An Age of Unending Catastrophe
Are you safe from coronavirus? If you are, what happens when climate disaster strikes in a few short years? What if there’s a nuclear World War III?
In 2020, life seems in a constant state of disaster. Many Americans are feeling isolated, hopeless, anxious and depressed. Each new calamity (Did you hear about the Arctic oil spill in Russia, record temperatures at the South Pole, or fire tornadoes?) hits a world that’s already wracked by disease, economic mayhem, and bitter social divides.
But feelings of anxiety and depression were on the rise long before the COVID-19 pandemic, and predate the current political administration too. So electing a better president and turning our calendars to 2021 can’t be expected to fix much.
We’re inundated by news about myriad threats to humanity:
Is the advent of quantum supremacy going to give rise to an AI superintelligence?
Will an antibiotic-resistant superbug decimate the population?
Do corporations own too much water?
That’s not all we’re asked to worry about, either. What about systemic racism, economic recession, opioid addiction, cancel culture, indigenous land rights, LGBTQ rights, illegal immigration, refugee crises, cultural appropriation, elder abuse, agism, ablism, sexism, internment camps, genocide, civil war, border control, separatist movements, Israel and Palestine, the South China Sea, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Kashmir, Ukraine, Xinjiang, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, Mauritania, Boko Haram, cartels, gun violence, police militarization, terrorism, human trafficking, child soldiers, child labor, propaganda, religious persecution, the Great Firewall, internet access and censorship, threats to journalism, human rights abuses…
There are other catastrophes too:
Pseudoscience, anti-vaxxers, reproducibility in psychology, the scientific replication crisis and politicization, forest fires, extinction, poaching, honeybees, whales, polar bears, microplastic particles in fish, flesh-eating bacteria, giant hornets and other invasive species…
“By some estimates, at least 51% — and as much as 89% — of published papers are based on studies and experiments showing results that cannot be reproduced.”
…extreme weather events, solar flares, asteroids, ocean acidity, droughts, pollution, nuclear waste, cancer, bioweapons, Monsanto, Blackwater, Exxon, Enron, Capital One, the gender wage gap, wealth gap, social justice, AI bias, sexual harassment, abortion, white supremacy, representation, reparations, affirmative action, prisons, police unions, sanctuary cities, honor killings, #MeToo, FGM, #BLM, TERFs, SJWs, UFOs, GMOs, EMPs, UBI, ISIS, the UN, the 1%, incels, QAnon, Antifa, wokeness, privilege, intersectionality, gender roles, #OKBoomer, Gen Z, Karens, Millennials, food insecurity, health insurance, corporate conglomerates, golden parachutes, bailouts, supply chains, the Fed, the gig economy and small business, oligarchy, consumerism, capitalism, socialism, communism, anti-semitism, tribalism, nationalism, globalism, polarization, voter suppression, viewpoint diversity, gerrymandering, election integrity, super-PACs, Citizens United, lobbyists, the military-industrial complex, job automation, overpopulation, isolation, social distancing, the national debt, student debt, identity theft, quantum decryption, insider trading, corruption, patent wars, self-driving cars, government surveillance, facial recognition, fake news, deepfakes, social media, screen time, eugenics, genetic discrimination, and any other doomsday I’m missing?
With such a dense cloud of calamity overhead, it’s a wonder anyone can focus on personal growth, family, or community. Can anyone care about so many grave threats and still have anything left to give?
It should come as no surprise that anxiety and depression have skyrocketed, along with deaths of despair. It looks grim.
But what if this is more about perception than reality? Despite how things may seem, life has been getting steadily better for almost everyone, in almost every way, for the past 60 years.
So why doesn’t it feel like that?
On the bright side
In the darkness of the 24-hour news cycle, it’s easy to lose sight of the most profoundly good accomplishments humankind has achieved. If you want evidence of progress, look no farther than The New Optimists:
Extreme poverty around the globe has been almost eradicated in 30 years.
Conflict deaths are the lowest they’ve been since the 15th century. And it’s not even close.
Homicide and violent crime rates have never been lower in the USA, and police violence has dropped at a similar rate.
