The first time I became aware of the American Malaise was in 1991. My running partner, a socialite, told me she would publish a simple living calendar if I would write 12 simple living statements to put on the calendar (I had written the classic book on the subject: Simple Living Investments for Old Age.) I wrote the 12 statements (you can read them) and she promptly rejected them as much too serious and far off the mark. The simple living that my friend had in mind was the subject that later became the material for Time’s Simple Living Magazine.
The Time magazine called Simple Living is really about preparing fast but yuppified meals, creating a wardrobe with more matching clothing and having a house full of cut flowers instead of clutter. Simple Living Magazine, with its beautiful Zen-like photography, reminds me of the recent weekly Onion parody of a 25th anniversary issue of Cosmo with the cumulative 8,129 previously published ’ways to improve your sex life.’
What my running partner had in mind.....
What my running partner had in mind was intended as a relief for the emerging American Malaise which is a sense of frustration, distress and anxiety. The direct cause, we all recognize, is over work. Simple living is irrelevant.
The root cause is not overwork, because anyone can work less. The
root cause is a serious and deep emotional conflict between a sense of
responsibility for work and a desire for more leisure. Americans have
a sense of responsibility that forces them to do something they don’t
want to do --- work more. How did this conflict arise?
We have ended up working faster and longer because of incremental changes in our work environment. I’ve watched the changes as a business consultant over a thirty year period. First came the telephone answering machine that allowed people to reliably leave messages 24-7 (24-7 is a new term that fits perfectly.) Second came the fax which allowed more complex material to be transmitted instantly 24-7. Third was FedEx (and its siblings UPS and DHL) which radically shortened the supply chain of nearly every business for physical products with next day delivery to nearly anywhere.
By 1984, all information and most physical products were being delivered to working people almost instantly and reliably. This was all before the cell phone and email.
What happened was that it became possible to do more work, faster without being constrained to office hours. We all felt responsible for our work load so we worked faster and longer.
What was the situation before these three technologies? We went to
work during the same hours as all the people we worked with …
contemporary white collar work is inherently about working with other
people. Few of us would phone or bother someone at lunch, after work
hours or on the weekend. The asynchronous working conditions the
technology brought, destroyed that social norm.
Most people take their work seriously and accept the responsibility that goes with it. The consequence is longer working hours. Including travel and home.
The situation has only gotten worse since the mid-1980s with cell phones and email.
The Internet has added the global community of people we work with 24-7 but I think that is only a marginal increase in the burden. The core burden is on our shoulders and we have not figured out how to relieve it. We accept responsibility and give away our leisure.
The combination is an internal battle royal that expresses itself as personal distress and the social reflection of distress is malaise.
Only future changes in social mores can offer relief.
Does that sound right?