Australia seems to be one of those happy places in the world, where mateship is key, room to live is abundant, life expectancy and medical care are great and - believe it or not - the economy is actually booming. Although the people we meet quickly prove to have two faces: their happy and their gloomy face. Headlines underline it: ‘Gloom persists in Australia despite good growth and low unemployment’ (The Australian, 28/11/11) ‘Rate cuts fail to lift the gloom’ (SBS, 14/12/11). The economy is registering amazing growth, low inflation, low unemployment and massive investment, enjoyed for an unprecedented 20 years. But yet, the Australians are not happy. Both business and consumer confidence are weak.
As a crosscheck I flicked through some of the worlds happy indices, which provide some interesting statistics. And yes, in terms of numbers, Australia is doing great. The United Nations Human Development Index scores Australia the 2nd best country to live, just behind Norway. The survey is based on indicators such as income and life expectancy. But if you dig a little deeper - for example in world value surveys, where people are actually interviewed - Australia doesn’t even make it to the top-20. Many other countries overrun Australia, amongst which Mexico, El Salvador and USA. Somehow it didn’t surprise us.
To illustrate gloom, just two quick examples of people we ran into. I’ll leave out the backpack crowd this time, although it packs many shining examples of ‘no worries gloom’. Australian Mick - who I accidently met while snorkelling (goggles on) - seems a fun-living bloke, but has a very pessimistic worldview: ‘we’re doing way too good, we’re the enemy now!’ And Barry - our happy and friendly B&B host - is still very much ashamed of the way White Men took over Australia: ‘those so called orphans we used to go and play school-rugby with, they were actually stolen from their parents. They were the Stolen generation. We should repay them, do what we can, allow them their culture. But we’re not too good at those things.’
I will try to explain Australia’s ‘boom with gloom’ my way. On the surface all Australians seem to be mates (except for aboriginals unfortunately, which is a completely different topic!). Similar to New Zealand, mateship and group solidarity are obvious ideals. Although in New Zealand, mateship seems to run deeper and happiness actually feels less superficial. Australia seems different. Contrary to New-Zealanders, Australians are very direct and not the least afraid to criticize. USA-alike, the Australian education system promotes individualism and - as well as the present booming economy - encourages competition. Well yes, mateship, equality and tough individualism, they make an ambivalent and somewhat unfortunate - unhappy - mix.
Then there’s the Australian penal colony beginnings, which is only fairly modern history. Historicists feel this explains why Australians love to be the underdog. Many Australian people like rough edges, love anti-establishment and flirt with being harsh or even outcast. Or as we wrote in our travelblog, this huge continent has serious ‘island mentality’. But consider this: if you’ve always felt great about being the underdog, the perspective of becoming a top dog isn’t very appealing. I’d say it might even scare you.
And then - to top things off - there’s Hofstedes’ scale on uncertainty avoidance. Australians do not like uncertainty. They strive for stability and consensus. In times of change, people tend to feel far more stress and anxiety than average. No worries’ mate! Crisis in Europe, increasing foreign (Asian) investments, price levels on the rise, sustainability issues; although not all bad for Australia, these developments (sub)consciously make people worry. The Australian worry about an increasingly uncertain future, in which the role of their island might change.
As travellers we feel literature misses out on one aspect. In the blistering 40 degrees heat and wind ‘us Dutchies’ obviously feel very unadapted. But so do the former colonists. Their big cars and air-conditioned houses, their historic struggle to settle, it draws up a huge contrast with the land. Their forefathers worked hard to conquer this land, but to what extent did they really succeed? Australia’s nature is one tough nut to crack. You will always be a guest. Or as Barry’s 88 year old aunt explains: ‘we cannot even do without air-conditioning for one second, so how can this country be sustainable?’ Aboriginals - who have been connected to this land for over 6.000 years - can’t even begin to understand why the colonists should be happy: ‘White man him go nowhere. Him not connected. Him got road only to himself.’
Hello,
ReplyDeleteGreat to see that you surpass the individual level and try to give a more general set of characteristics to the people around you. The strange eye is often the sharpest.
Living in the States myself, I see several correspondences with the people here. And yes, the Aboriginal people also have the same reaction as the American Indians have to their white co-citizens. And they are right! Only sustainability will eventually survive. Even if resources seem infinite, they are not. Air conditioning uses more energy than heating does.
There is another thing that you do not mention in this post. You are Dutch. You come from a rich country, that earns a great deal of its money on natural gas. It is supposed to earn 14 billion euros this year on it, just imagine! How is the general mentality in Holland? Do people easily complain, or are they the happiest people on earth? Right, they love to complain. Ten things go right, one thing goes wrong, what will the Dutchie talk about?
