All the Trouble in the World Read online

  The highest standards of luxury and comfort, as known only to the ridiculously wealthy a few generations ago, would hardly do on a modern white-water rafting trip. Our clothing is more comfortable, our abodes are warmer, better-smelling, and vermin-free. Our food is fresher. Our lights are brighter. Travel is swift. And communication is sure.

  Even the bad things are better than they used to be. Bad music, for instance, has gotten much briefer. Wagner’s Ring Cycle takes four days to perform while “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by the Crash Test Dummies lasts little more than three minutes.

  II

  Life is sweet. But you could spend a long time reading, going to the movies, and watching TV and not hear this mentioned. Especially, watching daytime TV. Of course, if you’re watching a lot of daytime TV your life probably is dreadful. But, as I pointed out, that’s your problem, not history’s. History is on a roll, a toot, a bender. No doubt it will all come crashing down around our ears one day when a comet hits the earth or Sally Jessy Raphaël becomes Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But, in the meantime, we should be enjoying ourselves, and we are not. Gloom enfolds the earth. Tales of woe reach us from every corner of the globe. Moans of “unfair,” “unjust,” and “poor me” are heard around the planet and are nowhere louder than in my own backyard.

  Right now, at the end of the second millennium, is the best moment of all time, and right here, in the United States, is the best place to be at that moment. And do I hark to sounds of glee echoing midst purple mountains’ majesty and rolling across the fruited plains? No. I hear America whining, crybaby to the world. I behold my country in a pet—beefing, carping, crabbing, bitching, sniveling, mewling, fretting, yawping, bellyaching, and being pickle-pussed. A colossus that stood astride the earth now lies on the floor pounding its fists and kicking its feet, transformed into a fussy-pants and a sputter-budget. The streets of the New World are paved with onions. Everybody’s got a squawk. We have become a nation of calamity howlers, crêpe hangers, sour guts, and mopes—a land with the grumbles.

  On the Fourth of July, 1993, the lead story on the front page of the Boston Globe read:

  The country that celebrates its 217th birthday today is free, at peace, relatively prosperous—but deeply anxious. … The American people are troubled, beset by doubts, full of anger.

  And any peek into the media produces examples in plenty of the same sobs and groans, often from improbable Jeremiahs.

  In the April 24, 1994, issue of the New York Times Book Review, Fran R. Schumer made reference to “the modern era, when anomie, caused by any number of factors—the decline of religion and community, the anonymity of modern life—gave rise to selfish, obsessive, 20th-century man.” Ms. Schumer writes the Underground Gourmet column for New York magazine. All she was doing in the NYTBR was reviewing a book about food.

  “In a world with the cosmic staggers, where the Four Horsemen … are on an outright rampage” began a profile of harmless comedian Jerry Seinfeld in the May 1994 Vanity Fair.

  Licensed psychiatrist and tenured Harvard professor John E. Mack has written a book, Abduction, claiming that spacemen are kidnapping us. Why should the little green men bother? So they can, said Mack, tell earthlings that we’re causing ecological ruin.

  “Ecological ruin, shrinking white-collar job market and fear of intimacy confronting his generation” is how that journal of deep thinking, People, describes the subject matter of Douglas Coupland, latest young writer to complain his way to literary prominence.

  Coupland’s first novel, Generation X, was a detailed account of how wretched and spitty life is for middle-class white kids born after 1960. “Our Parents Had More” is the title of chapter 2. In case you missed the point (or fell asleep while the plot ossified) Coupland included several pages of depressing statistics at the back of Generation X. E.g., according to a Time/CNN telephone poll taken in June of 1990, 65 percent of eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-old Americans agree that “given the ways things are, it will be much harder for people in my generation to live as comfortably as previous generations.”

  Of course it’s difficult for these youngsters to know if they’re going to live as comfortably as their parents did because the kids are so immobilized by despair over ecological ruin, shrinking white-collar job market, and fear of intimacy that they’re all still living at home.

