressing our economic, social and spiritual ills. The proof that such leadership will not come from the G.O.P. currently resides in the White House. Whether the kind of leadership we need will emerge from the Democrats remains to be seen.
2
Despair is caused by a lack of faith in the future, climate change is taking away all of our futures. The two problems are deeply linked.
While I feel sympathy for people who are suffering, I can't help but think what is accelerating despair is the gloomy realization that trump won't make America great again.
1
Could not find it in the Senate report summary, so let me ask: How do the Despair numbers break down by income and wealth level? Is the Despair only happening at low income levels? If so, it would suggest a rather simple fix.
1
While on a brief trip to the USA last week, i struck up conversation with three Americans from Montana, Texas and Washington state. All concurred that America is heading down the toilet with President Trump, yet what struck me most is how they couldn't discern why America wound up with Trump's presidency.
I'm not a sociologist, yet I think one can readily define contemporary American society as anomic and dysfunctional. Over the past forty years, I'd argue that America has lost two things. First, the average American no longer comprehends that he/she belongs to society, a social entity larger than self. Second, and following from the first, American society has abandoned the concept of social responsibility since 1980. Simply put, this has fostered a cultural and social milieu congenial to mass shootings.
Trump's presidency can be viewed as an expression of cultural and social malaise, reminiscent of what America experienced during the late 1970's. Just as forty years ago marked the end of the New Deal Era. Trump's presidency signifies the denouement of the Reagan. Indeed, it's both the culmination and end of the Reagan Revolution, and is by no means an aberration. As an outside observer, I can only hope that Americans engage in seriously reflection about what they've endorsed the past four decades between now and November 2020.
9
It is a crisis of capitalism let loose from Reagan onwards. Looking for religious angles are useless when you have most of them being supportive of the GOP policies that have been ruining the moral fabric of this nation.
Globalization embraced without any thought for the general population led up massive underemployment, losing the last vestiges of unionized labor middle class and the strength it gave to the American way of life.
Vote progressive in 2020 to reverse the decline that goes not to the Trump era but to Ronald Reagan, the vilain.
3
"Despair as a sociological phenomenon is rarely permanent: Some force, or forces, will supply new forms of meaning eventually. And it matters not only that this happens, but which forces those will be."
Change is constant and all of this too will pass, but what will replace it? When Germany was in the thrall of despair in the 1920's and 1930's, it was toward authoritarianism. What will the Americans turn to when despair turns to action? Are we seeing the start of it now?
2
There seems to be a lot of buy-in with commentators, that all we need do is fix income inequities and life will blossom for all. That fulfillment (someone, please define that abstraction!) is directly linked to income.
Sorry, but that's a buy-in of the propaganda of "The Man", and what they want you to believe. That life and its fulfillment is earned...is about earning money and then spending it.
Is that all we are as a people? Earners of Incomes? And secondarily Consumers? What do you do with income, if not spend it? None of us wants to earn a lot to not spend it.
We need as a culture, to look at what truly causes despair in people. And stop looking at what we believe alleviates despair, which seems to always mean consuming goods, or pursuing leisure time activities.
People don't despair because they can't buy the latest iPhone, or go on a cruise.
People despair when they see no way out of their or their loved ones troubles. A cruise is not the solution, nor is increasing someones purchasing power. Look at how many wealthy and/or successful people commit suicide at the peak of their lives!
We need to drill down on root causes of despair, before prescribing remedies. Its not simply ones income that causes despair. Mostly because not everyone, I'd say a majority of people, are not motivated by accumulation.
Income inequality is a symptom of our bigger problems, but not THE problem, or the main source of our societal or individual problems.
There is more going on.
3
Reverse everything Reagan did I. The 80’s on the economic front and you will solve most of the socioeconomic and cultural problems.
It is tough since a lot of damage was done and perpetuated. That is why we need Bernie and Warren. Hopefully United.
2
Mr. Douthat writes about “ brute facts of American life” without being specific about economic and political brutality. People who are frightened and living paycheck to paycheck don’t have time or energy for much else, including optimal parenting. It’s pretty brutal to live in a country where you may be a victim of a mass shooting, where you may not have health insurance for your recovery, nor protection from loss of your job.
Birth rates are declining among the middle class because we don’t have uniformly regulated, affordable childcare.
We have sent a man to the moon. There are earthly solutions to earthly problems, if we want them. Spirituality is fancy snake-handling, and deliberately ignores secular societies which don’t have these problems.
8
Speaking as a dual citizen with 26 years spent living between the states and the Netherlands ( now reside exclusively in America) , life in America is dismal and hard. It’s a harsh system, which breeds the anxiety that you’re always facing the abyss. Problems never get solved because the American delusion of exceptionalism seems to prevent it from ever learning from the experience of others. The vampire casino form of capitalism has created an unequal society that Hobbs would recognize.
11
The lack of moral and public-service minded people in leadership and the lack of resolve as a nation to battle climate change--those are the two things that drive my depression.
The numbers cited about deaths related to climate change is bogus. There will be conflicts as resources and habitable land become scarce.
4
Addiction does not come from despair...despair comes from addiction. Do you honestly think people just start taking opioids because they want to feel better? Opioids are great for pain...I took them after a revision of my right knee a few years ago after my surgeon reassuring me that I would not become addicted to them. I was especially nervous because I had been sober at that time for 32 years. I renewed the prescription 3 times totaling 180 pills. Nerve pain from the surgery would keep me up at night...hydrocodone would let me sleep. Had I not been extremely conscious of its power and how it made me feel ( euphoric, happy, at peace) I would have taken way more than I should have. I learned many years ago that addiction is “ cunning, baffling and powerful”. No truer words have been spoken. There is no simple answer to this crisis because the true crisis is embraced, promoted and it’s devastating effects denied...that crisis is alcohol use...our own personal gateway drug that we abuse with abandon. We Americans love to get high until it ruins our lives or the lives of those we love or strangers lives. Alcohol like opioids is a mood- altering substance...duhhhh. I challenge everyone to live their life finding ways to enhance mood without having to take an addictive substance. It truly would make our country a better, kinder and safer place to live.
4
Like a lot of people, I used to care about what happens to America and Americans. I find it hard to care anymore.
6
So I guess Canadians will be leading and paying for the next fight against totalitarians in China, Russia and elsewhere. Good luck.
I appreciate that you are one of the few journalists risking a recommendation, but the minute I read social media was a cause for despair, you lost me. It's like claiming video games are a cause for mass shootings.
2
I don’t see any reason to do anything. Maybe go after chinese supplied fentanyl and call it a day. The government is incapable of solving the problems driving folks to drink or despair or whatever. There are 320 million people in the US... that a few 10’s of thousands are content to waste their lives has no particular solution and is of no concern. And honestly... no one really thinks the media or the political class really cares about it anyway.
3
Does Ross Douthat not see the connection between climate change and despair? Take a look at the future--a decimated planet. AI that performs all meaningful work at a higher level than humans. Robots that perform all menial work more efficiently. And billions of humans left to roam...and do what? Who is NOT filled with despair? It's Dystopia Central out here.
1
A recent article in the Rolling Stone presented evidence that 75% of suicides are by white males in the West.
Pretty good read for all.
3
This is the kind of thinking that makes people despair. All of these “categories” sound like despair BRANDS!
And every single category has failed us all in some way!
1
If you ever wonder why Andrew Yang does so well with Trump supporters (like me), it's because he is the only Democrat who seems to actually care about this issue.
Stuff relating to these trends is part of the reason why 11 million Obama voters (UVA estimates) voted Trump. He at least (pretended?) to care while HRC was openly hostile to these people (deplorable).
My first choice is Yang, but I'll vote Trump over any other Democrat - they could care less if people like me live or die.
1
Yang is great, but he won't get the nomination. Think about what you are condoning if you vote for Trump again. Any other candidate is preferable.
We despair BECAUSE of climate change.
Every night when I go to sleep, I feel a great feeling of existential dread that I have never ever felt in my life, and very different what what we all felt or experienced during the Vietnam era that ironically we are all still paying for in more ways than one.
Living in California is brutal enough as despite everything we are still a 'Disaster Theme Park' with multi-million dollar home that only are rare few can afford ( this, with 40k a year property taxes et more ).
Ironically I was just reading an article on the suicides of American female veterinarians, whose average salary is 1/2 that of medical MD's.
Overwork, student debt, sleepless nights, office and overhead costs and a thankless job all are factors. However in the ned, we have created a country in which Americans cannot afford to live! That with global warming, firestorms and earthquakes and entire hobo jungles filled with meth and heroin addicts all growing in size daily and it's impossible to see any future for one's self let alone the next generation.
Just one unexpected bill, car accident or worse car 'theft' and we are mostly toast. America is just too mean now!
The rest I will leave to others, however global climate change and our parent figures are just ignoring it and playing stupid. Not good!
7
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in three.” Augustine of Hippo, from the Confessions ( or Testimony).
2
If the Democrats decide that despondent drug abusers are a new constituency to be courted and fostered you can be sure they will do everything in their power to enshrine the contributing factors and perpetuate the condition.
Seriously? How did you turn some statistics and one man’s opinion on how they might be addressed and turn them into some kind of Democrat voting bloc? Wow. It takes some cold compassionless thought to make that leap.
The problem is in Europe, too. Mass shootings ring the bell, also. There is no policy response that makes any sense for solving these problems. They must run their course, like an unknown virus, until they subside. Donald Trump or Joe Biden in the saddle won't make any difference. These forces are like an inner Dorian, casting aside whatever stands in its way. Suicide and murder, chaos unleashed, all part of the same spiritual invasion. Only time will reveal what it all means. It is telling that religious leaders are clueless. Too busy working on their child abuse lawsuits to understand the times.
2
All of the above plus cultural. I'm a boomer so I was around for the heroin epidemic. The first OD I heard of was a someone in my building before I knew what it was. From age 11 on I knew the cool kids did drugs and friends wanted me to join the party. The hype around my favorite bands was drugs. Then came the disco generation with coke and ludes, Then heavy metal crowd doing whatever they can get their hands on. And back to heroin in the grunge era. Now weed will cure you. The Media always egging us on.
Not everyone was immune to the brainwashing process. If your life is to difficult it can't be that bad if your getting high. How do we turn this around? It's not just the media but if you believe no one is forcing anyone they sure are doing a good job convincing us.
1
So many people have committed suicide that it's become "normalized". Sort of like mass shootings, once a critical mass of people do something, we become de-sensitized to its inherent horror.
1
A major contribution to “The Age of American Despair” presently sits in the White House. Hopefully the 2020 election will contribute to a remedy.
3
Please stop bleating and crowing about the greatness of the United States, face reality, life expectancy doesn’t go down in a society that is thriving. Infant and birth mother mortality does not rise in a society that cares about its people. Decent healthcare for EVERYONE is your only chance to make America great again. Period.
Stop worrying about deadbeats getting a free ride and they will contribute when healthy.
2
As usual, Ross D. fails to name the Number One Problem : Capitalism.
US society is brutal. Very brutal. It is awash in guns and greed.
Guns and Greed.
Ok, make that Greed and Guns.
When Ross D. will start addressing that, then he will start making sense.
4
American politicians are pampered and live lives of privilege, serving the oligarchs and their corporations, while the masses struggle to survive. Doctors, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies are wealthy and get exactly what they want, while their patients are sick and tired. Colleges are flush with cash, professors and administrators coddled, while their students suffer under crushing debt. The cell phone and social media, which promised engagement like never before and the end to loneliness, simply have locked people away in a meaningless and cruel electronic world. Television drama today, with its endless variety of slickly produced offerings, features mostly shows about villains and other villains. Gone are the days of the good guys and bad guys, white hat and black hat. Apparently no fun in routing for the good guy any more - we just prefer watching the villains and indulging in their evil.
We invade countries and slaughter innocents on false pretenses. We trash our environment beyond comprehension. We drive on crumbled roads and failing bridges. We have no real mass transit that works. We are hurling towards a day very, very soon when we will have made most life forms on this planet extinct and soon thereafter ourselves and the vast majority of people could care less.
The Christians tell us that our leader, a man whose ethos is the Seven Deadly Sins, is the most righteous leader in our history.
And we're surprised at all of the suicide?
4
Despair - I despair every time trump opens his mouth. I despair even more when republicans don't open theirs. While waiting for "new forms of meaning" I can only wish that the current "forms of meaning" get out of the country's face.
1
Strip away religion. Declare a diverse society where an attraction for western civilization is called "white nationalism". Compound this with a reduced economic and political role in the world. Welcome to the dystopian future of a country on the downside of history.
Thanks for the "online Nietzscheans" link at the end...that was eye-opening stuff.
It's economic. You can't support a family you've little worth. The older you get the more evident it becomes. just taking up space. by yourself.
It is a myth religion served as a spiritual pacifier/unifier of nations in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Religion was a very serious, political (and very boring) matter in those ages. It was everything but a self-help book to make people happy: if you didn't please the gods/the God you wouldn't have a good harvest and literally die of hunger or plague. If the king or emperor didn't observe for the correct rituals and sacrifices, he would lose a war.
What we today call "religion" is most akin to Antiquity's "schools" (e.g. Stoicism, Epicurus etc. etc.) than Religion per se. Religion was, for millennia, pure politics.
Religion only became this innocuous self-help book, coupled with meaningless rituals and inoffensive socialization at Sunday morning, when, ironically, it became not essential to the survival of society. Hence the concept of "freedom of religion" a 20th Century invention, but not, e.g. a 18th, 12th or 1st Century A.D. one.
Religion only b
1
Interesting the crack epidemic is broached here. Both Wanda Sykes and Dave Chappelle note the opiate consumption plaguing the U.S. is a problem via prescription and is receiving billions of dollars for recovery rather than incarceration prescribed for crack.
2
It is none of your crises, Ross. It is a political crisis. A political crisis caused by your GOP, your Republicans, your conservatives. Those who refuse to govern, refuse to work for the good of society, refuse healthcare for their citizens, refuse to acknowledge society's problems, refuse to move forward, and refuse common sense solutions. It is the fault of those who put faith ahead of reality, money ahead of people, and party ahead of country. Essentially, Ross, it is your fault.