Therefore, I would like to ask you this intriguing question: why is it that the best societies, the richest countries, the most cultivated places, produce the gloomiest people? Think wider than just the Aussies or the Dutch, think of the French or the Scandinavians or the Canadians. That is the question that haunts me. Anyone who can come up with an answer to that, please respond!
Janet
Because those people have the most to lose. Why be gloomy when things can only get better?
ReplyDeleteHi Janet and Michiel, thanks for your comments! It’s good to see some interaction. Interaction on what I find a very intriguing question: the more cultivated the country, the gloomier the people seem to be. Why? On our travels we met inspiring people that were very happy, although amazingly poor or seriously oppressed, with sometimes no freedom or (what we would call) perspectives whatsoever. And yes, the richer people get, the more they seem to take success in life for granted. Which of course - as proven many, many times - you can never. Sometimes that is enough to become gloomy. But Janet, I’m sure you feel that’s too easy of an explanation.
ReplyDeleteYou should know, as a coach I’m generally not used to providing answers. I normally work on the questions that lead to them, as answers are a lot more helpful if personal and original. And even now - thankful for your question and answer, tempted to jump in - I’d rather add some questions of my own.
There is a quote by Goethe that has a lot of meaning to me. It says: ‘the most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the beginning and the end of his life.’ In my personal life these ‘circles of understanding’ certainly got more important with age. Therefore my first question would be: in what sort of society would you be (most) able to connect your present with your past? And do you feel this somehow connected to the gloom that is often felt (and shown) in richer, western countries? Another question that intrigues me, is what the gloomy feeling is telling us?
I’m going to let our Q&A sink in for a while. I promise to get back on it at some point soon. And maybe - in the mean time - someone else likes to shed some light to his.
Interesting discussion going on here Sander. If you're up there's only one way: going down...rather pessimistic though, but essential int his case.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the same dynamics when travelling through Latin American countries. I believe it's all about fear and hope: fear for losing what you have and hoping for what to achieve. Especially in a world of abundance as many western countries actually do, the emphasis on (possible future) shortage makes people scared. This means uncertanty and makes people nervous: stock markets start destabalising and weird politicians will thrive.
On the contrary, what else in a country without much, there is to promise but hope. Or esperanza, one of the most popular words in spanish if I recall. I sure never saw the word fear in spanish appear on street names or tourist maps...
Being Dutch, I recognise Janet's point. Security needs perfection. And perfection needs rules and regulations, which has a certain price: boredom. Don't do this, keep doing that.
People are not made for that and as a counterforce it's not unusual for young people to go out and have a break year spending helping 'poor' people in far away countries. To jump out of the box, discover the world and themselves: make their own rules and values for living.
As promised I’d like to get back to you on the question Janet raised. Three things came up.
ReplyDeleteMy first answer is a personal one. What is the gloomy feeling telling me? Reading world news on a train from Bangkok to Cambodia, I realized how I sometimes feel overthrown with context. As most of my peers, I’ve learned to stay up-to-date and involved with people and politics. But over the last 20 years or more - influenced by technology, media and globalisation - the balance between my own little ego-world and the rest of the world got out of balance. There are simply too much things in life that are both in my face and way too big to influence. I feel this large scale - that big world we try to live in - makes it a lot harder to stay happy. Unless you develop some specific happiness-skills…
Which brings me to my second answer, thanks to travelling. Both in Thailand and Cambodia, most schools are installed inside Buddhist temples. In many schools - even today - pupils are still taught by monks. One of the important lessons in Buddhism, is that happiness - contrary to what we think we know - is not an emotion. It’s a skill! And skills have to be taught, for example at school. Janet, I’m sure that as a teacher you will agree. These are the sort of life lessons most of our western school systems lack. It’s what people in a western society have to learn through life, often without any sensible preparation whatsoever. As I mention it, I’m sure it’s one of the reasons why there are so many life coaches these days.
My third answer is more in line with answers that are already there. But this time very well laid out by the Swiss philosopher Alain de Botton. It even has a name: ‘status anxiety’. I will just quote Wikipedia, if only because I can’t put it any better: ‘Status Anxiety discusses the desire of people in many modern societies to "climb the social ladder" and the anxieties that result from a focus on how one is perceived by others. De Botton claims that chronic anxiety about status is an inevitable side effect of any democratic, ostensibly egalitarian society. De Botton lays out the causes of and solutions to status anxiety. Causes of status anxiety are: lovelessness, expectations, meritocracy, snobbery and dependence. Solutions are to be found in philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemianism.’
I think de Botton - in his way - wraps it all up. I actually found a his documentary on status anxiety on the internet. As his introduction in the documentary is 90% in line with Janets’ question, so I dare to call it a must-see (even though I haven’t seen it yet). I’ve added it to ‘my links’ in this blog.