  But William T. Vollmann—the youthful author of An Afghanistan Picture Show, Whores for Gloria, Butterfly Stories, and numerous other books (who has been acclaimed a genius by the sort of people who acclaim those things)—knows it will take more than a split-level in the suburbs to redeem our ghastly existences. “I’d say the biggest hope that we have right now is the AIDS epidemic,” Vollmann told Michael Coffey in the July 13, 1992, issue of Publishers Weekly. “Maybe the best thing that could happen would be if it were to wipe out half or two-thirds of the people in the world. Then the ones who survived would just be so busy getting things together that they’d have to help each other, and in time the world would recover ecologically, too.”

  Maybe we should also take dope. Listening to Prozac by Peter Kramer spent six months on the New York Times bestseller list. An article in the May 5, 1994, “Drugs in America” special issue of Rolling Stone said, “Given the psychic condition of the nation today [heroin] may be just what the doctor ordered. ‘With heroin,’ as a former user points out, ‘your life can be falling apart around you and everything’s still fine with you.’”

  But no. It’s worse than that. Being and creation are so horrible, even heroin can’t make them better. Otherwise Nirvana lead caterwaul Kurt Cobain would still be with us. And what a tortured cry of existential despair that was when Kurt took a twenty-gauge shotgun and splattered his brains, or whatever it was he had in his skull, all over the Cobain guest house.

  “That was his message, that life is futile,” a twenty-six-year-old named Bob Hince told Washington Post reporter Jonathan Freedland. Freedland was writing a feature piece for the April 24, 1994, Sunday Show section titled “Generation Hex.” He found Mr. Hince drinking in one of the Seattle bars where Nirvana got its start. “We all feel the monotony, we all feel we cannot control our circumstances,” said Mr. Hince, who is clearly a spokesperson not just for his generation but for all of America and maybe for space aliens.

  Freedland reported that “[Hince] has completed six years of study in molecular biology but is now headed for Alaska to work as a salmon fisherman. His dyed red hair nearly covers his eyes, falling behind the lenses of his retro, Buddy Holly glasses. … ‘It’s just ambivalence,’ he says. ‘What am I supposed to be?’”

  Personally, I think Bob Hince won’t have to worry about what he’ll be if the people who paid for his six years of studying molecular biology get their hands on him. But, as Nirvana would say, “Nevermind.” The whole world is rotten. Everything stinks. Nobody loves me. Everybody hates me. My name is Legion. I’ll be your server tonight. The special is worms.

  Why are we so unhappy? Is it, as that Cassandra of food critics, Fran R. Schumer, would have it, “anomie” caused by “the decline of religion and community, the anonymity of modern life”? Sure. Going to church was always one of my favorite things to do. Zoning-board meetings are also a blast. And wasn’t that great the way Mom knew exactly who was downstairs in the rec room with you? “Billy, Mary, Patrick, Susan—how come you kids have the lights off?” And what is it with this anomie stuff anyway? We all know perfectly well we’ve got no idea what the word means. We might just as well say we’re suffering from yohimbine or rigadoon or Fibonacci sequence.

  Are we depressed by lower expectations? Back in the sixties I expected Permanent Woodstock—a whole lifetime of sitting in the mud, smoking Oaxacan ditch weed, listening to amplifier feedback, and pawing a Long Island chiropodist’s daughter who thought she’d been abducted by aliens from outer space. Show me somebody with lower expectations than mine.

  Are we disheartened by the breakup of the family? Nobody who ever met my family is.

  Or maybe what’s got us down is that God created a world with evil in it. Saturday nights would be damned dull if He hadn’t.

