Once in a while you read something that really strikes a chord with you, managing to capture exactly what you're feelign at that moment in time. And when it really works, it manages to summarise it so succinctly, far better than you can manage by yourself (why I'm reader not a writer I would guess), and even to help explain why you might be feeling like this. Such a book is Oliver James' Affluenza. Whether it has done anything to improve my mood is debateable, being that I'm feeling lsot, frustrated and wondering what the point is in a lot of things. What is more reassuring is that it tells me that I'm not a lone in feeling like this and James' research also works wonders in explaining why.
An explanation of what has gone wrong for people, mentally, predominantly in English-speaking countries over the last thirty or forty years, how our values have been eroded and changed, and how our emotions have been manipulated into so many distressing situations, is a pretty large subjetc matter. Placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of consumerism, the cult of individuality, or to borrow the author's term, selfish capitalism, also initially seems like a bold stroke. And yet the evidence seems very difficult to argue with. The more consumerist, the less equal (see Wilkinson and Pickett's The Spirit Level) a society, the greater the desire in that society to have rather than to be, the unhappier it is and the greater levels of mental ill health.
Focusing on several different aspects of life, across many different countries, incontrovertible proof is used to show that, as The Beatles pointed out, money can't buy love, or, for that matter, happiness. Also, it seems that no matter how much you have, you never think you have enough, you always want more and that our whole economy, seemingly our whole point now, is to consume. None of which may necessarily appear that radical, but for me at least it has a different ring to it when it's backed up with evidence, rather than simply the ring of conventional (or not) wisdom. At a time when we've had disaffected swathes of the population rioting and looting in a haves versus have nots kind of way, at a time when I'm struggling to work out what I want from life, a job, a career, it all seems rather apt.
What makes this so good though, is not just the evidence, imperial and anecdotal, but the fact that suggestions are made for solutions and cures. Sure, they're not necessarily easy and sadly are most likely pipe dreams – there's poison coursing through the veins of what remains of our society, which has in itself been largely dismantled through consumerism and individuality. In parts these are just the opinions of the author, but he states as much, and often calls on a great deal of evidence and experience, and, to me at least, make a lot of sense.
A fascinating books, showing how things have been corrupted from their original intent in the post-war order, how money and business and advertising are all, at the expense of the things that really matter. It was also particularly interesting for me as my special subject at undergrad was on the culture of affluence in Britain in the 1950s and 60s, so this work references various old friends (hello Young! nice to see you Marcuse!). It's interesting to see how things have changed, how this situation has come about, how it was predicted, and how we seem to have lost ourselves. If, like me, you wonder why the hell you've been doing everything you've been doing, wondering to what end you've simply been jumping through hoops for your entire life, especially if it doesn't make you happy (it doesn't) and isn't that important (it isn't), why so many people fill their lives with so much shit, why we buy and consume in the hope of some kind of meaning, read this book. It might not help and it might not solve anything, but it might just make things a little clearer.
Sure, I fail on all kinds of levels at a lot of these thing; I'm not perfect and am happy to admit that and having alll kinds of paradoxes and hypocrisies is one of the perils of being human. And yeah, maybe it hasn't improved my mood and maybe I do feel rather disaffected at the moment, but in understanding I hope that it will help me to unravel things a bit and find some more of the important things in life – happiness, purpose, intimacy. Right now I might want to spend most of my time catching bodies coming through the rye, but goddamn it, I might just be better off that way.
Book number: 64
Title: Affluenza
Author: Oliver James
Category: Non-fiction
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