3
"The dose makes the poison." -- Paracelsus
What dosage of capitalism is appropriate?
When I saw the title of Ross's column, I chuckled to myself: I bet there will be a mention of declining birthrates. Alas, there was no counter-party at hand to take the other side of the wager.
But there it was. Birthrates not just declining, but "collapsing." Regular readers know Ross wants there to be many more babies. Informed readers know that whatever the birthrate is doing, the population of the country is surging, and will do so for as long as we're able to reasonably project.
Why must birthrates be correlated to despair? One reason they decline is that we need fewer manual workers on our, um, submarginal family farms. My Mom tells of kids hoeing rows of corn out in the field of the southern Ohio farm that kept her large family fed. That was in the 30s and 40s.
They decline because women are much better educated, and allowed to pursue careers outside the home. They decline because the elderly are more secure thanks in part to social insurance programs.
And so on. Ross is well educated. (Harvard, magna cum laude!) But perhaps he skimped on math and doesn't understand the realities of inexorable exponential growth (even at a low but positive rate) in a finite world. There seems to be an inexplicable deficit of understanding and reason in a person who frequently reasons well. More babies!
I can't help but wonder if the reason is religious, even if subconscious. Could it be the prospect of heaven means it doesn't really matter how well those souls fit on THIS world?
1
Predatory Capitalism is a spiritual crisis.
This despair corresponds nicely with the social destruction from virulent capitalism. Do you really not see this?
2
We are stuck in the past with reactionary myths of what is needed to improve our own existence. Turn in your guns, your vehicles, your drugs, your gods. It's time to look around and build a healthy
habitat for humanity.
2
The US has long been the world’s foremost consumer of drugs. Why is this? And why has this trend had such durability?
1
Sure, depression, drink and drugs are killing off numbers of us.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say it's the environment.
As the environment gets worse deaths from the "Three Ds" will increase.
Wait until believers like Mr. Douthat figure out that the environment doesn't care what god you worship.
"Then depression sets in."
1
Gosh, Ross. Is the current administration dealing with this beyond some sound bytes! Why scold only the Democratic candidates: what is the Republican Senate (which holds the most power) doing? What is the Executive branch doing? Answer...slim, little, none.
Where is the Conservative compassion? I believe it exists, but that it has fallen by the wayside, like so many of these people.
1
I blame this “crisis of despair” on you, Ross, and your conservative brethren. The political failure to deal with climate change, income inequality, rapacious capitalism, gun violence and healthcare can be laid directly at the feet of conservatism and the Republican Party. Why wouldn’t we despair? Mentioning the evil buffoon in the White House hardly seems necessary. Take a look in the mirror.
2
I applaud Mr. Douthat for addressing this issue, and agree on many of the underlying causes, but I get nervous when he mentions "spirituality", because for most conservatives, that means "fundamentalism", which is this country's answer to the Taliban. We've seen what fundamentalist Christians have done to our country, and how they've completely lost all claim to decency by rallying behind the worst possible example of humanity who currently infests the Oval Office.
One thing missing from his analysis is the problem of human overpopulation, which leads to many of the problems we face. Climate Change, disease and famine, trash filled landscapes and oceans, extinctions, the Amazon Rainforest, air pollution everywhere (no matter how remote). There is no place worth living that is not stuffed with human beings, but no one wants to talk about this, the biggest challenge facing civilization. The only talk is about how to get MORE people into our cities and countryside, in order to grow the tax base. I think that many young people are responding to the problems of overpopulation; they just don't identify the problem as such.
Everyone is depressed because no matter how hard they work, they don't have enough resources to stay out of debt, buy and keep a nice home, send their kids to college, save for retirement, care for elderly parents, maintain reliable transportation, take one vacation out of state, and seek health care without financial tradeoffs. It is currently impossible to achieve all these things unless you have two incomes per family hauling in at least $80K per year (more in cities). Loss of labor unions, regressive taxation, public policy dictated by the wealthy, and virtually no public benefits for the middle class (beyond Social Security) have led to this crisis. People would have more self respect if their work translated into properly caring for their family and providing for a better future.
Second main cause of despair: when we look to our government to provide solutions, instead of FDR and LBJ, we get Trump, McConnell, Pelosi etc who accomplish nothing but arguing and enriching their rich friends. AOC is popular for a reason.
3
At the risk of engaging in the same fallacy that I am warning against, there seems to be a strong tendency to group things together that do not belong together. This was once called stereotyping, but now it is too often called statistics.
Many complex questions cannot easily be understood by using aggregated data. People love using data and often consider writing that cites numbers as scientific or objective, but this often leads to misunderstandings that are worse than the conclusions drawn by those using no data at all.
Fortunately, there is a tool that is, when used properly, objective that does not necessarily rely on pretending many dissimilar events are somehow the same. That tool is game theory.
What does a single adult who is injured and overprescribed have in common with a bored and rebellious teenager? My guess is that, other than a biological propensity to get addicted to addictive substances, approximatley nothing. One has to look at the decision processes of those involved (doctors, pharmacies, patients, parents, drug dealers, etc) and consider what decision processes can be influenced to get the desired outcome - even after people adjust to the change.
The downsides to such models are that they are often easy to manipulate to favor a desired recommendation and that they are time consuming to do well and to explain. One can blurt out a pair of statistics very quickly, but it is hard to turn a model into a talking point.
The upside is they can actually work.
1
Ross, so many of your op-ed pieces, like this one, are written from the either-or perspective. My experience of life, after almost 8 decades on this side of the grass, is that what happens in our lives are better explained from a both-and rather than an either-or perspective.
3
There is much to be commended in this article. Suicide is multifactoral and needs to be understood as a complex phenomenon, looking at both internal (psychological and spiritual) factors, and external (personal environment, finances, social and familial support, meaningful work, etc.).
What is unfortunate is that the author sets up a seeming dichotomy between focusing on climate change and focusing on suicide. Climate grief and fear are prominent in the thinking of young people, especially, and they feel alone in this given that most of us old folks will not be around for the worst of it. Some of them see no other way out than planning to die young.
1
" political, economic or spiritual crisis?" No, but characterizing them as an individual crisis would be infinitely more accurate and appropriate. Mr. Douthat searches for an easy answer to a highly complex question. As Baltimore's sage, H.L. Mencken stated:
"There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.”
We act as though despair is a new phenomenon. Religions, governments, people in general have experienced it, written about it, and tried to alleviate it for centuries. There will always be despair as long as we experience the pain that comes with being alive and fear the inevitability of death as we know it.
Why is it called “American” despair? Most obviously Douthat began to report statistics and data in America. I would say additionally, the same kinds of deaths of despair are much less in any country where the government is unsecure to provide freedom and safety for people, who are also in danger of being victims whenever regional wars occur, or sectional nuclear wars happen. Though, I would not say American despairs are luxurious. The causal nexus can turn around. Bittigieg and Sanders, each reportedly expressed a phase of progressivism. Rational solutions in policy are Buttigieg’s consistent stance from police violence to drugs. Sanders seems to take more traditional socialistic views as that theoretical dissection of social problems can offer solutions as if welfare index in positive only coincides with happiness index. As for Marianne Williamson’s soul search, when I hit the word “holistic”, I simply lost myself momentarily. Social media as chaotic as potential healers to be found, would be a counter application for me as not to a synthesis, but to a rejection against the chaotic for a restored moral order. I see Douthat was implying it.
Mr. Douthat seems to be perpetuating what I believe is the fundamental issue: we are focused on the symptoms.
The American Frame - how we think, feel, act, what we believe, our stereotypes, imagery, everything about us that makes us Americans, including racism, sexism, heterosexism, and nativism - is fundamentally about independence. We admire the trope of the independent, strong cowboy, the independent, clever entrepreneur; in short, strong-willed people who can make it on their own. This is a fundamental trait of America and Americans. This fundamental trait lies at the root of Deaths of Despair.
Some, many, most people are not the strong, independent type that we, as Americans, believe; but the American Frame precludes the development of Community. I "know" my neighbors, but do we form a community? No, not in the sense that I remember from my youth: having BBQs with the folks next door and across the street. Once upon a time, I knew (as friends) the people on the floor of my apartment. Twelve years ago, I moved into a building and when I moved out a year later, I couldn't have recognized my next-door neighbor.
Perhaps it's time we moved away from the "I've got mine, too bad for you" mentality, and started looking at our neighbors and the folks in our community as friends, not as the competition.
2
US is not an island, compare to other countries. Do they have the same trends?
Drugs and alcohol today are blamed for this situation; maybe it's always been that way. The news just reports it more. Suicide, death by overdose or use of unsafe products has always been around. Many of our illegal drugs today were legal 100 years ago. Bathtub Gin, opiates, cocaine were easily available from neighborhood brewers or from their pharmacies. I believe the biggest problem today is that so many kids graduate from High School or College without any useful skills and have no idea what to do with their lives after thy grdauate. Easily available illegal drugs, much stronger than what your your Doctor can prescribe, are also a significant problem for abusers and their dealers who fight each other for their selling territory. This is a multi faceted problem..
3
Bernie is right, wages have been stagnant for decades and corporate welfare for the rich have devastated the middle class into poverty and despair. The only way out is to remove corruption in our government, have public campaign financing and ban lobbyists. I believe Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang have solutions to income inequity that will bring hope back to the middle class.
3
@Dave
Bernie and socialism are so yesterday...as in they've been tried and repeatedly shown to fail.
It's worth acknowledging that everyone, regardless of social standing or money, in the modern western world lives a materially better and richer life than the one we might have endured even 100 years ago. Even poor people have better access to healthcare, food, and shelter (should they decide to accept help from these systems) than people of previous eras. (In the Victorian era entire families went to debtors prison for the inability to pay small debts.)
The middle classes are materially better off as well--if this was not the case why would millions of illegal immigrants come to our country for a chance at a better life for their children? However massive social mobility for the middle class (a la the 1950's) is now seen as a mirage. By what logic can an entire "middle class" move up in the hierarchy? They can gain more materially--5G iPhones, connectivity, etc--but as a class the middle class can't "move up" to the upper class. This is not just a tautology--it is a social, psychological, and marketing dilemma.
The key is "hope." If we have hope, we can be happy and not despair. Each one of us has to find hope in our own way. But there are indeed a few key external factors -- economic and political -- that can help. Right now, 2019 USA, I would cite: greater economic equality; universal coverage of health and education costs; gun control; and a commitment to global cooperation on planetary threats to the environment. And, an essential ingredient, political leadership that pursues these ends.
3
Reading the comments seem to indicate, by and large, that much of this existential despair is a result of what is generally referred to as “The Singularity”. Like it or not, the rapidity of our lives and the urgency we attach to our problems is permanently hamstrung by our lack of interest or ability to put the tedious work in that is required by our current institutional and individual answers. Have we reached a breaking point? I doubt it.
But we do need new structures. I’m not sure that humanity possess the incentives or the patience to take on such a daunting set of tasks. I struggle personally to address these concerns almost everyday. But taking a break every few weeks from my contemplations and then returning with a fresh set of eyes helps me remain optimistic and energized.
The petty rewards of wealth, fame and power are mighty and compelling. And while these are practically universal and very human, there are others equally rewarding. One may be our continued existence.
3
The issue we have as Americans is analogous to the plight of the Child Star. Having too much isn't good for people--we are better off facing realities like hard work, limited choices, loss and loneliness. Instead, many of us now buy presents for ourselves and receive them about every week from Amazon and other online retailers. It's one big party and at the end of the day it feels hollow. The circumstances that humble us (including the beasts of the natural world) vanish even as we sentimentalize them in film and art. We have always been a nation in thrall to celebrity and wealth, perhaps one reason The Great Gatsby will never go out of style, but this bent has worsened in the age of mass advertising, social media and the toxic billionaire's club. It isn't just Americans: nations that enjoy too much wealth, too many cars, rapid technological change and far too many choices are all suffering from loneliness and fragmentation of community. Buying and selling, and playing with toys, are all fine and good but not when they are the reason for getting up in the morning.
3
@Miss Anne Thrope - The question isn't what is the most immediate and catasrophic threat we are facing (you are correct that climate change is certainly the answer to that question). The question is what is dimming the spark in people's souls to the point where they can't find any reason to stay here?
I have experienced despair, and as much as I would have at the time linked it to a very personal loss in my own life, on the other side of it I could see that the real cause wasn't external, but spiritual. My soul was in agony.
There are many external things I would prescribe for this society - shorter work weeks, higher wages, more time in nature, an end to social media, a massive purging of sugar from our food supply, more engagement in community, and a re-embracing of family units (however one may define family), but most of all I would prescribe a large scale effort to educate us all in what I would call spiritual literacy.
We need to learn how to turn inward and view our own souls, to see how they are responding to the circumstances of our life, to our own actions and choices. We need to be reminded that that part of ourselves must be nourished just like our physical bodies, and that what we put into it is just as consequential as what we physicall eat and drink. And we need to reconnect with our soul's inherent orientation towards love and connection, and view any thoiught in our head that makes us want to hate or to shame (ourselves or others) with suspicion.
5
The three areas of concern are correct. But why try and choose among them when all three are working in symbiotic relationship to one another.
You might say these three elements are what happens when the American dream dies, and it has.
In the last 30 years, when you control for inflation the median American wage has gone up about 1.5% a year. In that same period median rents have increased over 300%.
Americans work harder than ever, are more productive than ever, take fewer vacations than workers in most countries and are sicker than ever.
And the net result of all this sacrifice isn't more social mobility for our children. It's more income and more wealth for the already wealthy.
The so called democracy we live in is facilitating this inequality and our elected leaders are silent. The spiritual leaders are the worse because they are supposed to be the source of moral guidance in society.
Is there any wonder that despair has become a social disease?
8
Separating our despair from the destruction of the environment is a false starting point. The reality and dangers of Climate Change are both a symptom and a cause of our national despair. So few children and adults get outside to enjoy the healing effects of the Natural world. The hooting of an owl at night, fireflies, a flock of grackles passing overhead, and a field of wildflowers--all things we may have less of a chance to see in the coming years--are all spiritual balms that counteract despair.
2
Ross leaves out perhaps the most important factor in creating this disaster: Greed. That combined with a total lack of scruples created the opioid crisis and hollowed out of America's industrial base.