  Yes, there is misery and suffering on earth. Thanks for adding to it, Killjoy. Life seems pointless. This isn’t a reason to party? And the world’s about to end. As if we were going to live forever otherwise. Will it matter in a hundred years if we went one by one or in a bunch? Besides, the world’s been about to end for a long time, Hardly a mythology lacks its Götterdämmerung. The penultimate verse of the New Testament has Jesus saying, “Surely I come quickly.” And he wasn’t coming over for a swim. (Note to kids: Finish that math assignment. Somehow the world never manages to end before your homework is due.) Also, if the world’s about to end, why aren’t things more interesting? Why are people abandoning themselves to cares and gripes instead of to booze-ups and orgies? Why aren’t I having an affair with Ava Gardner the way Gregory Peck was in On the Beach?

  Fear and dread are not what make us upset, or alienation either. (If alienation is your problem, call John E. Mack and leave the rest of us alone.) We whine because it works. We used to be shunned for weeping in our beer. Now we go on Oprah. If our complaint is hideous enough, we get a TV movie made about our life. Congress passes legislation to give us money and special parking places. We get into college with two-digit SAT scores, and we can sue the school for discriminating against Sad Sacks if we flunk. The president feels our pain.

  Grouching is a good excuse. We are, as even the pinko, querulous Boston Globe is willing to admit, “free, at peace, relatively prosperous.” We have the opportunity and the means to do almost anything. How come we haven’t done it? Here we’ve got all this material well-being, liberty, and good luck, and we’re still our crummy old selves—flabby around the middle, limited out on our VISA cards. The job is a bore. The house is a mess. And Melrose Place is in reruns. It’s not our fault, it’s life’s. The world is an awful place so we’re not much good either.

  We’re all geniuses. We know that. But why haven’t we had any genius ideas or done any genius deeds? Something terrible must be holding us back, repressed memories maybe. We forgot we were molested as children by someone we loved. It’s coming back now. Milk and cookies weren’t all Santa was chewing on after he came down the chimney.

  Fretting makes us important. Say you’re an adult male and you’re skipping down the street whistling “Last Train to Clarksville.” People will call you a fool. But lean over to the person next to you on a subway and say, “How can you smile while innocents are dying in Tibet?” You’ll acquire a reputation for great seriousness and also more room to sit down.

  Tragedy is better than comedy for self-dramatization, as every teenager knows. Think how little attention we pay to a teen who’s bustling around the house with a big smile on his face, greeting parents and siblings with cheery salutations. … Actually, we’d pay a lot of attention and rush him to the drug detox center, post haste. But you know what I mean. Would you rather star in Hamlet or Three’s Company?

  Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say “I’ve got cancer” and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy?

  And worrying is less work than doing something to fix the worry. This is especially true if we’re careful to pick the biggest possible problems to worry about. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.

  III

  Thus, in fin de siècle civilization, we find ourselves with grave, momentous concerns galore.

  The Clinton administration State Department has created a position of Worrywart-in-Charge, an “undersecretary of global affairs” who is to be responsible for “worldwide programs in human rights, the environment, population control and anti-narcotics efforts.” Timothy E. Wirth, nominee for this dreary post, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Fussed Wirth, “Growth that is all-too-capable of doubling—even tripling—today’s global population in the next century is already a force contributing to violent disorder and mass dislocations in resource-poor societies. Some of the resulting refugees are our near neighbors.” Oh those massively dislocated Nova Scotians, breeding like mink. “Others—refugees-in-waiting,” said Wirth, “press hungrily against the fabric of social and political stability around the world.” And that suit’s going to have to go to the cleaner’s.

  Everywhere we see the imposition of grave concern into the most mundane and trivial aspects of life. Lightning Comics, a Detroit publisher of funny books, has created a super hero, Bloodfire, who is HIV positive. Which should cool Lois Lane.

  A TV revival of Bonanza had, as its villain, a man who wanted to strip-mine the Ponderosa.

  The Parliament of the World’s Religions, meeting in Chicago in 1993, issued a statement called “Towards a Global Ethic” that opined, “We must move beyond the dominance of greed for power, prestige, money and consumption to make a just and peaceful world.” A just and peaceful world full of powerless nobodies who are broke and have empty shopping malls.

