our discontent
I'm reading ‘why we are restless’ by Storey and Storey, which I highly recommend for any one interested in understanding the philosophical and cultural changes over the past few hundred years that have built the modern framework we find ourselves in today, in modern America. And it was within the introduction of the book that I came across this passage, part of which highlights a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville:
the most free and most enlightened men placed in the happiest condition in the world were not content with what they had…they were restless in the midst of their well-being.
de Tocqueville would have been accurate in his summation of the American existential crisis if he had made this observation any time in the last 100 years but what alarms me the most about this observation is that it was made when de Tocqueville was visiting America in 1831. As in, almost 200 years ago. A lot has changed since 1831 but one thing that hasn’t is our inability to be content living in one of the more affluent countries on the planet.
The promise of the American Dream is happiness and a good life and yet so many people who chase it are never satisfied. It’s as if playing the game never leads to the promised ending but rather a cycle of always pursuing more.
Summarizing de Tocqueville’s thoughts on this, Storey and Storey say:
His lesson, not only for America but for the whole modern world, was that the achievement of an unprecedented degree of freedom, equality, and material prosperity would not guarantee steady lives or a stable social order. For free, equal, and prosperous people may think about their lives in a way that makes such steadiness impossible.