On Oct 18, 2006, at 4:14 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
> What I find depressing in the LBO discussion is that the radicals
> have turned their faces against working class aspirations, leaving
> right-wingers like Joel Kotkin to champion their ambitions for self-
> betterment. No wonder suburbanites vote Republican, if they have to
> put up with the blanket condemnation of their lifestyles from
> radicals here.
>
> The argument that these aspirations are unsustainable seems too
> conservative to me. After all, the resource that matters is human
> effort, and that is being bent to making homes where people want
> them, as opposed to where 'smart growth' says they should live.
I realize you don't believe in climate change or other ecological dangers, which makes it a lot easier to hold this position.
While Americans may tell pollsters that they're happy, you've got to realize that it's our patriotic duty to be happy, or at least simulate happiness. But not everyone's happy. Quoting myself, from After the New Economy (p. 274, n. 16):
"The exact figure for antidepressant prescriptions is 142 million in 2003. In 1999–2000, 4% of American men and 10% of American women reported antidepressant use in the previous month, and the number of prescriptions has risen considerably since then. In an average recent year, almost 7% of Americans had a major depressive episode (U.S. National Center for Health Statistics 2004, pp. 58–61)."