According to Greek legend, Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, was given the gift of prophecy by the god Apollo. Like Zeus, Apollo was a serial root-rat* and, when Cassandra refused to come across, he had a hissy fit and cursed her, so that no-one would ever believe her prophecies. An object lesson for any ancient Greek woman who was ever tempted to play the prick-tease with one of the gods.
Today, Pluto Press releases Don’t Panic! Nearly Everything is Better than You Think, by Cassandra Wilkinson, a book that “will cheer up everybody who reads it“. An edited extract of the book appeared in yesterday’s Age. On Wednesday, the Oz published this article by Wilkinson which also deals with the issues she discusses in her book. According to Wilkinson:
A TOXIC coalition of anti-capitalist and anti-modern commentators would have us believe that Australia’s economic success has caused a tidal wave of human misery. Anxiety, depression and sadness are tendered as evidence that freedom is not all it is cracked up to be. (the Oz)
Clive Hamilton, of the Australia Institute is a member of this toxic coalition - so are Hugh McKay, Lindsay Tanner, Ross Gittins, Simon Castles, Richard Eckersley and Fiona Stanley (named and shamed in the Oz), The Age, Simon Castles (again) and Michael Pusey (named and shamed in the The Age). Here’s what these nefarious people are up to:
A phoney crisis of national happiness is being manufactured to “prove” that economic liberalism causes depression, divorce, child abuse, environmental chaos, terrorism and bad manners. (the Oz)
Wilkinson finds the existence of this shadowy toxic coalition puzzling:
What surprises me about the “Are we happier?” debate is the capacity of apparently critical thinkers to accept the notion that we are in a crisis of happiness and wellbeing without examining what forces have been at work to re-label various aspects of human life as pathology. The same people who bemoan the dominance of marketing and commercial coercion in our lives have nonetheless themselves swallowed the propaganda of pill-peddlers and mania-merchants. (the Age)
If what Wilkinson says is true - if the “crisis of national happiness” is a phoney crisis, manufactured by a gaggle of useful idiots who don’t realise that they are merely shills for the snake-oil pharmaceutical industry, it ought to be simple enough to end the crisis by providing a few facts. The coalition reckons there’s an “epidemic” of youth suicides - let’s take a look at the available statistics and see if they show an increase in yout suicides over time. That sort of stuff.
For some reason, Wilkinson prefers to answer not with plain simple facts of that kind, but with eternal verities:
There are a few things to explore here that attack the notion that we are unhappy as a result of modernity or modern values. Firstly, it matters to understand that anxiety pre-dates the plough, the internal combustion engine and feminism. Secondly, most serious mental illnesses are rooted in our rearing and genetics. They are set before we gain an income, juggle the work-life conundrum or even face peer pressure at school. Thirdly, humans have been staring into the existential void for literally millenniums [sic]. A degree of anxiety is organic to our human nature. And finally, we need to understand who is telling us we are unhappy and why they are doing so.
The Age article is an edited extract of the book, remember. I’m not sure how the idea that “humans have been staring into the existential void for literally millenniums” is supposed to cheer anyone up, although the use of the word “literally” is laughable - what exactly would it mean to say that “humans have been staring into the existential void for figuratively millenniums”? And of course the plural is mellinium is millenia so Wilkinson’s use of “milleniums” is a bit of a giggle when you consider her pretentions to intellectual depth, freely displayed in both articles and this risible piece at New Matilda.
On my budget, I don’t expect to be buying the book any time soon, but I wouldn’t object to being slung a review copy, so I can check out whether the rest of the book is as bad as the Age’s extract and Wilkinson’s Oz article. If worst comes to worst, I can set it aside for the next time I have a few friends over to play Livres.
One thing I’m sure of - Wilkinson’s guff is going to be a lot better received than the prophecies of her ancient namesake.
* - Actually, I’m hard put to think of a single Greek god who wasn’t a root-rat.
(Image by tigtog)
Looks interesting, this. I might have a read if I get a chance. Pluto often publish decent stuff in my experience, including the excellent work of Ghassan Hage. I’m inclined towards skepticism at ideas like ‘affluenza’, and any of those heavily mediated accounts of the misery of our contemporary condition. I guess it depends on how Wilkinson’s doing the critique in the book length version. Some well-interpreted statistically-grounded arguments probably wouldn’t go astray. Thanks Gummo, for bringing this to our attention.
Wilkinson seems to be collapsing together all these different aspects of ‘modern society’ into each other, but this could be a feature of the arguments that she’s disputing as well. The Age piece is basically a very shallow response to some complex questions. I think the proof one way or the other will be in the book length argument.
I did have another thought, though: since when was happiness a value in itself? If we follow Simone de Beauvoir, happiness may be contrary to an engaged and ethical life, at least in some contexts.