If you really want to address these crises, the nation, and especially Ross' party, need to abandon the "greed is good" mentality that has ruled our society for more than three decades.
2
In the background of all the other reasons for despair in the US, and in the whole world is the knowledge, however repressed and ignored, that at the root of all the depressing trends is the over-population of the Earth by the human species. It is clear that Earth cannot sustainably support a human population of the present size. At the risk of seeming a little "out there" to some, I believe that one can actually somehow feel
the population pressure being exerted on the world, and almost hear the planet groaning under the strain.
4
When you don't have a job with benefits and/or have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet -and then you really can't. When you will never buy a house, send your kids to college, or be sure you will have adequate health care -all in the alleged richest country in the world, it's not surprising that you may opt for suicide or drug addiction. Mr. Douthat may want to ask himself about the conservative policies that have brought us to this state. In the 1950's 40% of the US workforce was unionized and the marginal tax rate was 92%: it was a different and more equal country thanks to the policies of FDR and HST; not even Eisenhower would touch them. However, since Reagan.....
8
Although American society has regressed in some ways during my 64 years, I believe that life for most Americans is much better than when I was young. Enormous strides in medicine have saved countless lives and improved the lives of myriad more persons. The internet provides a galaxy of information that once would have been difficult or impossible to locate. Women and racial minorities have opportunities that were limited or foreclosed when I was young. Attitudes toward gays have undergone a sea change. Domestic violence no longer is widely tolerated, improving the lives of countless women and children. The growth of two income households has greatly improved the standard of living for a vast swath of middle class families, as have lower federal taxes and the explosion of stock prices during the past forty years. Inflation has been relatively low during the same period. Conscription has been abolished and the nation has not been involved in any major wars (even though it has been engaged in small and inexcusable wars). Air transportation is less comfortable but more affordable, enabling many more people to travel to far-off places. I am deeply worried about many problems, particularly global warming, but I would rather live in the world of 2019 than in the world of my youth.
2
@Cromer This highlights the generational issue that Douthat didn't touch upon. The drug, alcohol, and suicide deaths aren't affecting the Baby Boomer generation, the generation with pensions, paid-off mortgages, social security, and savings that resulted from corporations turning the screws on GenX and now Millennial employees. So of course you think 2019 is better than 1960 because your cohort is the winning one. But it's been at the expense of generations behind you. The 1% always thinks things have gotten better, but they're the only ones who do. And right now, most of the 1% consists of people between 55-75 years old.
During all the years that African-American communities in the inner cities were being devastated by drug addiction and its consequences, that was treated as a problem to be solved with lengthy incarceration. The general attitude of the national political establishment could be summed up with the line from The Godfather in which a mob boss says that the drug trade should be confined to African-American communities: "They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls."
But now, with white people, including the "real" Americans in rural areas, suffering a similar fate, we now get endless hand-wringing over the despair and misery that leads people to become addicted. That's right, but several decades overdue. And the proponents of this doctrine are still highly unlikely to apply it to anything going on in the inner cities. In this country, it seems that only white people are real people and only their problems are the ones that matter.
2
It's interesting. Now that it's mostly white people dying of drugs and alcohol, there's no talk of them "bootstrapping" their way out of their situation or inherent mental weaknesses that make them prone to being lazy addicts. I wonder why that is?
The biggest cause of this despair is the shock that what working class whites thought they were entitled to--a job at the factory, a high school degree that would lead to the middle class--has disappeared. Black and brown people who have been demonized for years never had those expectations. Instead of wallowing, a lot of them just grind everyday toward something better--particularly the immigrants that working class whites loath and fear so much.
The second biggest cause is the inability to accept that the world they thought was owed to them is not coming back, and they need to find a new path to prosperity. That starts with education and valuing the teaching of critical thinking. It doesn't have to mean college, which is not for everyone. But understanding that, as a community, valuing the learning of skills that are needed to survive needs to be a priority. This can't be solved individually. The communities need to change their mindsets. As socialist as it sounds, it needs to be a group effort. People in these places need to stop blaming and being afraid, start figuring out what assets they have collectively, and work toward making those the priorities to get them on the right path.
13
Forty years of the ruthless predatory capitalism that had Ronald Reagan bursting with the seams with pride has transformed every American into a mark. People who haven't prudently armed themselves with oodles of cash are particularly vulnerable to the vultures who make up the business community.
That we are faced with the utter depravity of institutions like the medical-industrial complex that, rather than helping people, picks their bones clean, suggests to me that there's a lot of overlap between our economic crisis and our spiritual crisis.
14
High on any list of sources of despair has to be betrayal. The person who is betrayed may feel like a stupid fool, or give up hope for the future, or find the meaning of their life destroyed, or be totally confused or, worst of all, very angry which will manifest itself as self-destruction or violence directed at others
Has any institution in recent betrayed more people than the Catholic Church? Ross always targets liberalism for our present ills but liberalism never promised anything but equal opportunity to be what you could be. That promise has been betrayed by economic inequality. So religion has betrayed us and others have betrayed the noble dream of liberalism.
Those are two major pillars of western culture. There are other humane alternatives but many feel like Sisyphus.
2
Many of us, when left with no one to tell us what to do, just self-destruct. Speaking up my sleeve, I'll say,"It's prolly for the better."
1
Hopelessness. All the theoretical voices and all the "distinct categories" of the "despair" problem come down to the same thing: a lack of hope.
Attributed to Nietzsche "A man whose life has a why can bear with almost any how." We lose the why when life is hard and we have no hope. When our social media and even MSM are continually spouting what an awful country we have. When the country has plenty or resources to make things better for the masses but chooses instead to fight stupid wars and keep the donor class happy. When DJI and GDP matter a whole bunch, but way of living for the masses matter not one bit. Interclass mobility is hard to come by. Little mass transit to make a life sans car workable many places. Housing costs a fortune, medical bankruptcies almost expected, and a PhD will bring you lots of debt and a low wage part time gig.
The system is a mess and our government is apparently very interested in keeping a desperate under class - hopelessness.
7
@Jk Reading your post I cannot but help to wonder about folk of the 18th century. All they had were a couple of hands, and a couple of feet.
1
Maybe some would view the “deaths of despair” as being part of the larger Darwinian process, but one interjected by humans.
2
The economic oppression you justify and apologize for, the stifling sex negative, woman controlling, soul deadening, pleasure hating, spirit crushing world you keep pushing for is something that when you come face to face with the consequences of all your efforts all you can say is "Huh?".
2
@Robert Roth The deplorable conditions you enumerate are not recent phenomena, They go beck millennia. It's the HUMAN condition.
1
“Are deaths from drugs and alcohol and suicide a political, economic or spiritual crisis?”
No it’s because of hopelessness induced by poverty, in some measure large or small, aggravated or caused by conservative “values”. There’s not enough space here to list them.
3
@Think Thoughts If "poverty" has brought helplessness, how did the cave men (and women) ever survive?
1
Bernie Sanders is not a Socialist. Stop branding people: 'Socialist' - Stop it.
7
@John OBrien
Sanders describes himself as a "Democratic Socialist". Should he stop it too?
With your man Trump in power shouldn't it be morning in America? Shouldn't we be happy as clams with the rise of conservative values under Trump?
4
Organized religion and politics have always coupled.
And they control our brains through fear tactics brought to us as mystical knowing
Basically. Aren’t you all wondering and afraid of death.
Oh wait some of us force ourselves into thinking heaven is like here for only good people. There are no good humans. Just tabla rasa and good luck. Sometimes we get Medicis and trumps.
1
People are scared. Scared they'll lose their jobs - or never find one. Scared that a health emergency will bankrupt them. Scared of a chaotic President. Scared for their futures. When you're scared, you retreat into a corner. And you give up.
9
@misterarthur Dealing with fears is part and parcel of "growing up." So, it may be, "grow up" or "give up"
1
This despair is an inevitable result of hyper capitalism and the Republican's relentless war on unions, public education, and just plain anything that creates a decent society. Big pharma which created a major mess was emboldened by the small government, anti-regulation conservatives. SCOTUS and the Citizens United decision created rampant corruption that turned the keys to the hen house over to the fox. We had a nice country going into the mid-sixties, and we finally began to address civil rights a hundred years late. Vietnam and Republican greed derailed it. The Reagan Revolution created the inane and insane mess we have now.
7
@Todd pretty much hit the nail on the head. de vos, SCOTUS, citizens united, big pharma and republicans (especially massacre mitch) have all combined to ruin our once-beloved country. we have to get rid of trump, the most lying president of all time. let us take back our country.
Muslims also enslaved Europeans. According to Robert Davis, between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured between the 16th and 19th centuries by Barbary corsairs, who were vassals of the Ottoman Empire, and sold as slaves.[22][23][24] These slav
es were captured mainly from seaside villges from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and also from more distant places like France or England, the Netherlands, and even Iceland. They were also taken from ships stopped by the pirates.[25]
The effects of these attacks were devastating: France, England, and Spain each lost thousands of ships. Long stretches of the Spanish and Italian coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants, because of frequent pirate attacks. Pirate raids discouraged settlement along the coast until the 19th century.[26][27]
Periodic Muslim raiding expeditions were sent from Islamic Iberia to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back slaves. In a raid against Lisbon in 1189, for example, the Almohad Berber Muslim caliph, Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur, took 3,000 female and child captives, while his governor of Córdoba, in a subsequent attack upon Silves in 1191, took 3,000 Christian slaves.[28]
Of all the partial solutions, the last one we need is GOP revival bible thumping. Many of us found meaning and purpose after walking away from that supernatural woo.
5
I side with the Socialist .
His concrete program will eventually set the right path for this Country , where plutocracy is in charge and the rest of us is sliding into slavery and despair .
3
@inter nos
The right path to grinding misery and economic decline if we're lucky, to Venezuelan-style societal collapse if we're not.
Socialism is the ruin of nations, with predictable results everywhere it has been tried. Yet somehow people keep wanting to give it one more chance, like a deadbeat boyfriend with a charming smile.
@Heedless
You are forgetting Scandinavian Countries where socialism has been successful and where quality of life is the best in the world. Venezuela is a dictatorship kept in power by the military. America is a plutocracy unfortunately !
1
The ongoing White Death is tied into the Sixties. The mortality patterns for those born in 1935, 1940, and 1945 were all similar, but the drift toward early death from drugs, alcohol, and suicide began with those born in 1950, and greatly accelerated among those born in 1955.
I find it useful to mentally add 18 years to birth dates to understand when a cohort reached the beginning of adulthood.
Thus, the children born in 1945 turned 18 in 1963. Hit songs in 1963 included “Surfin” USA” by the Beach Boys. The most drug-oriented hit was “Puff, the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul, and Mary.
In contrast, those born in 1950 were 18 in 1968. The biggest hit of the year was “Hey Jude” by the Beatles. The Beach Boys didn't have a major single that year because Brian Wilson was an acid casualty at age 25.
Those born in 1955 were 18 in 1973, perhaps the nadir of the 70s. The biggest-selling album released that year turned out to be Pink Floyd’s "Dark Side of the Moon."
For a graph of deaths by birthdate, see here:
https://www.takimag.com/article/white_privilege_vs_white_death_steve_sailer/
2
Ross, You are forgetting the voice of the most powerful Republicans, “surely there’s a way to profit from all this misery”.
6
@Patrick Michael Ross didn't forget, he knows the evil lurks in the mind of a Republican.
What causes ME despair on a near-daily basis is that, in the name of "objective journalism", Ross Douthat and David Brooks are allowed to parade their hypocrisy before us on a world stage, blaming others and refusing to take any responsibility for what they and their party have created over the course of many years.
6
@Addison Steele I appreciate Ross and David because they articulate their positions pretty well. That is what I ask of a columnist.
1
Remember the candidate who ran on HOPE?
5
War on terror (fought by introducing more terror), the fight against this or that disease, battleground states, winners and losers, enemies, read the news, everyone is in conflict with something or someone.
In another NYT article, Taylor Swift recommends forgetting forgiveness and embracing resentment, and it's hailed as insight.
Bludgeon the brain with words of violence, what do you expect?
1
Why get married and have kids when you know you can’t afford to take care of them? The depth of cluelessness just has me speechless.
6
You have it exactly backwards. People in poor countries have more children than people in rich countries. It’s their form of social security. They expect their children, those that survive, to take care of them. Carl Sagan made this point thirty years ago in his address on climate change and the role of population. Bernie Sanders was right.
" rising temperatures could cause between 4,000 and 10,000 additional heat-related deaths annually by the end of the 21st century. But had deaths of despair remained at 2000-era levels, approximately 70,000 fewer Americans would have died this year alone."
What on earth?! You must only be counting American deaths from climate change? Because deaths beyond our borders don't matter? And you are only counting human deaths? All this because and you say you are pro-life? Wow.
2
If a nuclear missile were on its way to Manhattan, Mr. Douthat would find bicycle safety in the city a more immediate problem since no one had yet been killed by a nuke.
1
Maybe it is all about he fight for money? Maybe the American mind has been blown by the endless scramble for money to carry out their dream?
Maybe Capitalism is rotten and its ideology so unobtainable that we end up with a leader that was born with money and is wallowing in it now - yet he is also wallowing in grievance, envy and greed? A glowing example of dissatisfaction and resentment - the rotten metaphor for our rotten system.
5
@GRAHAM ASHTON
The free market has raised 6 of the world's 7 billion people from poverty, provided medical miracles, cheap transportation, comfort and plenty that would have been unimaginable 100 years ago.
Socialism has ground Venezuela and Cuba, once jewels of the Americas, into abject poverty. It has starved one out of twenty Chinese to death, and it has achieved the unimaginable feat of making Germans lazy.
I know which system I believe in.
Mr.Douthat,
The answer to your question is all three; and your party exposed us to the virus.
4
Perhaps we've become a nation of Willy Lomans....
4
The Contrarian Take: Drug use is highly correlated with wealth. Look at Table 1.2 of the UN data: http://www.unodc.org/wdr2017/en/maps-and-graphs.html. Opioid use is highest in North America, followed by Oceania, then Europe, then Asia, and Latin America and Africa at the bottom. This is because North America is richer than Oceania, which is richer than Europe, which is richer than Asia, which is richer than Latin America and Africa. Drug overdoses are a disease of affluence, like obesity, not a disease of despair.