  On Earth Day, 1994, the National Council of Churches suggested that Protestants make a “confession of environmental sins”: “We use more than our share of the Earth’s resources. We are responsible for massive pollution of earth, water and sky. We thoughtlessly drop garbage around our homes, schools, churches, places of work, and places of play.” (Which is why Episcopalian neighborhoods are always such dumps.) “We squander resources on technologies of destruction. Bombs come before bread.” And Fran R. Schumer wonders at the decline of religion. I admit to sloth, gluttony, and coveting my neighbor’s handmaiden, but I have not traded any Pepperidge Farm for nuclear devices.

  Hanna-Barbera has a Captain Planet and the Planeteers animated cartoon about saving the you-know-what. Margot Kidder supplies the voice of “Gaia, the Spirit of the Earth.” “I am worried about the planet for my daughter’s future,” announced Kidder in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. Kidder said her daughter had once told her, “Mom, when we grow up, the world may not be here.”

  The May 1994 issue of Barbie comics, featuring the adventures of the doll by that name, had a story about how deaf people are discriminated against. There was a page at the end where Barbie gave a lesson in sign language, showing us the signs for “push-up bra,” “Let’s go shopping,” and “diamond tennis bracelet from middle-aged gentleman admirer.” Just kidding. Barbie showed us the signs for “friend,” “hello,” “thanks,” and that sort of thing.

  The April 1994 issue of Washingtonian ran an article by my friend Andrew Ferguson about corporate “multicultural training.” Andy quoted one of the trainers (or facilitators, as they like to be called), whose job it is to instill “sensitivity” about age, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and the kitchen sink into employees of Washington businesses:

  “It’s a function of capitalism, isn’t it?” says the facilitator. “Capitalism requires scarcity to function. It’s built into the system—no scarcity, no profit.

  “That’s the kind of power relationships capitalism creates. Sharing power is not something a male-dominated culture naturally gravitates towards, is it?”

  The facilitator, a male, was being paid two thousand dollars a day.

  And here is my favorite tale of pained solicitude, from an AP wire story that appeared in the Arab News in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, and which I have been saving ever since:

  Game wardens and wildlife biologists were among those gathered for nearly eight hours on a farm in northwestern Louisiana to save what they thought was a bear 50 to 60 feet up in a pine tree. A veterinarian fired tranquilizer darts at the critter in an effort to get it down. Deputies and wildlife agents strung a net to catch the bear when the tranquilizers took effect. … “People really wanted … to help and protect that bear and get him where he was supposed to be,” Norman Gordan, the owner of the farm said. … It wasn’t until the tree was chopped down … that they discovered they were rescuing a dart-riddled garbage bag.

  Some of the folks propounding the above-listed anxieties, cavils, and peeves are amateurs: New Agers who will believe in anything but facts, environmentalist softies who think the white rats should be running the cancer labs, or bong-smoke theorists who would have the world be as stupid as they are. But many of the fretful—the “multicultural training facilitator” is an appalling example—are pros.

  Professional worriers put our fears to use. Masters of Sanctimony have an agenda. The licensed and certified holier-than-thou work toward a political goal. And whether these agony merchants are leftists (as they usually are) or rightists (as they certainly can be) or whether they head off in some other and worse direction (the way religious fundamentalists do), the political goal is the same.

  In fact, if we use the word politics in its broadest sense, there really is only one political goal in the world. Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty—their power and privilege—to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by … politicians.

  Politicians are always searching for some grave alarm which will cause individuals to abandon their separate concerns and prerogatives and act in concert so that politicians can wield the baton. Calls to mortal combat are forever being sounded (though only metaphorically—politicians don’t like real wars, too much merit is involved). The idea is that people will drop everything for a WWIII. Remember the War on Poverty? And how Jimmy Carter asked Americans to respond to a mere rise in the price of crude oil with “the moral equivalent of war”? (What were we supposed to do, shame the gas station attendant to death?) Now we’re “fighting pollution,” “battling AIDS,” “conquering racism,” et cetera.