There’s Prometheus for one non-root rat, Gummo. A very decent, long-suffering, humane chap, unlike some. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I try and catch up with Pan, Bacchus and Aphrodite as often as I can—and it looks like that goat in your non-sequitur picture there’s been hanging [cough] with the satyrs as well, if I may say so.
“Toxic coalition”? That lot wouldn’t know toxicity if they needed a morning middy of it to stop the shakes.
DD,
Strictly speaking Prometheus wasn’t a god, was he? Decent enough bloke, though, as you say. Like Hephaestus, Aphrodite’s hubby.
Hmm - class relations in the Greek pantheon. There’s an interesting topic!
DD, I think I may have to crank open the photoshop again and do another tagline renaming him “Non-Sequitur Goat”. The world simply does not have a sufficient supply of non-sequitur goats.
Adam,
Lumping so many disparate commentators into a “toxic coalition of anti-capitalists” etc is a full on conspiracy theory. To take just one example - Ross Gittins, on the occasions when I’ve read him arguing that modern life (as we live it) might be making us unhappy, usually starts with Adam Smith’s dictum “The object of all production is consumption”. He’s critical of this Government’s obsession with productivity etc, on the basis that they’ve completely missed the point of the economy - to provide stuff that people want to make their lives more enjoyable. Not, as the Government would have it, to work your guts out for the profitability of your employer and the greater glory of the GDP.
Wilkinson’s evident anger at Clive Hamilton, in particular, is the outrage of an ostrich on being asked “You do realise you have your head in the sand, don’t you?”
I don’t know about a conspiracy theory, but I agree that they don’t all fit, all the time, into an easily assigned ‘position’. And the ideas circulating here are more complex than Wilkinson would have us believe in the Age piece. I always find Gittins, to follow your example, much more level-headed, (and also quite interesting, for an economist) than Wilkinson’s polemic might have us believe. I have little time for Clive Hamilton’s work, but that’s another story.
I think Wilkinson’s argument would hold better if it were better theorised - for example that these kinds of questions can be assigned to a more historically specific genealogy - rather than gesturing to ‘contemplating the void’ as some human constant. But that sort of work wouldn’t have the immediacy that is sought here.
I don’t know, tigtog, I think the world has quite enough non-sequitur goat cock, even before the internet.
Ummm… marginally NSFW, in a classical kind of way.
That sort of work wouldn’t make the cash registers ring either. One link I failed to work into the post is this Amazon list of the books that inspired her to write Don’t Panic!
That’s a very interesting list, actually. This is why I like to look at bibliographies, sometimes even before the contents page or introduction of a book. See, I really liked Catherine Lumby & Duncan Fine’s ‘Why TV Is Good For Kids’ because it took some of the panicked readings of media, popular culture and consumption to task. But I don’t think Wilkinson is working from that same sober kind of perspective. The word ‘apologist’ springs to mind after reading that amazon list.
“I did have another thought, though: since when was happiness a value in itself?”
(Opps)
“I did have another thought, though: since when was happiness a value in itself?�
Adam, Bhutan is a country that takes great pride in its GNH, Gross National Happiness. Naturally, Bhutan is ruled by a bunch a Toxic Coalitionists. In the National Interest. It’s a place where fun meets the bottom line.
The tragic irony (well, one among many) is that you used to be able to count on Pluto Press for intellectual respectability, excellent editing standards, and centre-to-left politics.
Then they had a management change in 2003, thereby adding to the perception of many that the world has indeed gone to the dogs in pursuit of profits, and if you want to really depress yourself, follow that link in Gummo’s post to their home page and have a look at some of the titles they’re publishing.
Top bit of close reading meanwhile, Gummo, re literally millenniums. Two separate bits of semi-literate mis-usage in a two-word phrase has got to be some kind of record.
DD: I [cough] disembiggened that non-sequitur goat cock in photoshop, but obviously not enough. Perhaps I should do the tabloid TV pixel-blur over the groinal area?
Rose petals, tigtog.
Yeah, I took a look at the Pluto site. I can see what you mean, Pavlov’s Cat. Actually, Ghassan Hage’s ‘Against Paranoid Nationalism’ may be among the last books from Pluto that I found totally essential reading, and even that’s not as good as ‘White Nation’. Thanks for the industry insight.
PC,
Now that I’ve seen this upcoming title, I’m beyond caring.
Gummo Trotsky
Actually, i think you will find the book has been written so that for you and your ilk “if worst comes to worst, I can set it aside for the next time I have a few friends over to play LUVVIES.”
I could not be bothered reading the book, but it seems to suggest what I have slowly come to realize: Those Leftists who will not give up their 1970s-era utopian eschatology are invariably depressive and very depressing types.