1
Putting aside your choice of putting your words in Dems by name, while only dealing with Repubs in abstract...the Voldemort solution...
There is one of these two teams whose party has drunk all the Kool-Aid available that government has no definable role in helping glue society ethically, beyond physical protection, often from phantom demons of colors other than white.
Which is why it is so surprising that you (and Brooks, for that matter) have through the years been a pillar of support support for Republican conservativess.
It leads many of us to one of two conclusions - or both, I suppose.
The sincerity of your avowed convictions is suspect.
Or - your judgement of your most appropriate bedfellows is.
5
The most prominent reason for this "despair", and made glaringly obvious during this recent presidency, is Lack of Education. And frankly, most politicians dumb down their language to more easily relate to the moronic levels of intellect that obviously reflect the majority of the population. America has always had probems, more so now with the "in your face" corruption that resembles a medical issue in itself. Don't delude yourselves Americans - get a better education.
1
@Juvenal "Education" is hard work. Many of us are just not interested.
Our President is the spokesmodel for shame and destruction of this country, Oh and also the Grand Old Party. Once upon a time I was a Republican. How did this happen?
5
A cause of much of my own despair these days comes from the daily realization that half of America chose the dullest, dried up Sharpie in the box as president. To the detriment of democracy, society, humanity and the planet itself.
5
Douthat bemoans "secularization" and recommends spiritual (religious) remedies to depression and despair.
Facts matter. This study shows that suicide attempts and suicidal ideation are more prevalent among the religious.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4990512/
The Times conservative cabal believes the ruination of society is the loss of faith. But they're wrong. Perhaps the "secularization" of America will be our salvation.
4
As Bill Maher pointed out in his Friday show, morbid obesity kills far more Americans than drugs, guns and traffic accidents combined, yet this plus plus plus plus sized scourge upon twenty first century America goes unremarked upon by candidates for office because so many entrenched regional and national corporate interests built upon stimulating and 'satisfying' dangerously unhealthy cravings have succeeded to such a degree that an unnaturally large part of the electorate now falls into the morbidly obese category; voters whose sensitivities would be mightily offended by any suggestion they were killing themselves.
Ross I do think your columns are thought provoking; worthwhile and appreciated conservative views.
I must also say they usually (after serious thought) make me "despair" a bit. Why? because you Ross just cannot no matter how close you come to the edge of crawling out escape the GOP conservative box you are in.
You are not alone. I lament that even the most reasoned and thoughtful conservatives (Douthat, Brooks, etc.) now-a-days cannot take the courageous honest step to admit R rule is existentially deleterious to our heath, growth, and well-being as liberal democracy - that the R march toward anarchy under autocratic plutocracy cannot go on - that we need to correct the ship's list before it sinks - that we must vote D now! Existentially: REALLY no hyperbole!
To your article:
Yes we are existing sort of OK now while Climate Change accelerates but our very survival as a species 22st C depends on our taking radical steps now. To suggest this is not a "most important" problem is dangerously wrong.
Deaths of despair AWFUL, etc. BUT a minuscule existential threat - unlike Global CC!
While "deaths of despair" are NOT fundamentally a GOP rooted problem in that FUNDAMENTALLY it has genetic underpinnings that largely unavoidable happenstance triggers it is significantly exacerbated by GOP draconian policies, unconscionable corporate greed, and Gov social neglect - and Bush's war on terror!
At least the Ds are addressing these problems with some honesty and clarity!
2
"I have written this for the voices of Democratic candidates, but there is an equivalent for Republicans"
If you are going to write in the voice of a Republican you might as well write in the voice of the absolute leader of the Party as no one else is allowed an independent voice:
The Demagogue (voice of Donald Trump): "We are going to have the best drug policy. But more importantly “Bad ‘actress’ Debra The Mess Messing is in hot water" and I was right about Dorian and the fake news media knows it but I don't know who took the sharpie to the maps. We have the greatest drugs. And the incompetent Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was bothered that I played a very fast round of golf yesterday. We'll have policy like no on has ever seen before. And the Washington Post shouldn't shouldn’t even be allowed on the grounds of the White House because their reporting is so DISGUSTING & FAKE. Uh what was the question?"
American despair is a multifaceted problem that will require multiple solutions. But one thing is clear: There will be no appreciable help from the Federal Government on ANY front until we address the problem in the Oval Office.
5
@LT..."multiple solutions?"...No, just take the Red Pill
1
Maybe for a fair understanding of your views you should provide an indication of your income and wealth.
1
Impressive intellectual elaboration. The manipulation of concepts, the associations of causality are all in the pride of the NYT .
We need much more of this kind to see clearly into the future .
How can anyone not be depressed or suicidal with Donald Trump as president? His policies are depressing.
5
@BodhiBoy Sorry about your depression, but nothing that Trump does rises to the level of "policy." he runs on impulse, like a 4yr old.
1
Despair : yes....I agree there really is widespread despair
in the USA...and ...in the United Kingdom...and shown daily
on the news....
Hope For combatting the despair we all have about our
lack of unity in our government policies to try to tackle
what worries us most: and I believe Bernie Sanders whom
you mock, Ross Douthat has the best solution....and so
does Elizabeth Warren....who want our democracy to survive
and not been decimated by plutocrats...
We want to conquer the despair which is similar to the
1929 financial crash...no hope of recovery from this kind of
defeat...….but we had a leader....then who gave us hope..
and that was Franklin Delano Roosevelt....and we need an
inspirational leader again...: and the old adage that hope
springs eternal...could be the answer....so it's my guess as
well as yours...who can inspire us all...
Not the mad maniac in the White House now who needs to
be dismissed by Amendment 25: Section 4:
Not by the present so called Republicans who back this mad
man..: and many GOP in Congress are saving their reputations by exiting Congress as fast as they can.
not to be associated with those that remain.
So...who is the most inspirational and practical and trustworthy in the political arena...who could lead us out of
despair....: well someone wise, and capable and compassionate....as well...: in any case we need a new
leader who will make us proud of him or her....and make us
proud of ourselves ….let's hope for the best in this election
1
It's our poor diet. Our stupid culture that would rather sit in front of a laptop or on a Iphone that get outside and garden and walk and appreciate nature.
We don't even open windows anymore. We have lot touch with culture. Get rid of the processed foods, grow a garden, learn to cook, socialize. Get off your iphone and your laptop.
1
To suggest “spirituality” is a solution is absurd. I suspect the suicide or “overdose” rate is much lower among the educated “secularists” who populate the cities and suburbs than among America’s phony “ Christian” right-wingers who populate rural America’s trailer parks.
5
I am gobsmacked that this author doesn’t just follow his cure all prescription: staunch catholicism and major league fecundity.
Why not mention the hoodwinking of both the government and the medical establishment by Big Pharma. Purdue actually marketed Oxycontin in 5he 1990s as being “addiction proof,” and pharma convinced the medical establishment to add “pain” as “ the fifth vital sign.” All in the name of profit. Only now, a qarter century later, are the chickens coming home to roost.
At least Democrats are willing to face the issue. What are Trump, McConnell and the Republicans doing about it? (Sound of crickets)
4
Overpopulation. Everybody sees it, nobody talks about it.
4
The moment Mr. Douthot started labeling the Democratic hopefuls with cute, denigrating trite names, I knew this was nothing more than propoganda to belittle those tryimg to actually solve problems. You do not fool us, Ross. Not one iota.
1
You can't tee off on the crack epidemic in a nice clean box without the next door opioid epidemic that was clearly corporate driven. You can't separate out social justice issues of climate, education and social mobility from people escaping their pain in drugs. Neither can you tune out Mayor Pete's religious views that go to these places and pigeon hole him as a "technocrat." The climate debate is needed. It is the biggest existential threat on this planet. We don't need to one-up it with another social issue. We need to address it for what it is.
1
Most every day I get up, have a lot of good energy, do some exercise, write a bit and paint most days. Life is good. Yes, there are complaints coming from every direction, there is fear that Trump can't govern and elation that his haters keep him from governing.
So I have a great salad for lunch and good dinner. How so when all is falling apart in every direction, including Ross's lament and the depressing comments here: I chose not to give the bad news more sway. It is bad enough when neighbors and family are depressed. So for me, less new and more documentaries and studies of how to make life better.
"Despair as a sociological phenomenon is rarely permanent: Some force, or forces, will supply new forms of meaning eventually. And it matters not only that this happens, but which forces those will be." NOT TRUE. We have only begun to plumb the depths of dispair. I believe that as climate change creates more problems despair will become the dominant emotion across the world. In technological advanced, wealthy nations like out own the despair will be even greater because what we have been used to, like freely running, cheap water, will no longer be available to us.
3
While I agree that the opioid crisis in America is serious and deserves more attention by the media and our government, comparing it to climate change is absurd. The climate crisis is also killing tens of thousands of Americans right now and millions more across the globe. And we are only in the earliest stages of the mass migration and population collapse that the changing climate will bring. The climate crisis should be front page news every day until the cellphone zombie masses wake up to this nightmare we’ve created.
3
Readers have shared so many reasons for this. I will add that our species evolved to live in groups of 10-100. We are not adapted to live in groups of millions.
Families are separated by their locations of employment. We have lost the ability to share our homes, having had other choices. The old die in nursing homes. Newborns go into daycare at six weeks!
Religion has not played a role in my life. But I wonder if the loss of small communities, family proximity, the glue of church and small schools, the rise of suburbs, combined, mean that we live our lives without the daily support of the personal community interaction. Coworkers are certainly no substitute and it takes time that we do not have to nurture friendships.
We are expected to believe that fulfillment comes from jobs. We give up time with our young children for this. Schools have thousands of students, with class sizes approaching 50 students and this teaches them to live impersonally.
Readers here offer many reasons for modern despair. I will add ‘disconnection from family, friends and community’.
5
I am not trying to convert anyone, but I wonder if these statistics hold in religious subcultures. I have been acquainted with Mormons and Orthodox Jews. Both groups prioritize community, and their communities sustain them in good times and bad. I think similar communal ties exist among the Amish. I contrast that with my Catholic mother’s experience. When she was no longer able to drive, she called her parish to enquire whether someone could drive her to Mass. She was told she should ask her own friends! Furthermore, when she died, her burial was to be with my dad in a veteran’s cemetery about 50 miles away. Her parish refused to send a priest “that far” even when we offered to pay fore time, mileage, or whatever was necessary. When I called the cemetery to ask if they could recommend a local Catholic parish, the cemetery official was shocked that her own parish would not send its own priest. My parents were devout and had supported the parish church for the 25 years they lived in the community. Similarly, my father-in-law cared for his wife with Alzheimers for nearly a decade and there were no community resources to help him.
2
It’s shocking that your community was so cruel. Unfortunately it’s not any different from how our government treats the elderly....with disdain.
Could the underlying factor be ideology that says each individual must be responsible for his or her own problems? If things go wrong for you, pull yourself together and fix them. No one has any responsibility to help you. Certainly not anything that would translate into higher taxes.
Faith in the free market goes along with this. Because the market is efficient at allocating resources, people have come to believe that it is also good at ordering society. The change in attitude from when I was growing up in the 1950s is remarkable.
Is it surprising that people become discouraged and turn to drugs and suicide? Is it strange that communities have deteriorated? Do the economic forces of "creative destruction" act to destroy human lives and relationships?
Government is an imperfect instrument to address these issues, but I believe that democratic government is the only hope for getting to point where people have some right to the pursuit of happiness.
7
Our entire country is based on faith, but not the spiritual faith Ross often sites. From money, to justice, to law making, to social interactions, we believe in a reality based on this shared faith of our fellow Americans. This faith has allowed us to grow well beyond our needs of shelter, sustenance, and safety and allowed us to achieve things unimaginable.
Starting in earnest in the 70's, the Right has been eroding this sense of reality attempting to replace it with their ideology. By attacking media, the opposition, educations systems, religious faith, etc. they have successfully instilled the idea that there are two sides to every argument - a liberal and conservative side and it is only through sheer power and manipulation that the liberal agenda has perverted our times.
The fallout from creating a relative truth is that people have less faith in the institutions that have made this country great. It has always been true that power corrupts but that corruption isn't as rampant or severe as the "American Carnage" that Trump and Republicans preach. The result is a lack of understanding, a lack of belief in a future, a desperation that there is no path to follow.
The reason many do not partake in drugs is the fear that they could damage their future. When you have no faith in a better future there is nothing stopping you from indulging in the immediate euphoria drugs offer. Enjoy now and don't waste time planning for a future that you have no way to get to.
6
The pernicious tide of the prosperity gospel and the vocal alignment of many protestant leaders with the GOP drives young people away from religion. Besides, the traditional protestant work ethic brought people a decent life. Without a living wage and stability of employment, that's a tougher sell than it was when earning a middle class living was easier.
2
Im not all-in with this assessment; "So if we’re going to answer whatever is killing tens of thousands of our countrymen, it’s as important to pay attention to the would-be cultural healers, from the old churches to the New Agers, the online Nietzscheans to the neo-pagans, as it is to have the policy conversations about what’s possible in the next presidential term."
Why should we pay attention to these parties? Its easily argued that they and their ilk are what got us here in the first place!
Please Mr. Douthat, readers - name a real and significant Cultural Healer? Name one that we can all nod to and say, "Yup, he/she healed us up real good."
The Old Churches are riddled with sins and their contributions to the Despair for millions. The New-Agers have done nothing but peddle potions, artifacts, and mantra's alleged to bring life into full bloom AND balance! But it cost people millions of dollars for the advice of both parties. With zero results!
And politicians? Come on! Name a piece of legislation since the Civil Rights Acts, and similar bills of that narrow era, that have given any Americans hope for a better future? Good luck with that.
The American Dream is dead to quote Trump. (and I hate that a lot) But the dream was not what he/others peddle - more consumption, more often. That was what the dream became when we became a culture obsessed with pure leisure pursuits and Brand affiliation.
The dream that died was; social safety for all and justice for all.