Medical science has increased lifespans, drastically reduced maternal death rates and increased infant life expectancy.
Polio has been eradicated from Africa and malaria cases continue to drop.
Education and literacy have reached astoundingly high rates.
We have easily enough food for the whole planet.
Access to safe drinking water rose from 76% in 1990 to 91% in 2015.
Population growth has slowed as women have gained reproductive rights and education.
Workers’ rights are more commonplace and child labor is lower than ever.
Artistic expression and career choices have flourished as economies have grown.
12. The global middle class has expanded dramatically.
Convinced yet? Of course, we can’t ignore the very real problems and challenges that face us. But we can remember that, by many objective measures, this is the best time to be alive, for almost anyone.
Yet since the year 2000, unhappiness has been surging.
Why the disconnect between perception and reality? Researchers have a number of theories, including a relatively simple one: As life continues to get better, our expectations keep getting higher and we focus our discontent on whatever problems remain.
Some other contributing factors:
We fall for nostalgic visions of how life used to be. As the saying goes, “All it takes to believe in the good old days is a bad memory.”
We fall for idealized versions of what life could be like. Sometimes it’s more comforting to compare our brains to AI than to those of our primate cousins. Is it realistic to look at the best features of other societies and wish we could implement all of them, without accounting for the negatives that come alongside? What happens if we set standards that are impossible to achieve, and are loathe to accept anything less?
There is a lot of money to be made by keeping media audiences in crisis mode. Media has refined its ability to generate advertising revenue by driving attention, outrage, polarization, fear and disgust.
We normalize good things that happen incrementally, and think catastrophic things happen more often than they do. In the past, an untimely death might have been so common that people were accustomed to tragedy — and prepared for it. By contrast, now that most children become adults and most adults grow old, untimely deaths are so rare they seem more tragic. This can lead to safetyism.
Similarly, as violence has become less common, we feel more shocked when incidents do occur.
Good health, longer lifespans, reduced warfare, clean water, quality food, and better education are not translating to feeling more satisfied about our lives.
Rather than in-person social contact, we have more screen time that allows us to compare our everyday moments to the best moments we see shared on social media.
We often think we’re lonelier than everyone else.
Close proximity comparisons and disparities are more salient to our brains — for example, we focus on the gap between ourselves and super-wealthy fellow citizens, and are less enraged about the wealth gap between the average American and the rest of the world. Keep in mind that a household that earns more than $250,000 is in the global 1%.
Some of us are caught up in the idea that good mental health is achievable at least in part via medication.
Those ideas are just scratching the surface, and the case can also be made that discontent is necessary for progress. Whatever the causes are, as life across the planet has improved, the U.S. has only become unhappier.
What to do about it
As hard as 2020 has been, turning the page to 2021 isn’t going to suddenly fix things. We may need to make peace with the idea that some things aren’t fixable. Despite that, no matter what the issue is, there are always helpers who are trying.
On the flip side, people who are closest to and most passionate about the issues tend to want your attention and have incentives (fundraising, publicity) to make sure their cause seems the most critical. So in the midst of all that, here are a few ways to stay grounded without ignoring the problems.
Recognize and acknowledge negative feelings. They’re not unreasonable.
Focus on what you can control. Everyone can play some small part without needing to fix everything.
Consider meditating in the morning and not looking at your phone until 10am.
Practice gratitude and graciousness.
Give back and pay it forward. Some can donate to causes they care most about, others can give their time to simply be there for someone.
Tune out of mass media news coverage more often. Take some time away.
Look for and share positive stories. Social media is fine-tuned to put negative and outrageous information into your feed.
Exercise if you can.
Follow world news and put crises in a bigger context.
It’s easy to have catastrophist thoughts about the state of the country and the world. There are real concerns, and they’re being amplified by media and societal forces. Millions of Americans are concerned about what will happen in the presidential election. Will there be a state-sponsored crackdown, or more vigilante violence?
Consider what happens if neither of those things occurs. Will you feel better? Evidence suggests that most Americans won’t. And 2021 won’t fix that trend. These external factors will continue to control our health and our happiness until we take care of our mental habits. Let me know in the comments if you have any more tips.