Exhibit A
Oops. Forgot link
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/05/02/mines-awas-and-damn-statistics/#comment-365350
Gummo Trotsky
Prometheus most certainly was not a “good bloke!” He stole fire from Zeus, so Zeus sent us bloody Pandora!
Regarding Pluto Press there is also, on the other hand and to be fair, last year’s Ordinary People’s Politics by Judith Brett and Anthony Moran*, and from a year or two before that, Brett’s musicologist husband Graeme Smith’s Singing Australian**.
But the current list as featured on Pluto’s website looks like a different species — yes, especially the one in Gummo’s link about private schools, whose author, I note, is an art historian and therefore richly qualified to write a book about education.
* A series of interviews with the eponymous ‘ordinary people’ about their politics, some of them first interviewed in the late 80s and again in 2002-4. Highly recommended.
** Folk and country in Australia, probably still the only serious/scholarly book on the subject, also highly recommended.
John Greenfield: I’m a bit confused as to why you think that 2:08pm quote is exhibit A for a utopian eschatology. The quote doesn’t suggest not aiming for money at all, just not aiming for only money. Aiming for goals beyond money alone is “utopian” on what planet?
Devil Drink:rose petals=perfick!
“that earning 100k a year doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re as happy as Larry.”
Why would it? You’d be hard pressed affording private school fees, which nowadays run in the neighbourhood of 20k per kid, on a mere 100k a year.
Adam G wrote:
“I have little time for Clive Hamilton’s work, but that’s another story.”
Now that’s about 3-4 times that posters have intimated such at LP in the recent past and I wonder why this negative opinion?
I’ve read “Silencing Dissent” and thought it was OK, maybe a bit lightweight but a valuable addition to the public debate.
Hardly way out radical polemic.
So could someone explain why Clive is apparently regarded so lowly by regulars of this blog?
Just curious.
What a pity Pluto Books has joined the dark side. However, Black Inc is still flying the flag. For $30 from your local bookshop you can support this “lefty” publisher stay afloat by buying Clive Hamilton’s latest book: “Scorcher: the Dirty Politics of Climate Change”. It puts the blowtorch to the belly of the Howard Government big time and is worth every penny, if just for the record on how mightily we have been swindled and deceived by the Howard Government over the past decade.
Sorry Hannah to leave it at that, but that’s where I’m leaving it. I don’t like some of the material I have read, but I’m not going to elaborate because it’s just a feeling and a few preliminary and half-formed arguments, and I haven’t done the work to support it, or read all of his work. Anybody else?
Sorry, double post, I’m having troubles at this end.
Maybe if Royal had borrowed more from libertarian socialism rather than Marxism she would be laughing today in the Champs Elysee.
This is the baggage weighing down the left today - all these dreadful miserable Marxist shitholes scattered around like the DPRK, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Laos, Zimbabwe, etc, etc. Truly depressing…on the vote.
Gummo Trotsky:
Let’s hope Cassandra finds the time to visit Australia sometime and - perhaps - even meet some of the inhabitants here.
If we are all so fortunate and happy. why are the good people at Salvation Army, StVincentDePaul Society, etc. run off their feet? Oh, I get it; they’re only attention seekers, aren’t they. [Bloody idiot!]
Is your link at 1:04pm an incitement to commit Truancy?
While I felt Clive Hamilton went a bit over the top on the evils of the advertising industry in ‘Affluenza’ I have plenty of time for him and the AI. He took a lot of flak, and continuing legal assaults, for the corporate paedaphilia on children’s fashions for essentially research that came under the Australia Insititute umbrella. But the guy’s got the balls to take on his critics. Why isn’t the ALP getting him a parachute?
I have yet to read ‘Scorcher’ but before next fire season…
The thing I doubt is that we are prosperous and that Howard and Costello are good economic managers. Read the back pages of the Economist sometime.
Actually the book in full form is full of facts. The Age chose to extract (and chose the words milleniums rather than millenia which is how it appears in the original) according to their own interest.
The fact that at least one of you thinks being happy is a phoney aspiration has given me a good laugh!
Cassandra
Of course, as I suggested in my earlier comments, I reserve judgement, on the book length argument.
Rejecting happiness as an aspiration is not necessarily a commitment to misery. I think the rejection of happiness, as a personal goal at any rate, can itself be a joyful and liberating act. That would be contingent on how we imagine or define happiness. I imagine some versions of the pursuit of happiness sit perfectly with crippling anxiety.
Not a word of explanation on the Oz article and all that “Toxic Coalition” stuff - was that bad sub-editing too?
And, for the record, I don’t hate you any more than I hate emerods.