6
The despair is caused by the policies that Mr. Douthat pushes. Conservatism has come to mean "you are on your own". Businesses and the people who own them have become the only important stakeholders in our society. Global supply chains increase corporate profit, while the "displaced" got nothing. The effects of The Great Recession (more properly, The Great Theft) linger on a decade later. What does Douthat think would be the results of an economic system where all the money flows to the super rich? Still he touts for "conservative" values and puts forth religion and spirituality as the cure to mistreatment.
13
I would argue the #1 reason "deaths of despair" are increasing is the simultaneous increase in disparity for wealth and income. As fewer people benefit from economic growth those left behind will despair.....ergo an increase in "deaths of despair".
Fix the wealth and income disparity and you'll fix the suicide, drug and alcohol problem. There's a reason "deaths of despair" were low in the 1970's and '80's. The middle class was thriving. Thanks to U.S. tax policy that's no longer the case.
7
@ NYJohn - I agree with everything you say except that it is caused by tax policy. People need good jobs, not handouts. How will a change in tax policy help resurrect good, well paying jobs that allow for strong, cohesive, healthy communities? Sure you can tinker with taxes and invest a bit more here and there but the big picture is not tax policy. It is regulation, mainly the creating of a level playing field with overseas competitors who have cheaper labor, no environmental restrictions, no worker protections, government subsidies and an artificially low currency. How are US workers supposed to compete with that? So rather than paying higher income or investment taxes, we need to be paying more for manufactured goods that are made (yes, more expensively) here in the US. That way workers are directly benefited through better jobs and higher wages. Wouldn’t that be better than relying on the government for a handout? Which to me would seem the surest way to create conditions for drug abuse, alcoholism, depression and suicide.
2
Perhaps we have reached the end of the Age of Consumption and discovered that toys and transient experiences are mere distractions that impart no meaning or value to our time on earth.
Many of my generation, today's elders, look back on a squandered life of zero accomplishment whose labors bought playtime and nothing more. That malingering despair is infectious.
The only answer is to care, and actively contribute, to something bigger than ourselves that will feed a brighter future.
But that demands sacrifice, for which we have lost our taste.
5
beautifully put
Are deaths from drugs and alcohol and suicide a political, economic or spiritual crisis?
Yes.
Cutting to the core of our culture, we are experiencing a huge shift. People are being rendered unnecessary. Whether it is automation or outsourcing or the death of an industry that was previously strong, more and more people are finding it hard to work, support a family, create a sense of self-value.
When whole towns, whole regions, lose their economic engines, and there is nothing for them in their homes, is despair so surprising? Russians turned to vodka; we turn to opioids, or meth, or alcohol, or a permanent cannabis haze.
Our political solution has been to promise the world, create both outrage and hope in empty rhetoric, blame the other, and quietly enact policy which makes it all worse.
Our spiritual solutions? Well we double down on fundamentalism - my own Catholic Church is unrecognizable to me - or we invest in crystals and Marianne Williamson.
Start with the economics with real political action. We could for instance, determine that some industries are necessary to national defense - like communications electronics, vehicle production, medication and vaccine production, energy independence - and invest in dying communities to produce them.
And we could stop the political push to scapegoat, while stripping people of their assets for the enrichment of the few, and re-invest in economic fairness and the middle class.
Give people something to live for.
3
There are millions like me out there if the Great Recession didn't kill us our shoddy health care will. We are in despair because we live in a police state and it's clear we have no pleasant future to look forward to for the first time in our country's history. All of us have finally realized just how much our leaders hate us and wish we would all go away and let them rob the country blind calling it democracy. We've come to realize our votes for the most part are not counted and if they are the law has way of negating all of our votes. Most of us cannot afford attorneys so we remain permanent victims not because of any crime but because we exist.
11
Amen brother!
1
And let us not forget guns.
In states where more people own guns, suicide rates are higher.
https://www.thetrace.org/2016/09/10-essential-facts-guns-suicide/
A sweeping study published in July 2016 in the American Journal of Public Health, found that for every 10 percentage point increase in a state’s gun ownership rate, there was an associated increase of 3.3 firearm suicide deaths per 100,000 among men, and a 0.5 increase in firearm suicide rates among women.
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303182
3
We could never forget guns, not when people like you constantly remind us. My god, how can you think it is that simple?
This so-called despair is nothing new, it's just that causation has changed for some of us. When we were living in caves until rather recently given that forms of humans have been around for millions of years, despair was always a constant for some. I don't know anyone who isn't worried about something - it's the so-called human condition. Today we have new stimuli for angst including but not limited to social media addiction and pressure, the 24X7 availability demanded of many coming from Corporate America. Crime, natural disasters, warfare, etc., have always been with us. People have always had to cope. Drugs and alcohol have been around for a long time, as has meditation. Ancient stoic philosophers said the secret was to become emotionally unattached, and of course, there's always the old perennial favorite, organized religion. The theory of natural selection tells us that some people will successfully cope and some people will not, possibly due to genetics, chemical imbalances, etc. Depression can run in families. Those that cannot successfully cope are candidates for suicide. I think that will always be the case although hopefully we can discover how to ameliorate depression to a better extent knowing that we will never totally eliminate it.
1
I could not get beyond the first line of your article. Please do not feed the insane notion that climate change is not an “immediate problem”. We as a species have very little time to drastically alter many patterns of behavior if we are to survive (if it is not too late already). There are enough science deniers and short sighted greedy fossil fuel barons...we don’t need such poorly chosen words from NYT op-Ed pieces.
6
Congratulations, USA. You've managed to allow Putin to turn our country into his Russia - for the same things that are now happening here have already happened there and continue to fester despite his worst efforts to try and force women to have more children to "juice" the population. Imagine a USA, which is smaller than Russia, with only about 135 million people. That's Russia today, and declining rapidly, despite their lying about their population figures. There, it's illegal home-brewed and/or adulterated alcohol that is killing people, plus neglect of the elderly. Malnutrition is rampant, and while Putin tries to suppress them, there are STILL reports that manage to come out about long lines at local markets on the days when they're actually open. It's no secret he's trying to bring us - and every other western nation that he can pollute with his hatred and vileness - down as his own country collapses around him. Misery loves company.
4
Just as the cure for opioid addiction isn’t more opioids…
The cure for increasingly nihilistic narrative isn’t more of the same…
Life and nature are visual and visceral…
Narrative – or most of it, anyway – is nonsensical and ephemeral…
Open your eyes – and smell any of the coffee or the flowers…
And don’t blame your nihilism on Trump’s narcissism…
Just look in the mirror, for that…
PS
Mirrors are like children – many people would rather shower their affections on a pet to glimpse them a reliably loving reflection of themselves…
Children – and mirrors – on the other hand, lie…
Especially as you age…
PPS
How many single women out there want to be accepted as childless – while so many LGBT couples want to be accepted as parents…
It makes perfect sense – until you try to capture it in rules…
Follow your heart – it will take you close to others, pulsing with life…
Now, or not yet been…
Life will still be here, long after the last book crumbles or is burned…
The human spirit, too...
2
Read more Durkheim.
2
TO :The NYT
I feel sad-your country-the USA-used to be the dream place for the whole world...They flocked there for a brighter future .It was named the land of hope-of opportunities-of a better chance..
Why it's a mess now ? Adam Smith-Keynes-Schumpeter and a whole gallery of Nobel Economist laureates...
There must be some very deep-rooted causes or reasons .
The top may be a spiritual one.
May be it's time to look Eastward-May be an oriental solution.
May be you should try the "Tao Te Ching ".
I don't know why but may be you can find some light...
Good luck..
Chinh
1
What you are seeing are symptoms, not actions. Symptoms of an unethical, immoral, sick society that has been told for decades that it is “ exceptional” and always good.
People have seen with their own eyes that Reagan’s “shining house on the hill” was the Bates Motel all along.
“Ever get the feeling that you’ve been had?”
-Johnny Rotten
6
The "solution" is community. We lost it over the last 40 years. Political types like it that way. Endless spats, grievances and perceived threats. If you can remember when grandma lived around the block, your "brothers" were a hundred kids from the neighborhood and your employer was a storekeeper or a union laborer, you know what I mean.
6
Making a direct comparison of heat related deaths blamed on climate change to deaths of despair shows an ignorance of the multiple causes of death related to climate change (they are not all heat related).
Your apparent solution for these deaths of despair is to continue the same failed war on drugs and excessive incarceration. It is time to change course.
The productivity gains of the US economy have gone to the top 10% or less of the population while the lowest 50% of the population has seen a decline in living standards. The majority of those lower 50% are hard working, honest adults who are treated as serfs by the royal upper 1%.
Many of the lower 50% work 2-3 jobs with few if any employment related benefits. They have little employment stability and very uncertain economic futures. They are in despair.
They have been put into this state by a cruel and greedy republican party that has promulgated the disproved trickle-down tax policy and the vision of the rich 'job creators' who are actually parasites on a fair capitalistic system.
It is past time to get rid of the rich parasites before they suck the life out of our democracy.
1
Stopping the runaway train of income inequality?
It’s not so much that China stole so many jobs, but rather that, on the global auction block, all workers are being pitted against each other, and the country with the fewest protections for worker rights will get the jobs.
The ultra-wealthy just keep running up the score: moving their companies’ jobs off-shore, and then hiding their profits in off-shore accounts too so they won’t be taxed.
Young adults can’t envision even having children— how could they raise a family with the same standard of living that they had grown up in.
Health care alone, for a family of 4, costs over $12,000 a year, not including co-pays and deductibles if you do get sick.
Buying a home, at today’s prices? Maybe a condo, in a neighborhood with mediocre schools.
Saving for a child’s college—how? There's not a dime left.
Both parents have to work just to make ends meet — so how can they even have a child and take care of it while it’s too young for school — unless grandma is hear-by.
Money matters.
It’s the economy, stupid.
4
It’s capitalism...
7
It’s ironic that Douthat recognizes that everyone looks at this problem and pulls out their old hobby horse as the solution... and then pulls out his own hobby horse.
3
Gosh, Ross, could it be that many of us feel poorly because your party's leader has done everything possible to divide us as a country through racist rants and bullying and non-stop lying, his dismissive attitude toward our allies and embrace of Putin and other dictators or the way he attempts to personally profit off his position? Yes!
6
Douthat is talking about a long-term trend that began well before 2016. The trend enabled the election of Trump, a man who began his presidency talking about “American carnage.”
2
Though it’s not the point of the article, “Online Nietzschean bellows from backstage about restoring masculinity” is the most I have ever appreciated Ross Douthat. Hilarious.
1
@AnnaT
Masculinity emphatically should be restored. This culture has reduced it to a punch line. Trump, however, is the wrong messenger.
@Wine Country Dude I'd be interested in hearing more about what you mean by "restoring masculinity," but not at all interested in some aggrieved online MAGA maniac hollering about it.
One trick Pony invokes spiritual cultural crisis to prove he should get what he wants.
Again.
Why not just have a bot write these pieces? Cheaper. Smarter. Useful-Er.
2
Parents need to stop indulging in cynicism - it’s an indulgence - if we want to protect teenagers from deaths of despair. You need to give them a sense of hope, options for actively productively engaging and improving conditions. Otherwise you are just being incredibly selfish. You’re a nihilist at heart, fine but keep it to yourself. You are bitter? Well guess what? Not everything’s about you. Kids don’t need anyone to tell them how bad things are. They know. They need some hope.
3
I would wager that Ross has never read a single one of Nietzsche's works. He clearly knows nothing of Nietzsche's philosophy.
Catholics, Muslims and orthodoxy encourages blind faith and procreation at unsustainable rates. My despair comes from witnessing overpopulation and all its ramifications. I have not seen a honeybee in over 10 years Mr morals.The oceans are dying, citrus, thousand year old olive groves are dying. Your pope decries deforestation, but still encourages large families. Despair comes from lack of hope, conservative pundits offer faith, greed and more draconian drug policies. I don’t know why I read your drivel.
5
Overpopulation drives all of our problems.
My daughter in law said to me not long ago why aren't you a Spiritual Person and I said having been born in WW ll, in Amsterdam, I have no idea what you are talking about. After the War, with the connivance of the Dutch during the war, Amsterdam had lost 10 % of its population. Jews. You can look it up.
1
Let's talk about the Trumpist perspective. I see three responses: (1) Fake news; (2) Who cares? It's not me; (3) It's caused by an illegal invasion facilitated by weak Democrat border policy.
3
See Ken, above. He agrees with your three "reasons."
1
As with all social/cultural problems there is no one solution, but, as pointed out in this piece a number of options, all of which need to work together with the hope--and I stress hope---that the problem will be ameliorated---notice I said ameliorated, not solved, since the nature of social/cultural problems are never totally solved, but, in most cases create other social/cultural problems, creating an endless cycle of reform--which is a good thing. Of course the real problem, are policymakers, who have great difficulty keeping two opposing ideas in their mind and have shown know ability to identify and then orchestrate the strategies listed in this piece. And the same goes for the American public, whose only journey into complexity appears to be fantasy football and what to barbecue for the game.
Could it possibly be that millions of people are feeling the futility and ambivalence of a cynical, money-and-self driven world that has lost all semblance of value for any social commonality? We are all splintered into separate camps and identity issues, and present in all those camps lurk the relentless need for wealth and constant attention. And yes—whose pot do we all "melt into(?)"—I get the power dynamics of it all... but what is left then?
The money thing is as old as the hills, but social media has created addicts of us all for endless personal aggrandizement.
I'm in my 50s, so it may just be an age thing. I'm not religious and I find I no longer have the drive that I had, in my youth, to contribute something of my own to the building blocks of human civilization—I don't see a building anymore. All I see is random popularity contests and games of King-of-the-Hill.
Honestly, I still have a desire to help and treat well my fellow human... but I feel like I'm simply helping others so that they can become empty consumers of Amazon free-delivery products and endless "pay-attention-to-me!!!" posts on their social media platforms.
2
Perhaps we'll know the problem is about to get better when the next revolutionary consumer technology that becomes available alls flat on its face.
As it is, people have turned more inward with each advance (if that's the right word): TV, cable, computers, Internet, smartphones.
Those who hype this stuff always say it connects us more tightly. That's a myth. The last device that did that was the landline telephone.
