E Pluribus Odium
A comprehensive 25-country survey published by Pew Research Center earlier this year found that Americans do not merely distrust one another. Increasingly, they see their fellow citizens as morally bankrupt. American citizens are far more likely to view their fellow countrymen as fundamentally evil than citizens of the other surveyed nations.
Specifically, 53 percent of U.S. adults explicitly stated that the average American has bad morals and ethics. This matters enormously. A society cannot thrive when most people no longer believe their fellow citizens are fundamentally decent.1
I don’t really care much about views or building an audience. I’ve been clear from the beginning that this is a place for me to ramble, an attempt to lower the volume in my head. That said, I recently checked the analytics out of sheer curiosity.
I was surprised to find that one of my posts (A Sick People) was shared on Hacker News, a news aggregator à la Reddit. Reading the comments solidified my desire to remain anonymous. They ran the gamut, but by and large, the comments were pedantic and spiteful.
I must only travel for holiday, with my white middle-class privilege blinding me to reality. I don’t know anything about the world because I’m apparently well off. I didn’t bother to get involved in the comments. There’s no point. I just sort of smiled at the novelty of it all and moved on with my day.
But then this morning, sipping my coffee and doom-scrolling, I found the article quoted above. It brought to mind the aforementioned post and my poorly articulated ideas about the general malaise in America today. But unlike my nonsense, the article brings receipts.
A Generational Decline
The cohort born in the 2000s registers the highest levels of distrust ever recorded by the project. A significant portion of young adults operate under the functional premise that everyone else is a threat.2
I was born in the 80s, but any old-school societal trust we may have harbored was destroyed with the arrival of the 2000s. So it’s no surprise to me that the generation born during those years exists in a constant state of fight-or-flight.
This is what I was attempting to describe in my earlier post. Everything feels like a threat. We’re on deployment in our own country. Leaving the house feels like going on patrol. The VA docs want to give me another pill for my PTSD, but maybe it isn’t all in my head.
Is there a rock bottom? Can this decline actually end in anything other than an eruption of violence? I don’t know, but I don’t want to be here to find out.
Does that make me a shitty American? Perhaps, but I was wearing desert MARPAT the last time I cared about that. Some future Edward Gibbon-type might stumble across this while researching his “Rise and Fall” book and note that America’s patriots abandoned her at the end.
A Minor Epiphany
I’ve always had a slight obsession with Japan. From weeb to Japanophile, I’ve heard it all. Until recently, I had a hard time explaining why I adored the place so much. People assume it’s the anime, the food, the art, and the culture, but it’s more than that.
You might think, given the tone of this post, that I’ll say it has something to do with it being a high-trust society. However, data from major comparative studies like the World Values Survey / Integrated Values Survey and Pew Research Center illustrates a clear gap between Japan and places like Denmark (much to my surprise).3
Japan relies much more on assurance than generalized trust. Behavior is regulated by strict social norms, mutual monitoring, and the fear of social exclusion. People behave honestly because the system demands it, not necessarily because they assume a stranger has good intentions.
And that, I realize, is why I’m so comfortable there. It’s why I have a separate savings account just for going to Japan. As soon as I land, my guard is down. Is that foolish? Perhaps, but I’ve yet to be burned.
While there, I can safely expect two things. First, gaijin-privilege. I’m not expected to know the complex system of social norms. It keeps me kind of isolated, which fits my personality. What I also love about that is when I do demonstrate an understanding, they absolutely love it. It sounds lame, but I enjoy being the good gaijin on occasion.
Second, I can breathe. My anxiety drops to almost zero, even in the middle of Kabukicho on a Saturday night. It’s like Valium for my soul. Yes, everywhere has problems, and I’m not blind to the enormous struggles of Japanese people, from over-tourism to work culture to the suffocation caused by those same social norms. I’m just selfishly saying it all works for me.
Home Is Burning
This great experiment, this shining city on a hill, is dying. It’s said that people didn’t realize the Roman Empire had collapsed, they only noticed that roads and bridges stopped being repaired. I think we will only understand in hindsight the true nature of our own destruction. Life is too short to waste clinging to a sinking ship.
"Go on then, git," you spit, with a southern drawl. I'm trying, damnit, I really am.