Does America Need More Neighborhood Pubs?
A recent comparison of the mental and physical health of Americans and Britons raises some intriguing questions. Consider these data points:
- Americans spend 2.5 more on health care than do Brits – yet have higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, lung disease, and cancer.
- The richest, healthiest Americans are as sick as the poorest Brits.
- Americans work far longer than Brits (and other Europeans), and are more likely to hold two jobs – virtually unheard of in Britain.
In searching for explanations, the focus goes to the fact that Americans seem to value wealth and work over social connections, in the view of a British epidemiology team, led by Sir Michael Marmot at the University College London Medical School. One reason for this, of course, can be seen in the lack of social safety nets Americans face. Compare Britain, which like most European countries, has a far more humane social system: in England, a student might pay about $3,000 a year for a university education (and in other European countries the government pays the whole thing); everyone who retires in Britain gets both a company and a government pension; health care is free. Americans, by contrast, live in fear of losing health care, not having enough money to retire on, or huge education bills.
Even among the well-to-do, contentment remains elusive: No matter how much people earn, their desires grow with their earning power. This insatiable pleasure-seeking has been called by Daniel Kahneman the “hedonic treadmill,” meaning that no matter what you have now, the yearning for more will grow proportionately – keeping you on an endless spending spree. Intriguingly, the country with highest rates of contentment worldwide is Denmark – whose people also have the lowest expectations for material comforts.
Add to America’s cultural malaise the fact that our networks of friends seems to be shrinking. Between 1985 and 2005, the average number of confidantes people reported dropped from three to two. By contrast, British and other European cultures place more importance on social connections than money. In Britain, for instance, every neighborhood has a pub, a place where neighbors go most nights to get together. By contrast, Americans disappear into their homes, doors locked.
This shrinking of personal contact may itself take a health toll. Carnegie Mellon psychologist Sheldon Cohen has found the more personal relationships a person has, the more healthy they are.
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... to the website and blog of psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., author of the New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships.
7 Responses to “Does America Need More Neighborhood Pubs?”
By Andrew Gilmartin on Jan 31, 2008 | Reply
Modern Americans display success. Financial success brings on one kind of display — the house, the car, the better cut of the suit, etc. Pumping iron brings on another. And WalMart (or perhaps it is China) enables even the unsuccessful their display. As long as we parade our success we doom our children to perpetuate the situation.
By Donald Hoover on Feb 9, 2008 | Reply
Darwin was wrong. It is Not the survival of the fitest.
It is the survival of those who have learned to live with others.
djay
By Chris Batto on Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
The reasons are clear to everyone who lives outside America.
Your people are poorly educated and oppressed by the industrial military complex and corporate power stranglehold that is radically unbalanced with the human rights of your own citizens. People that are in prison and have no opportunity for unbiased education…have no chance to succeed.
This brings into question the value of leadership education when we see it coming to us from an American Perspective. What little basic education that is provided to your people is at best weak, insular indoctrination. What do they know of the world. Thinking themselves better and better off. The Russians were smart enough to know they were being lied to!
Your people face an endless onslaught of corporate propaganda and flag waving that would make Hitler envious. He managed to align the goals of his people toward the task of conquering nations and exterminating races. Your corporate rulership has used its brainwashing to kill its own people. “Proud” to create a nation of fat, diabetic idiots eating sugar coated shit and believing they are sitting on top of the world.
The rest of the world has a hard time finding any logic, reason, compassion, or vision in American leadership. America sits on top of a precipice…. Leadership….who are you fooling!
By Jake Kirchhoff on Feb 16, 2008 | Reply
Reading this being an a college student in America really strikes a cord in my heart because it is exactly what I’ve been thinking and it makes it hard to take an exam about some useless class when I know there are much greater needs in America. Its a system in which we have laws that are taking money from the working pockets when McDonalds and other large cooporations are allowed to sell food that is clearly a helping factor contributing to obesity and heart disease which causes healthcare system to rise to unaffordable rates and continues down the line. A huge step in the bettering of America is definatley out diet and there should be some responsibllity and legal issues to things that are clearly harming America even thought it may not have been known at the point in time when they opened. I’m representing a new change in America and its needs if anyone is interested contact me a 22ndCenturyNutrition to fight the cause.
By f hay on Mar 19, 2008 | Reply
Just to clarify a point - everyone in Britain does NOT have a company and state pension! It depends on personal circunstances. Due to changes few people have good compnay pension schemes and government pensions rely on you National Insurance contributions. For women who have career breaks to raise their children and for people caring for relatives this often mens little or no pension. Please don’t think all pensioners in Britain are better off!
By Anonymous on Mar 29, 2008 | Reply
Sounds like an interesting study. I’d like to read it myself, where can I find it?
By Bakari on Apr 10, 2008 | Reply
Social connections and a rich social environment has been a key in keeping me happy and satisfied with my life…