3
The answer to the question that heads the column is "Yes". If you want to solve the problem, stop looking at what to do about it and start looking at 'why' it happened in the first place. When it was an inner city problem, no one cared. Now it hits the suburbs and it becomes a crisis that needed fixing yesterday. You don't 'fix' the problem of obesity with weight loss treatment centers. You address the causes. The low self esteem, the junk food invading our consciousness, and all the mass media to sit in front of instead of moving your body. In the case of substance abuse...these drugs were promoted to heal your pain. That pain is a result of loss. Loss of jobs, loss of income, loss of self worth. Add to that loss of self control. Getting rid of the opioids as the cure does not alter the disease course. These people will look to another way to rid themselves of despair. They have given up. We need to give these folks a reason not to throw in the towel. We need to help rid them of their pain. False promises of 'jobs coming back' or 'coal is king' or richer rich folks will make life better for everyone is not the answer. They need hope. It does not come in pill form. And it certainly doesn't come from someone who has no clue at all what it is like to be them.
7
For most of my professional life, I have worked for a variety of not-for-profit organizations that provide services for people with disabilities. As a disabled person myself, I understand these issues completely and this column really spoke to me.
While the American social safety net may have problems, it generally works, and people with disabilities in the United States are probably better off than the vast majority of the rest of the world. Yet, I have seen and experienced this same question of "despair" in the disabled community resulting from a disconnection with the rest of society.
On the one hand there are the programs run by the Social Security Administration that provide income support. But of the other hand, the rules to maintain eligibility are complicated and many times discourage or frustrate a person from improving their condition by seeking employment. The bureaucracies that support these and other programs grind people up and spit people out.
As a conservative, I believe in the importance of "work" and "community". For me, waking up every morning and having a sense of purpose is critical to my survival.
T.K. Small
Accessible Freedom
2
As a conservative you are a socialist? Maybe Ross could learn something from you.
1
Does Ross ever read the comments of his readers. He might find greater knowledge there than in the other stuff he used in today's column.
12
Americans committed suicide when they voted Ronald Reagan and ALEC into power.
9
Good Goddess, man, are you really that myopic? That ill-informed? Everything pales compared to climate change!
6
We can do more than one thing at once. And your ignorance shows when you suggest that climate change is not immediate. Get your act together and don’t use your space in anyway to diminish the crucial importance of our attention to climate change action. You do disservice to your readers and the world even with the suggestion. BE CAREFUL ROSS!!
5
We're not going to find the answers to angst and despair in the Republican Party, that's for sure.
Since "The Southern Strategy", the GOP has sold increasing numbers of Americans on: "THEY (the "Liberal Elites" who use invading aliens as foot soldiers) are coming to get you . THEY want to disarm you leaving you defenseless, THEY want to overwhelm you with "infestations", THEY want to make Spanish the national language, THEY want Sharia Law, THEY arebaby killers THEY are Socialists out to take your stuff, etc, etc".
But, we (the GOP) have the answers!
Business (unfettered by regulations) has the drugs to make you feel better now that we've terrified you-- "Ask your doctor".
Oh, and Glenn Beck has a GOLD scam for you -- when the Liberal Apocalypse comes.
And, here's Donald J. Trump to defend you against the stuff we brainwashed you into fearing and prioritizing...
9
Why is the columnist so timid about what he is only inferentially getting at, namely that the “old” Catholic Church, a well known “cultural healer”, deserves to have an influential seat at the table? No, and No! Nice try.
5
Why is the age of white European American Judeo-Christian majority despair coinciding with our Siberian President's Donald Trump reign of ignorance, immaturity, immorality, stupidity, corruption, cowardly and intemperate insecure dishonor?
Of the 44,000 Americans who die from gunshot every year about 2/3rds are suicides. A majority are white men and veterans who tend to use handguns.
White European American Judeo-Christian majority life expectancy is uniquely decreasing due to alcoholism, drug addiction. depression and suicide.
While black African Americans have survived their enslavement and separate and unequal sojourn.
And brown aboriginal First Nations pioneers in America have survived their colonization and conquest.
3
Mr. Douthats columns are getting harder to stomach. The planet is sick therefore humans are sick. Please, open a science book mr. Douthat.
7
Ross - would you have writtten a similar article 20-30 years ago about the crack crisis? Do only white lives deserve sympathy and understanding?
Hate to play the race card but each time I see an article like this by people who would tell minorities to lift themselves up by the bootstraps I cannot help myself.
5
If Douthat really cared about suicide deaths in America he would call out his fellow religious conservatives for their role in creating the despair that drives 134,000 queer youth to attempt suicide each year. One out of every four suicide attempts in this country are queer victims of religious bigotry.
It's insane to me that Douthat has the gall to call for more religious solutions to a problem created by religion. We don't need religion; we need members of the religious right (Tony Perkins, for instance) to go to prison for instigating this holocaust against my community.
8
“...a gently dehumanizing drift” brought to you by the modern Republican Party and their leader, Donald J Trump.
3
Congrats on your vote for Trump. You now get what you deserve, government haters.
5
Are deaths from drugs and alcohol and suicide a political, economic or spiritual crisis?
^ Not to worry. Trump will make you great again.
5
This is why people are depressed, Douthat: read your own newspaper - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/us/maggy-hurchala-florida-mining.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
Young people aren’t stupid. They see your world shutting them out at every turn. You created this. You.
4
You won't solve the human problem of despair by urging people to adopt false hope in the fraudulent religion of Christianity or the New Age deceptions of seers and prophets on t.v.
3
There is nothing gentle about the “dehumanizing drift” we witness in American culture. It is shockingly powerful, and has already swept up many of us in its dark current. When the President refers to a people as animals or excrement, when he tacitly endorses their slaughter or turns his back on their tragedy and tens of millions of our fellow citizens cheer him on, I fear that we have already drifted too far to hope for redemption.
4
The declining life expectancy in the US is based on an expected bleaker future.
Trump has left unfilled essential governmental functions, with the exception of those filled by his children and cronies.
We see Blackstone funding the burning of the Brazilian Rain Forrests to raise cows and plant soy beans for the Chinese, since Trump's disastrous trade wars.
When the people stand up, register, and vote come 'hell or high water' to throw the thieves in Washington DC out of office and power, there is still a world left fighting for:
Clean up the Planet - stop using the oceans as toilets.
Fund Renewable Energy basic research, and utilize a myriad of existing and new approaches to reach carbon neutrality, funded in part through a major carbon tax.
Rebuild America's crumbling Infrastructure to improve productivity, in concert with plans to shrink the carbon footprint.
Create a Sovereign Wealth Fund using public and private stock for companies above a certain size - piercing the corporate veil to check consolidated ownership of LLCs (see Trump Organizations 500 LLC's) to replace the regressive payroll tax. Stock is fungible for a sovereign with fiat debt and unlimited liquidity.
Universal Health Care under ACA with a public option and no restrictions on choice. The taxes or cost question is a false finger-trap.
Taxes for the people making under $500k in income and under $10 MM in wealth won't be going up electing a Democrats.
Watch the world flourish.
2
Stunning. An entire article about our "Age of Despair" and not ONE mention of the word "Trump." Douthat is either a complete idiot (not likely) or so partisan that he cannot see or hear what is happening around him (very likely).
4
Th self-righteousness of conservatives today in thinking they know best what people need or want or should live like is leading to despair. We seem to have no input in how our country is run as it is being despoiled righting front of our eyes, Congress appears impotent to change things despite the constant blustering about it, and people have no sense things are getting better or allowing room for growth and betterment. We live in an age when he person running the country talks about it as if it is hell itself and many believe him. Despair? Morel ike giving up and waiting for a redeemer. The GOP wants that it seems, and they are winning.
2
The farmer suicides are decidedly political. They voted for Trump. He is doing everything in his power to bankrupt them. He or his cronies will buy up their land and displace their remaining family members-now refugees. Keep in mind how Trump treats refugees and you’ll realize that the farmer has condemned himself and his family to hell. My question: the farmer made a true egg on your face mistake, even so, why not own up and fight the mendacious greedy liar? It is not like Mexico where the narcos stole the land with guns and murdered the campesinos to do it...Here there would be a lot of support for Trump’s demise and the end of hypocritical christo-capitalism.
3
"...Are any of these prescriptions plausible...?" [op cit]
--
I'd like to offer an alternate answer [read, "panacea"] that can be summed up in one word: "Optimism(!)”
***
Americans, they say, in contrast to Europeans, have always been endowed [read, "blessed"] with excessive amounts of optimism, spread-out over our entire demographic landscape.
At least that’s the way it was, during a big chunk of the 20th Century.
--
From June Christie to Bobby McFerrin, the message [in song] was, “…Forget your troubles, C’mon be happy…!”
It worked in particular for my parents' ["the greatest"] generation, who learned to be upbeat, “in tune with the downbeat,” [think, swing era jazz] during the Great Depression, and the horrific Global War that followed.
***
So how did they do it?
--
Maybe it was due to Shirley Temple, the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
Maybe it was like doing a hang-ten on a surfboard on a ginormous wave of that gritty stuff, right in the middle of a sandstorm in the Sahara Desert.
No matter what happened, most people found a way, "to ride it out."
--
Could this be a lesson for today?
***
The right kind of popular culture can do wonders for an ailing public conscientiousness. So why not try it? Again.
—
C’mon! Get happy! It’s not that hard, if you try.
Yes alcohol, depression, no retirement savings, superannuated too early, what's not to love.
This world sucks, and older people are more aware and choosing, wisely, to opt out.
This is not news.
3
Bernie Sanders is a realist. When the plug was pulled on the middle class by outsourcing, government subsidizing the low wages paid by Walmart and others with programs for food and medical care don't you think that created generational hopelessness? What previous generation had to observe their parents work 40 hours a week and be humbled by applying for government assistance to survive? Those 40 hours have increased to securing 2 jobs even for people working at BOA or Wells Fargo.
They are denied a living wage. Reading the recent property purchases in Palm Beach in this paper this morning and knowing their incomes received the largest tax breaks creates personal despair over the injustice, the outright rape and pillage of the middle and lower classes is obscene. There are endless miles to drive throughout this country with no opportunities for employment. Tax breaks given to manufacturers and considerably lower wages than previously paid while the cost of living rural and urban has risen astronomically has assured the US will remain in despair, no different from serfs in the Middle Ages.
4
I think of the the three "voices" it seems to me that Marianne Williamson speaks the loudest. Our society has become increasingly isolated. The social pillars that used to provide support in times of emotional need, from the community organizations all the way down to the nuclear family have been in decline for decades. No surprise then that there has been a corresponding rise in suicide.
Healthy people and societies begin at the most basic level, the family. Until we as a society find a way strengthen and nurture families, despair across this country will only increase.
I wish Mr Douthat would work on eliminating either/or thinking and adopt both/and thinking, especially when it some to issues of national importance. It is as distracting to his argument as his obligatory gratuitous slamming of liberals and setting up straw men arguments (like focusing only on heat-related deaths and ignoring other serious impacts of climate change).
Drug, alcohol, and other addictions are serious topics for national attention. So is climate change. As a nation, we can and should address more than one serious issue.
Perhaps, the despair Mr. Douthat identifies sets in when people are given empty promises and are lied to, when people are told the system is rigged against them, or that when other people receive benefits, it means they won’t. Certain politicians thrive on the politics of victimhood and scarcity.
The truth is that addiction and suicide have a variety of causes. Some physical or biological, some psychological, some societal. We need to address all causes. There is no one prescription.
But as to societal despair, perhaps the antidote begins with ousting the politics of victimhood and scarcity and finding instead our shared values and working on ways of implementing them.
Andrew Yang’s universal basic income is a policy that should be in the arsenal of ways to address the economic anxieties that have contributed to despair. It has the benefit of being able to trace is political lineage back to Nixon, so it can’t so easily and honestly be summarily dismissed by Republicans as whacky.
1
Although our founding documents mention "the pursuit of happiness", the American dream has been defined in economic terms: do better than your parents. With the president telling us that the system is rigged against you by immigrants and foreign governments, and the presidential candidates telling us that the system is rigged against you by AI and the rich, its no wonder that we have entered an Age of Despair.
1
To me, four issues look like dominant despair engines, lack of universal affordable health care, global warming, good-job killing by the rush to AI and AI driven automation, and finally the conservative barricades to do anything responsive that would provide a significant public sector role (other than tax cuts and private sector subsidies).
Maybe the conservatives can help by using their religious bonafides to convince the capitalists that "Do unto others..." applies to them too.
5
Happiness can be rated. Four countries have held the top spot in the last four reports: Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and now Finland. All the top countries tend to have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity.
Freedom means freedom to pursue a life that is fulfilled. Children are going into debt to pursue college. Many citizens are barely surviving. It is hard to be generous when one has to work 2-3 jobs to survive or one hits the 50's and no company is hiring. Our political system doesn't work for a healthy life expectancy based on decent affordable healthcare and the GOP is now talking about cutting Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. [Can't afford 'socialism' give-aways when tax cuts for the wealthy are more important.]
There is less trust now in for our government and many believe the media is 'fake'. [Thanks, President Trump for spreading this hatred and fear.] Immigrants are the current target to hate. Perhaps the most striking finding of the whole happiness report is that a ranking of countries according to the happiness of their immigrant populations is almost exactly the same as for the rest of the population.
This country has major problems and a change in political leaders is mandatory if we are going to every become a truly happy country.
421
@Carol Ring - They also have the least diverse culture in the west and the most social conformity
Sorry, not interested.
16
@Tim
Sorry, not interested in living in filth, chaos, and injustice to keep things "interesting" for you.
45
@Carol Ring: If the Democrats were getting things right, the clown show never would have made it to the White House. It's true that the Republican interference stopped much of their agenda, but even what they said they wanted didn't resonate with the rank and file.
The Democrats need a plan that makes the average American think that things will get better for them, and then they need to execute it. A simple change of political leaders is desirable but it is not enough.
22
I'm an Environmental Conservation student - a 63-year-old senior at UMass, Amherst, a school highly lauded for its science and research. I've learned so much about climate change in my course work that I talk about it a lot. At first, people are interested, but then they start to glance at their phones, head down, tuning me out. I've heard several say they don't believe it or they don't want to hear it. When the professors lob yet another awful climate change fact at us, I look around at the faces of my younger classmates and I see masks of apathy and boredom. The saddest thing is when I hear my classmates say, "We're all going to die, so what's the point?"
