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Musings Report 2017:16 4-22-17 Are We (Collectively) Depressed?
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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. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
Are We (Collectively) Depressed?
Psychoanalysis teaches that one cause of depression is repressed anger.
The rising tide of collective anger is visible in many places: road rage, violent street clashes between groups seething for a fight, the destruction of friendships for holding the "incorrect" ideological views, and so on.
I Think We Can Safely Say The American Culture War Has Been Taken As Far As It Can Go.
A coarsening of the entire social order is increasingly visible:
The Age of Rudeness.
This raises a larger question: are we as a society becoming depressed as we repress our righteous anger and our sense of powerlessness as economic and social inequality rises?
Depression is a complex phenomenon, but it typically includes a loss of hope and vitality, absence of goals, the reinforcement of negative internal dialogs, and anhedonia, the loss of the joy of living (joie de vivre).
Depressive thoughts (and the emotions they generate) tend to be self-reinforcing, and this is why it's so difficult to break out of depression once in its grip.
One part of the healing process is to expose the sources of anger that we are repressing. As psychiatrist Karen Horney explained in her 1950 masterwork Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization, anger at ourselves sometimes arises from our failure to live up to the many "shoulds" we've internalized, and the idealized track we've laid out for ourselves and our lives.
The recent article The American Dream Is Killing Us does a good job of explaining how our failure to obtain the expected rewards of "doing all the right things" (getting a college degree, working hard, etc.) breeds resentment and despair.
Since we did the "right things," the system "should" deliver the financial rewards and security we expected. This systemic failure to deliver the promised rewards is eroding social mobility and the social contract while generating frustration, anger, etc.
We are increasingly angry at the system, but we reserve some anger for ourselves, because the mass-media trumpets how well the economy is doing and how some people are doing extremely well. Naturally, we wonder, why them and not us? The failure is thus internalized.
One response to this sense that the system no longer works as advertised is to seek the relative comfort of echo chambers--places we can go to hear confirmation that this systemic stagnation is the opposing political party's fault.
We don't just self-sort ourselves into political "tribes" online--we congregate in increasingly segregated communities and states: The Simple Reason Why A Second American Civil War May Be Inevitable.
Americans are moving to communities that align more with their politics. Liberals are moving to liberal areas, and conservatives are moving to conservative communities. It’s been going on for decades. When Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976, 26.8% of Americans lived in landslide counties; that is counties where the president won or lost by 20% of the vote.
By 2004, 48.3% of the population lived in these counties. This trend continues to worsen. As Americans move to their preferred geographic bubbles, they face less exposure to opposing viewpoints, and their own opinions become more extreme. This trend is at the heart of why politics have become so polarizing in America.
We’re self-sorting at every level. Because of this, Americans are only going to grow more extreme in their beliefs, and see people on the other side of the political spectrum as more alien."
Part of the American Exceptionalism we hear so much about is a can-do optimism: set your mind to it and everything is possible.
The failure to prosper as anticipated is generating a range of negative emotions systemically and internally that are "un-American": complaining that you didn't get a high-paying secure job despite having a college degree (or advanced degree) sounds like sour-grapes: the message is you didn't work hard enough, you didn't get the right diploma, etc.
The inability to express our despair and anger generates depression. Some people will redouble their efforts, others will seek to lay the blame on "the other" (some external group) and others will give up.
Perhaps we need a national dialog about declining expectations, rising inequality and system failures that avoids the blame-game and the internalization trap (i.e. it's your own fault you're not well-off).
We need ways to express our resentment, anger, despair, etc. that are directed at the source, the complex system we inhabit, not "the other." We need to encourage honesty above optimism. Once we can speak honestly, there is a foundation for optimism.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Our State-Corporate Plantation Economy 4/21/17
Marx, Orwell and State-Cartel Socialism 4/20/17
Our Intellectual Bankruptcy: The "Religion" of Economics, UBI and Medicare For All 4/19/17
The Left's Descent to Fascism 4/18/17
What's Your Plan B? 4/17/17
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Recorded another movement of the "Kitchen Sink Concerto" with my friend C.C.
Market Musings: Financials
Financials and copper are often viewed as bellwethers of the entire stock market. So let's glance at a chart of the XLF etf (financials).
Technical analysis lends itself to "confirmation bias," which means that if you study a chart with the goal of confirming your already-formed opinion, you can often find a pattern to support your view.
This is why common patterns such as "head-and-shoulders" and "inverse head-and-shoulders" can't be the sole foundation of one's analysis--they're too easy to stretch or find.
With that grain of salt in mind, the inverse head-and-shoulders in this chart fairly pops out. This is a bullish signal, and sure enough, XLF broke out (along with stock markets around the globe) in early November--the so-called "Trump reflation trade" which has been driven by massive asset purchases by central banks.
XLF is now within support/resistance at a higher level. MACD is conducive to further decline, but the stochastocs are approaching deeply oversold.
If current support breaks, XLF could round-trip back to the breakout level around $20. If it consolidates in the current range, it could move higher.
Analysts agree stock markets are over-valued in terms of price-earnings ratios, but if financials and copper both mover higher and take out recent highs, that suggests wider markets may have another leg up in store.
Overvalued markets can always get even more overvalued.
From Left Field
To Be a Genius, Think Like a 94-Year Old -- think independently, work on hard problems...
Mechanic-Candidate Bursts French Political Elite's Bubble -- I love this guy!
Cooking Lessons: Disillusioned with fine dining, one of the world’s great chefs took on fast food. It has been harder than he ever imagined. Long form article, interesting if you want to understand why "healthy fast food" is difficult to make and do profitably.
Could you survive on just one food? (via Steve K.) -- just for fun...
The empty brain: Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer
Cars and second order consequences of driverless vehicles -- well worth a read...
Teaching a driverless car to turn left -- not that easy...
U.S. waterways pack a slew of chemical compounds, from pesticides to pharmaceuticals (via Steve K.)
AN OFF-GRID SOCIAL NETWORK (via Lew G.)
The number of deaths from smoking has gotten worse instead of better (via Steve K.)
Growing isolation of poor helps explain changes in concentrated poverty (via Brandonrox10)
A Quarter of Millennials Who Live at Home Don’t Work — or Study (via Joel M.)
Meet the 25 year old selling supercars to rich Chinese college kids (via Maoxian)
"Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room." Winston Churchill
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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