The Alienation of Freedom
People whose lives contain a high degree of anxiety used to viewed as abnormally neurotic. Now anxiety is a category on the New York Times opinion blog. Variations constitute a certified mental disorder classification that affects nearly a fifth of American adults. It’s become a definitive adjective of Western society.
It certainly has become a definitive adjective for me. As a kid I had a hard time adjusting being confronted with the big, scary, uncertain world out there. Now I’ve hit my anniversary of two decades of life, and I am at a prime age of identity formation in which I’m expected to figure out who I am and what I want in life, all the while getting good grades, participating in a number of clubs, volunteering, finding internships relevant to my career path, and working because it builds character and I need to pay off my thousands in student loans.
There are those who say mental disorders are over-diagnosed and overmedicated, and I partly agree. Some think that what the DSM might diagnose as depression is really more of a natural existential rumination. Perhaps sometimes it is. But if this is true, does the human ability to reflect on our own existence necessarily lead to deep despondency and hopelessness?
I often wonder if the high (and increasing) prevalence of mental illness is really just that we are now more aware of it, or if there are changing social conditions at play.
NYT opinion blogger Tim Kreider says that it’s busyness that distracts us from a more fulfilling life:
"Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy…
I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.”
It is idleness that allows us to dream and experience the world, Kreider says. That is what makes life beautiful, and is also a condition for genius. Inventors are called dreamers for a reason.
"The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done."
I think that’s a powerful and beautiful idea. I’ve found I’m most unhappy when I don’t have goals or work to do. According to Kreider, that’s all a social construction. But then if we, as a society, need to keep busy in order to distract ourselves from the fact that what we do doesn’t matter, why do we do it in the first place? Maybe there’s something more at work, something a little darker, something having to do with the very nature of modernity.
BU sociology professor Liah Greenfeld proposes that the increasing prevalence of mental illness in society is due to the rise of nationalism. In 16th century England, a “nation” came to mean ”a sovereign community of equal members.” That idea of equality legitimized social mobility.
In modern terms, this meant democracy. Democracy means the freedom of the individual to choose their own place in society; yet this leads to inconsistent guidance and confusion in identity formation. Previously in a “religious and rigidly stratified social order…everyone’s position and behavior [was] defined by birth and divine providence.” The lack of this leads to a kind of existential discomfort, a search we’re all familiar with to “find ourselves.”
Anthropologist Margaret Mead compared young American girls with young Samoan girls, and found that adolescence in Samoa is essentially painless, despite that “growing pains” are seen as a fact of life in America. Mead said this is because Samoan communities are tight-knit, and each person knows exactly what they are going to do in their adulthood. Yet adolescents in America have to deal with so many competing values, choices, and career paths, guided by perspectives that vary even among their own family, friends, and community, and angst inevitably arises.
We value freedom so much, but what if it is this freedom that leads to the sociological phenomenon of anomie, an “alienation and purposelessness experienced by a person or a class as a result of a lack of standards, values, or ideals”?
Of course, other sociologists attribute this alienation to the ascendancy of mass society, in which an individual feels insignificant and ineffectual due to exposure to mass media and an increasingly globalized world that less and less emphasizes community. But perhaps both factors contribute to it.
All these perspectives can be boiled down to: we are alienated, and we have so many choices for our lives in society…and that leads to an anxiety borne out of the loss of identity and feelings of insignificance. For many, we find that the work we do is meaningless, and to cope we cover it up by being busy. Kreider says that a return to idleness is key, but can idleness be the answer when not all of us can be innovators? Idleness cannot distract us from the fact that our existence and most of our work don't have obvious value, as opposed to the small, tight-knit communities of Samoa.
How can we recover feelings of efficacy and community in a globalized world? I don't know, but the best I can offer is that we must build our own small communities, and find people who we will matter to. If someone can't find meaning in their work, at least we might find meaning in our relationships, and in some form chase that elusive notion of fulfillment.