Climate Change isn't just about greenhouse gas retention and the havoc it's wreaking in our atmosphere. Poverty is increasing, along with wealth disparity. Violence is going up. Every day we hear about another animal lost to extinction. Or that California or the Amazon is one fire. The despair and grief are settling inside us like a morning fog. Whether or not one consciously believes it or not, whether or not one wants to hear it or not, it's still in our heads and hearts - especially with gut-wrenching headlines, and doom and gloom talking points.
As for me, I wrestle with grief all the time, and it's hard to keep going back to those classrooms to hear another round of heartbreaking facts. But I go. Because doing nothing makes me sadder still.
454
@Tina Sotis. Graduated in 2018 from UMass at age 55 (originally matriculated in 1981 but flunked out) and now I'm in a master's program. Keep going to class, and look for those that create some sort of hope - a sense of community, the willingness to sit and simply listen to someone going through a hard time, or have the ability to see the beauty in the present moment (it's a nice campus, in a beautiful valley, after all). Bask in that, then get to work...
30
@Tina Sotis: Wealth disparity is the natural endpoint of a free market. Collapse is the natural endpoint of expanding population. We need to redesign our economy and to start reversing the damage we've done.
But the opposition is clever; fixing the economy is conflated with communism, and limiting population is considered racist.
As a senior student, you might consider finding ways to deconstruct the right-wing rhetoric I mentioned above. It is designed to keep people stuck in indecision, and has been doing so for 50 years or more.
46
@Tina Sotis
"Poverty is increasing, along with wealth disparity. Violence is going up".
None of which can be attributed to Global Warming. Conversely, the "solutions" to Global Warming, such as the "Green New Deal" will only make them worse. Your younger classmates have been hearing the doom and gloom scenarios their entire lives with no measurable impact on their well being.
Perhaps their indifference to your environmental proselytizing is shear fatigue. More likely they are rightfully more concerned about securing a job capable of paying off the student loans they have accrued and forestalling the tangible threat that debt poses. It's also possible that they realize that at least a portion of that debt has financed the doom and gloom professors whose solutions will make that less likely.
3
I am not addicted to opiates. I am not suicidal. But I am in deep grief.
I am in mourning for the honeybees and other pollinators, for the polar bears and the million of other species at risk for extinction, for the Inuit no longer able to hunt on the ice, for the mountains that have been stripped for coal, for the people of Bangladesh and the islands of Oceania and the Bahamas and for so, so much. My grief is real.
I have no faith in an afterlife as (I believe) Mr. Douthat does. This beautiful world is it for me. So I grieve as it burns. I also do what I can so it burns a little less: everyday acts like hanging my laundry and eating less meat and actions like joining the students who strike for the climate later this month.
The climate crisis and opiate and suicide crisis are all related. They are woven from the same cloth.
697
@the quiet one
thank you.
32
@the quiet one
If it's any consolation, you are not alone.
47
@the quiet one:
Yes, yes, and yes!
I basically cannot read news about the environment without crying for innocent wildlife and beautiful nature being wantonly killed and destroyed.
The number of people dying deaths of despair - and note that this is self-chosen - are sobering but they are nothing compared to thousands and thousands of SPECIES going completely EXTINCT.
Conservatives want only business as usual. Guess what?? Business as usual = Ecocide and Suicide.
63
Maybe it has to do with getting to middle age and finally admitting to yourself that all of the things you were taught as a kid about being honest, having integrity and doing the right thing are not valued in this society.
What is valued is having money, power, things and status.
For some this realization is too much to bear and so they choose to return to stardust.
720
@cp
Read the Iliad, read the Divine Comedy; read the literature of the ages. Heck, even read the Bible...but, no....
Nothing under the sun is new. Nothing.
Indeed, the despairing should read all of those things and more. Then maybe the scales will fall from their eyes.
I was born in 1948-- the first generation in all of human history-- all of human history-- whose parents did not have to worry that they would die every time they got sick.
My dad was mostly deaf his whole life, from mastoiditis-- a common complication for millenia of childhood ear infections. Death or deafness was the usual result. Mastoiditis went into the history books with the discovery of penicillin.
My ma would say: count your blessings. But, hey, what did she know?
42
@cp Yours is a thought-provoking comment. It is a big cognitive challenge when one realizes that the common folk wisdom of one's youth is a lie--mere propaganda to produce conformity. At that fork in the road one can make several choices. The first is to double down on denial, insisting that the propaganda is truth. The other is to bring out a blank piece of paper.
For me, all of the narrative came crashing down when I realized that, in the first grade (1950's), people like NBC News' Irving R. Levine were on the radio, reporting the shooting of social workers and civil rights workers in the American south. Six decades later, all that rhetoric about race relations has produced diversions and lies, but people still die. The people who build profits by making us hate each other instead of the lever-pullers have it pretty good, don't they? They aren't changing anything anytime soon.
It also didn't help when a pile of people were thrown under the bus, their pensions liquidated by Wall Street, in the 1990's. That killed the "work hard" propaganda. Michael Douglas said it best--"greed is good." As technology advanced, workers became "unnecessary" in terms of social integration.
When a person feels like a sucker, it can lead to awful behavior and self destruction--unless one revisits that blank piece of paper and starts constructing one's own truth that isn't a drama of constant denial. The thing that our rulers fear most is that we become organized and focused.
52
@cp How true. I'm so tired of seeing the jerks win, while those of us who try to live our lives with some integrity are constantly getting screwed by them.
59
Let's just be honest and recognize that we have a two-tiered justice system in America. Purdue Pharmaceutical officers and the Sacklers family knew for years that their opioid products were killing people. But did any of them get prison sentences? How do they differ from El Chapo? The rich get a pass and the poor get prison. Can't Douthat see this?
3
To (social media? Secularization?) as causes for the youth mental health crisis one must add the pressures we place on young people to compete and excel in order to secure college admission, which is itself a pressure cooker to position oneself for success after graduation in an era of shrinking options and impending climate calamity while managing enormous college debt. Frank Bruni ably essayed the issue a few days ago.
Despair comes from living desperately, having no hope in a brighter future. There are 3 very distinct classes in the United States and they do not mingle. There's the 1%, who live in a rarified world that very few ever will see. The other part of the upper 10% live very well, and never have to worry about where the money will come from. Their children go to private schools and will get admitted to the best colleges, paid for with no real hit to the principle in the Morgan Stanley account. Mom and dad will age well and retire near the sea. Life is good.
Then there's the vast working class. For them, community no longer exists. Schools are run like prisons with barricades, locked doors and training classes for the very real possibility of mass shootings.
Walk through a working class subdivision anywhere between the two coasts during the after school hours or at the height of summer - there's no sound of children anywhere.
Shopping malls are either boarded up or filled with junk shops and cheap Chinese made sports wear. Food is fast and tasteless. No family has an emergency fund to deal with a crisis. If one comes, and there's no extended family to rely on, it might lead to living in a car or under a bridge. Or suicide.
In these circumstances, would you perhaps want a stiff drink and a strong painkiller?
Probably.
812
@CL
You are wrong about on thing - those right under the 1%, the top 10% to 15% are very, very worried. They are running hard to stay in place. Usually their position is based on giant paychecks because of their expertise in a field (law, medicine, finance). They know how easily that it could all go. Why do you think they will do anything, including bribes, to get their kids into a top school? Its because they are trying to insure their children will stay in their current social class and they know they can't actually make that happen.
53
@sjs
About ten years ago, my best friend, who was a teacher (and deeply mentally ill, Bipolar I medicated, but probably also Borderline Personality never diagnosed) got divorced by her attorney husband. I got an inside look at their finances during the divorce. They made SEVEN TIMES what we did which put them comfortably in the top 10% of earners. They were probably in the top 95% of earners in this area (of VA).
They had a $650K house--$150K under water--in a very nice section. They had $150K in *credit card* debt. They had sundry other debt totaling a figure which boggled my mind. They had three children in parochial school including one child who was high functioning autistic, for which they paid full freight. One was entering high school ($10K per year).
After the divorce, they went bankrupt.
TBH, this is absolutely no different than the ex and me. We have fewer debts, far less income. I'm disabled and he's the one with a personality disorder. He's functional and I'm not. We don't have kids in private school. Our house wasn't under water, but it's foreclosed bc he's feckless.
We'll BOTH be bankrupt after the divorce.
It can ALL get destroyed SO FAST and through no fault of your own... all it takes is for your husband or wife to have a midlife crisis (or their meds to stop working). For them them to go crazy, get a girl/boyfriend, come out of the Closet (finally), for your health to fail, for a child to get seriously ill...
Or ALL of the above at once.
31
@sjs They could vote out Republicans. But they don't.
14
We don't need spiritual gurus. We need sane leadership, economic opportunity, affordable health care, education and fair treatment for all citizens. We don't need more churches and spiritual gurus, which are nothing more than placebos that take the place of a real cure for our societal and personal ills.
Getting married and having children is something that people need to decide on their own. It's not something that can be mandated or encouraged by political forces, nor is it in the domain of conservative Republicans to decide.
The country has all the earmarks of some hyperbolic dystopian drama, but we haven't entered Handmaid's Tale territory just yet. It's far more like the Sopranos, only with less adept leadership.
722
@gemli Actually, in Alabama a father can rape his daughter and she will legally be forced to give birth to her brother so I think we have surpassed the Handmaid's Tale. This is only one of the many reasons that I live in a state of despair. Everyday since Trump was elected, I wonder what happened to the country I love. As a mother of two daughters, I have a difficult time to explain how he can be the president (intentionally not capitalized) - a man who grabs women by the pussy, cozies up to dictators, breaches all ethical frameworks, disregards science and all diplomatic norms, and enriches his family at the expense of our democracy. That Barbie Ivanka can run around pretending to care about female empowerment while women are stripped of their reproductive rights also makes my stomach tighten. That Republicans in Congress are so spineless in the face of this assault keeps me up at night. Democracy can be lost - look no further than Turkey at the hands of Erdogan. It takes all the strength I can muster to make it to the next election. In the meantime, the world as I know it has ceased to exist.
104
@gemli
Douthat is a rightwing Catholic convert: Holier than the Pope. End of story.
51
@gemli I'm beginning to think I need to go back and reread "The Hunger Games" trilogy, "1984", "The Crucible", and "Gulliver's Travels". Maybe "A Tale of Two Cities" and "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" would be useful too. I read these but I might need to renew my acquaintance with them so I'm not surprised when heads start to roll literally rather than figuratively. I'd suggest that the GOP read them but I'd bet my bottom dollar that they consider them to be propaganda or worse. Not their preference for Ayn Rand is anything to brag about.
20
The biggest contributor to American despair is forty years of events and political policies that have stripped the average worker of the hope of true financial security. At the same time, they see their elected officials doing everything to help the super rich get richer. Suppressed wages, relaxed financial regulations, decoupling health care from jobs, lack of unions, the disappearance of defined pensions, reduction of workplace protections and the reduction of government jobs at all levels have hurt workers. And to add insult to injury, they drive to work on overcrowded and poorly maintained roads. We can't invest in mass transit because it's communist mind control! They said that the trickle-down economic model would free us from the bonds of government regulation and keep us out of the safety net hammock that we just can't resist. Mock the Socialist if you will but his prescription about fixing the economy is correct. Shift some of the wealth from the top 2% back to workers and you'll see a reduction of destructive behaviors and less despair. The real sickness in our society is the willingness of people who want to keep this from happening because of sheer greed.
1037
Agree with all of this. I feel it even as a fairly prosperous middle class white guy—a quite privileged position. The part I emphasize is the unfairness, the way that poor people can go to jail for parking tickets but no one did for the financial crisis. It’s not enough for them to make the rules that favor the rich and powerful almost universally, they have to marry it to a “heads I win, tails you lose” interpretation that completely protects them from consequences or even the appearance of a level playing field.
75
@Danny Salvatore’s - Excellent! Thanks for saving me the time.
It's almost amusing that conservative "intellectuals" like Douthat and Brooks - professional bloviators who've never held a real job - just can't figure why all the factors you cite have been slowly draining the sap out of our citizenry.
74
@Danny Salvatore’s
Perhaps. But Conservative Utopia is Dicken's London, where the vast majority of us are Bob Crachits and Tiny Tim is on his own. *Sigh* Dicken's London, where the air was black with soot from coal stoves. Conservative Utopia, indeed.
41
Why can't our purpose be saving humanity by doing everything we can come up with to reduce the pollution, plastic waste, hormones in the water, to slow down climate change. Someone's environment including what they eat can cause them despair.
1
When I was younger, I had an intense interest in Ireland and The Troubles. I was part of a study group of Hibernians that watched in horror as Bobby Sands starved himself to death, as another primitive explosive went off on a London subway, and kept trying to figure out why. Why would they do this? Keep doing this?
I came to the conclusion that when people feel like they have nothing left to lose , they act like it. Why care about tomorrow when you have nothing going right today? It's a hard place to get stuck and even harder to get out.
8
@Jills
And yet Irishman continued to believed in a way forward and now the Republic is a a reality and despite its growing plains is a vibrant and proud country.
1
The article speaks of broad sweep solutions offered by pols, social scientists, religious leaders. I am sure they are all correct.
I am skeptical because the proposed solutions are intuitively obvious; how could they not help.
Solutions are conceptualizable if the multiple, strongly interactive causes were identified and assessed, and their impact on suicides estimates. I suspect this data exists, and smart people - who function outside of political and policy realms - have figured this out to one extent or another. Causes are clearly befuddling; e.g., some 20 suicides per day among vets, many who were never deployed, are not easy to understand.
When words such as stress, despair, declining trust, are in use - as they are in this article - I worry that we don't know what we are talking about. The time of total happiness, trustfulness, and hopefulness was always something old people recalled having lost their teeth, and finding it difficult to dominate others. Are middle aged, working class, uneducated Americans - a demographic that exhibits alarming rates of suicides as a result of taking too few needed drugs and too many unneeded ones - indeed worse off than the Rohingya, the Yazidis, or those rotting in Rohingya camps?
It is sad and ironic that this same demographic made Trump possible and chortle at every act of cruelty he perpetrates; i.e., an effective step toward a nihilistic solution for everyone else.
