The Origins of Unhappiness: A New Understanding of Personal Distress by David Smail

Author:David Smail [Smail, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Karnac Books
Published: 2015-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 4: The generatioin of distress in the 1980s

II THE CHARACTERS

Character is, of course, not formed in or by a mere ten years, though certainly the first decade of life is likely to be immeasurably more important in this respect than all the rest put together. It is as yet too early to see what the contribution of the eighties might have been to the fundamental character formation of the very young, and I do not wish to imply that the people to be considered shortly, most of whom spent their childhoods in very different times, were irrevocably shaped by the eighties. They were, rather, presented with a problem by the events of the decade which coloured their experience and their conduct with a characteristic type of distress.

All six of the characters I shall be introducing felt themselves in some way inadequate to cope with their daily lives, and all blamed themselves for their perceived shortcomings. None considered that his or her difficulties could be attributed even partially to social influences typical of a particular time, and all expected to find what solution there might be to their predicament if not simply ‘within’ themselves, then certainly within the ambit of their most proximal relations.

A point in social space-time which laid everybody low would be unlikely to be seen as causing ‘psychological’ casualties either because the sources of everyone's distress would be so obvious or because there would be no basis for some people's comparing themselves unfavourably with others. Everyone would be in the same boat, and indeed might derive empowering solidarity from taking arms together against a sea of troubles. Would this not suggest, then, that for only a minority to be disturbed by the times, there must be something ‘the matter’ with the individuals who constitute it – some weakness not shared by those who cope more successfully?

In my view this would be as strange as concluding that there was something ‘the matter’ with people who caught smallpox as compared with those who didn't. A society which engenders casualties on any noticeable scale must be found wanting. In this respect the eighties were particularly significant since it was in this decade that all pretence of society's being for people was abandoned: it was now up to people themselves to survive the rigours of the ‘real world’, and no provision was to be made for ‘lame ducks’. In fact, those who, without suspecting it, were injured by the times were far from being lame ducks – often, they were people whose sensitivity, social responsibility and sense of moral integrity rendered them particularly vulnerable to the dishonesty, superficiality and callousness of Business Culture.

It was inevitable that a decade which reintroduced a superficial version of social Darwinism would in a sense render some more ‘unfit’ than others to survive it unscathed, and if there is any common thread among the stories shortly to be told it is probably that of a lack in the provision in early life of the kind of confidence which, later, helps people to be reasonably certain of themselves in times of trouble.

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