James H.
I was going to say, "poor you!" but then I remembered that you live in the wealthiest society on earth. And the last time that I visited, I seem to remember that it was very pleasant indeed, not least for the excellent company.
^^^ CB: Did you stay in the ghetto when you were here ?
A lot of people living in wealthy societies not only don't have much of that wealth, but seeing and knowing there is all this wealth around you, and being unable to get much of it probably makes one more miserable than people equally or more poor who are in countries where they are not teased by all that unobtainable wealth. You see it on television , but you can't get most of it, and you know or think somebody else does have it.
There is anxiety from the pressure to get as much as others have that is not there in societies with fewer "measurable social goods." It's part of the rat race. Have you heard of the "ratrace" ?
^^^^^
There is something of a culture of fear in the UK, too, I suppose. But for the most part the fears that motivate Britons are imaginary scares like East
European criminals, middle eastern terrorists, predatory paedophiles, Avian Flu, 'human-BSE', autism-inducing MMR vaccines, the heterosexual AIDS pandemic, and so on and so forth. Quite why they are prey to these nightmares is an interesting question.
In terms of measurable social goods, you would be very hard put to show that
Britain, like the rest of Europe, China, Russia, and I suspect the US too, is not much better off than it was a generation ago.
^^^^^^^ CB: Do you really fail to know that there isn't such a tight correlation between having or being around a lot of stuff and being happy ? You can't be that much of a vulgar materialist. There are diminshing returns to happiness/better off-ness from ever increasing amounts of social goods, especially when they are in your face , but you can't get most of them.