2
Essentially, the drug problem is the global climate problem on the level of the individual body, our collective problem caused by a culture of greed & short term benefits.
5
A big problem with your comparison with "climate change" is that you are using the wrong label. Instead of "climate change," we should use the more accurate descriptor: the 6th mass extinction. This extinction includes us. It is underway. No drug problem can compare with mass extinction.
9
One of the problems is a pervasive feeling of exclusion, being left behind, isolated, as social media smiles and brags and flaunts. And this feeling of isolation is fed everytime someone picks up their smartphone -- which ilike 200 times aday or more. How to smother that onslaught of exclusion? Drink, drugs, escape. Only to wake-up, smartphone in hand, the barrage continues. Couple this barrage with low pay, lack of access, credit debt and culture becomes toxic. It's no wonder people are falling into a vortex of depression and escape. Maybe one solution is less smartphone use, more time with people, more time in nature, more teal community. I am not sure how one legislates that, debates that, seeds that. But the smartphone addiction epidemic starts early in middle school and high school.
6
Perhaps it's a feeling of being obsolete, superfluous, useless and no longer a needed cog in the machinery of civilization that has brought on this "age of despair and despondence."
Civilization can be cruel because there are no hard and fast rules for mere mortals to play by. Just like all those coal mining jobs, auto assembly line jobs, that were here one day on gone the next.
I have a feeling that the great strides that are being made in electronics and robotics will only add to this feeling of despair by those being left out.
7
Russ, I rarely agree with you about topics, but I think you hit this on right on the head. There IS so much despair out there you could cut it with a knife.
Speaking purely for myself I’ve been effectively unemployed for nearly ten year despite Homeric efforts to find work. This isn’t because I don’t have education, I have two Masters degrees. Nor is it due to lack of experience. After deep thought I’ve come to the conclusion that any unemployed man after age 50 might as well not exist.
Feeling invisible to a society that values work is easily on of the most corrosive experiences a Person can have. As another commenter wrote, when the pain of living is greater than the fear of death, suicide looks like a rational choice.
12
@Jeremy Paulson
do not despair my friend. I lost my job of 40 years on my 60th birthday( not for cause but the VC's who bought it ran it into bankruptcy.
I'm still struggling with this but there are things out there besides work....yes this society values employment but I have been hearing about a lot of people
who are losing their jobs.
I'm learning to sew and cook better meals.
stay strong.
7
@Jeremy Paulson I am so sorry for your troubles and hard times. I don't have two masters degrees, and will never make a lot of money doing what I do. I am a nurse, and our work has always been undervalued.
If you went to a home care agency and took a job as an aide, you would probably make minimum wage. You would also find that people need you, value you, and look forward to seeing you. You would find that your existence matters, that you matter, that your worth has nothing to do with how much money you make or having a fancy job. You are here! You are part of the team and we need you.
1
Thank you. And strength to you too, friend.
” Jordan Peterson to Marianne Williamson”
Good grief. An appeal to this pablum is a large part of the problem. There are truly intelligent people in the world wrestling with these larger issues whether they be scientific, social, religious or philosophical and perhaps instead of amplifying these mediocre attention seekers you could seek out and amplify the voices of individuals who actually have real ideas. The solutions to our problems will not be found in looking to the past. There’s a dark fixation in this country with staring into the rear view mirror. This does nothing but breed resentment, self pity and grief about things long gone and fading into the distance. Those people have lost all perspective and that rabbit hole of despair leads to self destruction. It’s like a sad drunken wake with occasional fist fights that never ends. Thankfully, other Americans do not long for the past, or if they do, are rational and sane enough to accept that it is gone. Grieve and move on. What we do have is today and hopefully a future. So Americans need to snap out of it and start mapping the way forward with real world solutions to the challenges and obstacles that we are facing together and voting for representatives who talk more about what this country could be and less about what it once was.
4
@Anon
With all do respect, I truly doubt that any person at any time in history in any place, ever 'snapped out of it" because some guy told him or her to.
1
Full disclosure: I have no idea what an ‘online Nietzschean’ is, and if I did, I wouldn’t find myself interesting enough to be one.
That said, ‘Twilight of the Idols’, and ‘The Anti-Christ’ (to say nothing of his earlier works), are both scathing critiques of the society that Nietzsche saw crumbling before his eyes.
‘Epistemology’ is as important now as it was in the nineteenth century, whether or not anyone knows how to define the word. Without a foundational basis upon which knowledge might rest, all we have is the Abyss.
1
"[...] and an increase in depression and suicide generally, and among young people especially, that has more mysterious causes (social media? secularization?) and might only yield to a psychological and spiritual response."
Spiritual response is not an answer. According to the Pew Center, 53% of Americans say that religion is very important to them as opposed to 10% in Sweden,Japan, Germany, 18% in Australia, and 27% in Canada. All those countries do not have problems described in this column. Clearly it is not the absence of spiritual life that is behind American despair, but severe economic inequality, lack of defined pension plans, fear of being ruined by catastrophic illness, to name just of the few factors. Couple that with GOP being completely deaf to the needs of the citizens but being determined to make the top 1% richer and more powerful, and there lies an answer why we live in an age of American despair.
15
@Dorota Thank you Dorota. That is exactly the issue. A friend of mine who ran a major substance abuse program always used to tell me that the only way to keep an addict off drugs was to get them a good job and a decent place to live. People who have something to lose don't generally abuse drugs. I know that isn't universal, but it is largely the case.
5
@Dorota
Act ion on climate change might really help them. They're more aware of cl imate change, and it's their future getting destroyed., and they know it.
@Todd
Well, there are a lot of addicts who have good jobs and nice homes (at least till they lose them), but I think you friend is saying something useful and true.
1
In Europe people work one job, enjoy six weeks of vacation, months of parental leave, and don't worry about hospital bills, mass shootings, or finding affordable college or child care. That leaves them free to focus on family, friends, hobbies, and communities (whether centered around religion, sports, whatever).
Maybe when Americans figure out how to live like this, prioritizing all the different dimensions of a human life, instead of just eking out an existence for the sake of making more money for people who are already wealthy, you'll see the despair ebb away.
49
Ross, I sure hope you're right about there being new (better?) forms of meaning in our future because the current trends are terrifying.
I just attended a presentation from a physician member of the federal task force on opioids: one slide said it all. Not only are the trends for deaths by overdose up for opioids up dramatically, they are rising for nearly every type of drug; uppers, downers, and street. Surprisingly, overdose deaths attributable to prescription opioids were, in fact, trending down - doctors got the message first.
The graphic data was an eye-opener and a call to action. There is something very foundational and very dysfunctional going on in America society. And, as your piece points out, there are many elements needed to combat this societal tragedy.
I must put my money on the decline of the natural family unit both the root cause and the ultimate antidote. I hope some academic superimposes rates of divorce, fatherless childrearing, the rise of "nones," and increase in violent entertainment over the upward trends in deaths of despair. I bet they track in parallel over decades.
Correlation does not prove causation in every case, but it can tell us that there's something important going on.
I hope there is a better future, but it will take a level of honesty that will be painful because in the end, we freely chose all of the things that have landed us where we are.
1
The Lord knows I'm drinking....
Our world is being transformed, and for the better. Directives for the termination of the causes of our despair are already in place. The force or forces as you called them are up there and in their appointed time will change everything. A more accurate title would read that we are coming out of our age of despair.
1
@Joe Gilkey What in the heck are you talking about?
1
@Lifelong New Yorker The world is in a sceduled wake up.
Visit the Pacific Northwest?
Mr. Douthat lists several different approaches that could help. I'd recommend the All Of The Above option.
At a run rate of 1.5m deaths a decade, it ought to count as one of the biggest problems in the country (and in this one, too). Is anyone predicting that, all on its own, it's about to stop getting worse?
2
Like a typical conservative, Ross' disdain for climate change oozes. According to Ross, we need to solve "a more immediate crisis." Climate change will only cause 4,000 to 10,000 additional heat-related deaths by 2099, 70 or years from now, versus the 70,000 additional deaths from despair now.
This perspective is wrong. There is no larger, more important, or even more immediate threat humanity faces. We are changing our world for the worse and we are nor taking appropriate action
Such language is wrong. Slyly understating the problem (or disingenuously citing hear related deaths as the core damage/problem) supports existing anti-aging perspective and an emotional laissez faire that perpetuates our inaction.
Sure, we can and should deal with more than one problem at a time. But let's not downplay the more important in order to help us focus on other issues.
12
@Paul: Amen!
I have major depression disorder, am a heavy smoker, and drinker, and morbidly obese, and long term unemployed but other than that I’m totally fine. My crisis is not so much spiritual as it is my attitude towards all things American has gotten progressively worse since around the start of the Iraq War. This nation seems sick to me, probably because my mental and overall health is not good, but also because it seems so as reflected in our politics and culture. As crazy as this sounds I think the alcohol and tobacco help me somehow.
7
Ross Perot was right. And despair is often permanent, with predictable outcomes. Trump is one...thank you, Barack Obama! And Bush and Clinton before that!
1
There are no simple answers to complex problems, so Ross is on the right track of assembling a set of actions. But if you want to mention suicide, you should point out "more than half of suicide deaths involved firearms—over 21,000 in 2013." Our prevalence of guns increases the odds of death from attempts from 8% to 85%.
13
A number of commentators rag on the 1%, as if their wealth makes them immune from the issues described by Mr. Douthat. As the recent death or Saorise Kennedy shows, this is not the case.
This is everywhere and it effects everyone.
4
It's not that their wealth makes them immune, it's that the policies most of them support harm and even destroy the quality of life for tens of millions.
5
Political, economical, or spiritual? Why not a medical crisis? Drug addiction is a disease - treat it as such.
1
Conservatives don't believe in healthcare.
1
Here are some more obvious reasons for the rise:
Drug companies, driven by profit and greed, addicted millions to opioids, the proliferation of heroin and fentanyl are directly related.
Easy access to guns makes it easier to carry through on suicidal impulses.
15
@Johnny
Remember not to let criminal Chinese fentanyl makers off the hook.
When you make people redundant, when you see them only as a mark or a commodity for wealth extraction, when you promise folks prosperity if only they work hard enough or pray fervently enough, when you brainwash them from childhood that their subservience within a hierarchy of worth that degrades their very being will gain them some amorphous benefit in an unseen world, when misfortune is somehow their fault, when economic insecurity stalks the disadvantaged and near poor to the grave without hope getting ahead, when community interaction is vaporously digital instead of vibrantly didactic, when food becomes an addictive substance that distorts, distends and kills the mind/body rather than nourishes it, when the resulting sickness and death are monetized to pry from them their last bit of dignity, … then the pain of life, inevitably for some, overtake their fear of death.
44
@Anam Cara Why is this not a Times Pick?
2
@Anam Cara
Exactly especially the last line.
1
It seems to me a predictable side effect of our style of capitalism. When government, voters, churches, hospitals, insurers, and our media value money more than human life or experience, it’s no wonder people despair.
24
People with drug problems have long been viewed by too many as the human equivalent of Drano, to be flushed down the drain and out of sight. They are widely viewed as self-destructive, self-indulgent and, therefore, not worthy of either compassion or assistance.
Turning a blind eye to the problems of others has long been too commonplace in this country. For many, if something doesn't reach out and touch them, it is not a reality to be dealt with. For such people, if something requires a publicly funded effort in order to be dealt with, it is a burden and waste of resources.
Compounding this is a general bias against what are regarded as self-inflicted problems, including drug abuse. Drug abusers are perceived as being weak, unwilling to address their own issues, and outliers in a society that prizes self-reliance and contributors over those who, for whatever reason, are incapable of doing so.
In short, the notion of even having a safety net in this country has been increasingly sidelined, particularly as financial resources are perceived to be scarce, and competition for public funds becomes increasingly fierce.
We are left with a growing segment of the population deemed by too many to be unworthy, supported by a national leadership that is more determined to protect drug manufacturers instead of the people they kill, while protecting gun manufacturers rather than those killed by their products.
If that isn't a reason for despair, I don't know what is.
15
A significant source of this despair IMHO, is the turn inward our lives have taken since first TV and then the internet have replaced life with virtual life. We need not venture out to have real experiences, meet real people, encounter beliefs different from our own, seek companionship, fulfillment, and excitement among the living, breathing humans we live with rather than stay home and sate ourselves with television and internet pornography - the masters of our own domain. We live in a bubble of our own making where to quote Ned Beatty's character Arthur Jansen in the 1976 film Network: "all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused". No longer content to make our way in the world, to make our own lives, is it any wonder that we are spiritually adrift and morally destitute, and so sink into despair? Instead of self-medicating, Americans need to start living and to do that, burst the bubble and venture forth.
9
Russ, Why do you focus on the Demoncratic candidates when the Trump administration and the Republican Party own the problem right now? Former Pennsylvania Congressman Marino, along with other key sponsors, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), promoted the the so-called Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act that prevented the DEA from enforcing the law concerning opiate sales. This bill threw the door wide open for the illegal opiate sale that result in the vast opiate problem we have now. There is more than a year left for Trump administration to start saving lives. Please direct your attention there where it can start saving lives. Don't focus your attention on the possibility of a future Democratic adminstration addressing this problem more than a year down the line. Waiting means more than 100000 lives will be lost while waiting for the current adminstration to be voted out of office.
16
For some it may simply be a matter of pragmatism, the reason I can envision myself joining their ranks. Once my parents pass, I will no longer have familial obligations. I've lived a very full and rich life, but am single with no heirs. When my health begins to fail, I'd much rather bring things to a close then and let the organizations to whom my assets are bequeathed use them to improve the lives of others than sustain mine for a limited amount of time. It is simple cost/benefits analysis in my case.
12
@JBC
No talks about it openly, but I suspect that circumstances like you describe are the real reason that many men insist on keeping at least one gun around the house.
@JBC
I would say you should find something pleasurable as a reward for meeting your familial obligations.
Doesn't "feel" like a coincidence? The only way to deal with this is to listen to "cultural healers?" Sounds like another attempt to substitute religion for science, and to let policy makers off the hook for not fixing the technical problems; access to health care, meaning opportunity for all citizens, and misguided drug policies.
11