[lbo-talk] America the meshuga

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

> Crazy Rich:
> Are Americans successful because they're nuts?
> 
> By Daniel Gross
> 
> Are Americans rich because they're nuts?
> 
> That's the thesis of a new book, The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a
> Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America, by John D. Gartner, a
> psychotherapist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the
Johns
> Hopkins University Medical School. America may be the dominant force in
the
> global economy because we're a nation made of somewhat Crazy Eddies-gonzo
> businessmen and -women who may be genetically predisposed to take big-time
> risks.
> 
> It sounds right. Creativity and genius have often been linked to mental
> illness. Many virtuoso painters, composers, and architects are a little
> kooky. Why not entrepreneurs? Gartner identifies "hypomania" as a benign
> form of madness-manic without the depressive. Here's how they present:
> "Hypomanics are brimming with infectious energy, irrational confidence,
and
> really big ideas. They think, talk, move, and make decisions quickly.
Anyone
> who slows them down with questions 'just doesn't get it.' " They find it
> hard to sit still, channel their energy "into the achievement of wildly
> grand ambitions," feel a sense of destiny, "can be euphoric," have a
> tendency to overspend, take risks, and act impulsively, and with poor
> judgment. They are "witty and gregarious" and possess a confidence that
> makes them charismatic and persuasive. It sounds a lot like Jim Clark, the
> founder of Netscape and animating character of Michael Lewis' The New New
> Thing. Or like President Bush.
> 
> Gartner concludes that many of the components of the archetypal American
> character-optimism, entrepreneurial energy, religious zeal-fit the
hypomanic
> profile. Perhaps, he posits, this nation of immigrants has a gene pool of
> hypomanics. Immigration may select for it. After all, who else would be
> eager to embark on a dangerous journey, convinced he could make it in the
> New World? As a result, Gartner writes, Americans may be "culturally and
> genetically predisposed to economic risk." ...

Sounds like utter bullshit to me, written by a quack not a doctor.  The good
doctor is probably right when he claims a link between affective disorders,
such as depression or bipolar, and creativity.  He errs, however, when he
extends his claims to the population.

For this argument to hold, he must establish that US-sers are more likely to
have affective disorders than other nations - a rather difficult (if not
impossible) task due to serious reporting reliability problems.  Without
that assumption, his argument is a non sequitur.  The good doctor probably
senses that, but cannot produce the required numbers, so instead relies on
popular stereotypes.  That makes it quackery not science in my book.

So far, the best explanation of the US superiority I can think of is what I
call the theatre theory of development.  The best seats in a theatre go not
to those who can act well, or can write good plays, or have superior
knowledge of performing arts, but to those who got their tickets first.
Those who came late must take whatever seats are available or even be
refused admission.  

Ditto with development.  Europeans and US-ers were lucky to be at the right
place and the right time to get an unobstructed (say, by vestiges of the
past) jump start in industrialization slightly ahead of everyone else - and
that got them the best seats in the world theatre.  They will keep those
seats until they are either unseated or the theater gets re-arranges by
larger forces.  Stated differently, they owe their superior status on the
world scene to a combination of luck and the absence of external constraints
at a strategic moment in history - not to their inherent superiority.  Any
other nation would also do equally well if it found itself in similar
circumstances.

Wojtek