For the first time in the past 12 years, the U.S. has fallen out of the prestigious top 20 countries on the Gallup Institute’s annual Happiness Index.
The criteria for determining happiness and unhappiness are subjective and do not correlate with income levels, quality of life measures, health status, or marital status. Everything is defined solely by the respondent’s self-perception and understanding of this rather abstract concept.
Analysts attribute this decline largely to the destructive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Negative factors include lockdowns that ruined many small and medium-sized businesses, mandated home isolation, social distancing recommendations, an increase in Zoom meetings that replaced face-to-face contact among colleagues, and a general shift of live personal interactions to the virtual world of social networking.
Research has shown that 67% of high school students found it more difficult to complete their assignments during remote learning. During lockdowns, 55% experienced «emotional abuse» from family members, and 11% were victims of physical «coercion», while 24% admitted to experiencing «food shortages» during the COVID era. In addition, medical professionals observed what they termed «high levels of psychological distress» in the 18–29 age group.
The research firm Wiley found that four out of five high school students in recent years (with a total of 2,500 students surveyed in the U.S. and Canada) regularly experience anxiety, burnout, and depression.
COVID may be a factor, but it cannot account for all mental health problems in the U.S.
Scientists at Harvard University conducted an 86-year study using surveys and questionnaires of thousands of people to determine what they considered necessary and sufficient for happiness. The learned professors discovered that neither reaching the highest rungs of the career ladder nor a high income leads to the possession of this higher, non-material value.
Happiness, as those who have read Confucius or seen the Soviet movie «We’ll Live Till Monday» know, is «being understood». After nearly ninety years, American scientists have come to the same conclusion: happiness is based on benevolent, self-sacrificing, and carefully nurtured relationships with close people. It turns out that Americans chronically lack this key ingredient for a happy life. In 2021, 49% of respondents had no more than three close friends they could confide in.
Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut is sounding the alarm. The nation is at a critical juncture because «time spent alone with friends and family is declining, while time spent on social networks is increasing significantly. More people live alone than ever before. Fewer people attend church, synagogue, or mosque». Young people, says Senator Murphy, are beginning to suspect that «playing by the rules no longer guarantees a successful and meaningful life».
As a result, social fragmentation is increasing, families are breaking up or failing to form, and loneliness is becoming commonplace. For the first time in the country’s history, celibacy is becoming a conscious choice for young men rather than young women.
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University, has come to a disturbing conclusion and hinted at the destructive effect of «culture wars» in an article in The Atlantic: «We are disoriented, unable to speak the same language or see the same truth. We are cut off from each other and from our past».
Where do teenagers and young adults, who are not yet psychologically mature, go for comfort? In the past, they sought it at the bottom of a bottle. In the post-alcohol mass culture, drugs have become the source of oblivion.
The neoliberal Democratic Party campaign to legalize soft drugs has triumphed. For the first time in the history of the nation, where the Pilgrims managed to get the remaining indigenous people addicted to «fire water», marijuana has pushed alcohol to the margins of life.
From 2008 to 2022, the number of Americans who use Mary Jane (marijuana in youth drug slang) daily will increase by 270% and now stands at 18 million. This exceeds the informal community of chronic alcoholics by three million. The total number of alcohol and drug addicts in the U.S. is about 33 million — one in ten.
In 2023, 20 new urgent care centers for mental health patients will open across the country, from Virginia to Colorado. Unfortunately, not for everyone: a doctor’s visit can cost $2,264.
The quality of human potential in this complex nation is declining. It is not about video clips showing randomly stopped citizens unable to point to India or Australia on a map, let alone Russia. It’s about unhealthy, often mentally unhealthy Americans who can vote in elections, acquire firearms, create more like themselves, and instill antisocial norms in their environment.
A logical question arises: Will representative democracy be viable in the U.S. if society is addicted to drugs and antidepressants? When 100,000 Americans die annually from fentanyl overdoses? When mental illness is skyrocketing, especially among teens and young adults? When the proportion of immigrants who cannot understand what politicians and their interpreters are saying, and who struggle to read and write, is increasing?
In the event of an emergency, such as armed clashes between the most militant «reds» (Republicans) and the equally aggressive «blues» (Democrats), gangs of homeless and drugged marginalized individuals, along with those who consider themselves aggrieved losers, as well as BLM and Antifa militants, will eagerly engage in looting and violence.
This scenario is quite realistic, given that the events of 2016 are still fresh. The sense of impunity among the rioters has only grown. And society has not learned any lessons from this orchestrated wave of violence.
Such an intellectually deficient electorate with a wide range of harmful habits and deviant behavior will, on the one hand, be easily manipulated by the ruling elites. On the other hand, the authorities will have to resort to repressive measures in order to contain the unruly-of which there will be plenty in this toxic environment-and to bring the less rational individuals to order.
This means forgetting about respect for human rights and many other declarative promises that politicians there are so generous with.