Thinking of Boethius again

He really was a pretty smart guy...


By every measure known to man, this is the best time in history to be alive, and this is the best place to live. Try to argue that it isn't (why does "it's not sound diffrent from "it isn't"?) and you will quickly discover its truth. We are richer, more educated, live longer and healthier lives, have more free time and less work, than any generation in history.

And yet the proper name for our time may very well be "The Age of the Psyhotherapist". We are, in addition to being the best-off generation in history, the most depressed generaion in history. Why?

I think that the two are inextricably linked. For most of human history, substinence has been the rule. Outside of a few individuals, greed has traditionally been a pretty distant sin. It's hard to aquire material wealth when all you have is what you make with your hands. When something is completely out of reach we tend to forget about it. But as our society has produced unparalleled wealth, we have aquired the habit. This is not a fundamental change in human nature, but rather a shift in emphasis. Through practice, our greed muscles have been strengthened to such a degree that they dominate our lives to the point that we can't imagine living without them.

It is importan to point out however, that we don't notice it. It is not, in most cases, an active pursuit. It is a passive process thaat has grown with each generation. I am more tied to material posessions and less likely to wait for what I want than my parents are..

So where does Boethius come in? He arugued rather convincingly that the source of human unhappiness is the pursuit of same in fortunes gifts. In other words, the reason we are unhappy is that we have pursued happiness in all the wrong places. As we have moved from substinence to extravagance we have seen this shift as a goal in and of itself. This increases our anxiety level, because even if we don't admit it, we all know that what fortune has given fortune has taken away. This leads to the rash of hyperanxiety and depression that has swept out culture.

Perhaps we have all become the rich young ruler to whom the idea of surrendering his wealth was such a foriegn concept that he walked away from the Kingdom of God.

Or maybe not, maybe all this material wealth really has made our lives better and depression is just a sign of civilizational decay.

Boethius said

"Anxiety is a necessary condition of human happiness since happiness is never completely acheived and never permenantly kept."

What he meant was that in order to be truly happy you must not be dependant on the whim of Fortune--the vision that appeared to him.

Its truth can be seen around us. I've had a number of conversations lately about the consumer culture we live in. If you hang around a church long enough you will hear it condemned. But technology has made our lives safer, longer and more comfortable. We actually have free time.

So is our consumerism wrong, or right? Is the evil in technology itself? Or does our unease come from equating happiness to material wealth?

Somewhere in the shift from sustinence to extravagance our definition of the good life changed. What is it now?