Musings Report #33 8-11-12 Doing Good, Doing Well
You are receiving this email because you are one of the 496 subscribers/major contributors to www.oftwominds.com.
For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights, and thank you for supporting the site.
Quick Note about Email
I owe many of you emails, and ask your understanding and forebearance while I take a few weeks away from email. I have read tens of thousands of emails since launching the blog in May 2005, and written at least 10,000 replies (I don't keep precise totals of such things.) At some point burnout shrivels my ability to maintain a high level of workflow and I shut down the machine to keep it from overheating/exploding.
Doing Good, Doing Well
There is an old and bitter maxim that describes the missionaries who sailed to Hawaii in the mid-1800s: "They came to do good and stayed to do well." Is it easier to "get rich" than to do good? Can you get rich doing good?
These questions help me crystallize one purpose of my work on the blog and in my books, which is to re-integrate meaning, work, happiness and our marketing/consumerist culture and economy.
In general, we assume (with much nudging) that wealth and happiness are tightly correlated, i.e. getting rich will deliver greater happiness just as a matter of causality. Yet studies find the correlation to be far weaker than generally assumed. This reflects the compartmentalization of marketing, economics and psychology: psychologists study human happiness in families and individuals, and occasionally in workplaces, but rarely in an entire economy/society.
I have argued in "Resistance, Revolution, Liberation" that our marketing/consumer-based economy excels in distributing social defeat; indeed, social defeat (the surrender of autonomy, acceptance of low social status, a permanent state of anxiety and insecurity, dependence on the Central State) and increasing inequality are direct causal consequences of the Status Quo. This derangement is so backgrounded and "natural" that we fail to see it, much less expose it to critical inquiry.
In his mid-1960s analysis of Marxism and Existentialism, the "Critique of Dialectical Reason," Jean-Paul Sartre reckoned the root drive of humanity was "besoin" (need): we respond to need, and economics and politics arise from those responses.
Recent scientific research into human happiness has located a distinction between "want" and "need" that corresponds to the difference between gratification and fulfillment. The drug addict seeks the gratification of a desperate need, yet the "hit" does not generate happiness in the sense of joy or fulfillment.
The entire purpose of consumerist marketing is to transform a "want" into a "need," and thus to turn potential fulfillment into unfulfilling gratification. Meaning and joy are reduced to addictive-like urges that demand gratification.
If we define "doing well" as having excess income and wealth to spend on consumerist gratification, we have defined the wellspring of discontent and unhappiness. If we define "doing good" as experiencing fulfillment and happiness, then it seems "doing well" (accumulating wealth) is ontologically distant from doing good.
If we re-integrate our understanding of human happiness with our critique of the marketing/State/consumerist Status Quo, we get a clearer understanding why "growth" and "wealth" yield so little meaning and fulfillment while producing such an abundance of alienation and disappointment.
Market Musings
Global stock markets continue to be held aloft with duct tape and Superglue (officially sanctioned manipulation). Volume is at post-Christmas levels, complacency is high, and yet key leading indicators such as the Shanghai Index and the Baltic Dry Index have broken support levels. The market can't quite accept that "better" economic data precludes QE3; the "better" (and generally bogus) data gives the Fed political cover to skip QE3 at its 8/31 meeting.
The data isn't "good" enough to actually reflect real growth, nor is it "bad" enough to trigger QE3. Meanwhile, a mountain of data is reflecting global recession.
The "better" data is more like seawater receding just before a tsunami hits. The only question is what will trigger market-player recognition that the Fed isn't going to "save" the market at current levels. As I noted earlier this week on the blog, the Fed et al. can only manipulate the market in low volume settings where it controls the news flow. Once those two conditions are mooted, the Fed cannot stop a cascade in selling.
The level of faith in the Fed's power to hold markets aloft at current levels is truly extraordinary, as is the market's dependence on Central Planning intervention. Everyone knows this is not a healthy market, but nobody wants to sell lest the Fed unleash a QE3 rally.
The market feels like "earthquake weather"--heavy and unstable.
From Left Field
Why Inequality Matters: The Housing Crisis, The Justice System & Capitalism (via Joel M.) "One of the central characteristics of highly unequal societies is that two sets of laws develop: One set for the rich and powerful and one set for everyone else."
The Heavy Burden on Athletes Takes Joy Away From China’s Olympic Success (via Maoxian) Draconian Soviet-style system rips children from their homes for the "greater glory" of gold medals; when athletes falter, they are tossed aside. "The Communist Party set out to change (its low medal count) in 2002, when it began Project 119, a program that uses prodigious state resources and relentless training to groom potential gold medalists in sports like swimming, gymnastics and track and field."
The Forgotten Story of Peter Norman-- this is a haunting yet life-affirming story from the tumultuous 1968 Olympics, relating to one of the most famous and controversial photos in Olympic history. Definitely worth reading.
Thanks for reading--
charles