{"id":1384,"date":"2011-08-10T16:39:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T20:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2011-08-10T16:39:23","modified_gmt":"2011-08-10T20:39:23","slug":"if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d.html","title":{"rendered":"If the World\u2019s Getting Better, Why Do Americans Need Xanax?: Bradley Wright Falls Short with \u201cUpside\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1385\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1385\" style=\"width: 194px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/08\/upside.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1385\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/83\/2011\/08\/upside-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1385\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bradley Wright proffers a cup of good cheer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>With riots in London, a nosedive in the stock market, and Michelle Bachmann dominating the airwaves, it\u2019s hard to believe that the world is actually getting better. In fact, declension seems all but assured.<\/p>\n<p>Yet continuous improvement is the thesis of Bradley Wright\u2019s relentlessly sunny new book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Upside-Surprising-About-State-World\/dp\/0764208365\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1313008207&amp;sr=1-1\">Upside: Surprising Good News About the State of Our World<\/a> <\/em>(Bethany House). Here are some facts to cheer you about life in America today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Violent crime has dropped steadily in the U.S. since 1990. (We\u2019re having fewer kids, and fewer kids means fewer teenagers, and fewer teenagers means fewer criminals. Or so goes the theory.)<\/li>\n<li>Fatal motor vehicle accidents are becoming rarer all the time due to improved automotive safety features and new laws requiring people to buckle up.<\/li>\n<li>The real price of most goods has dropped over time, including food, air travel, electronics, and cars. (Notable exception: a college education. Ouch.)<\/li>\n<li>Life expectancy is up to about 78 years, on average.<\/li>\n<li>We are working fewer hours and getting paid more for them. (I\u2019ll take issue with the \u201cfewer hours\u201d claim in a moment.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In sum, \u201cpeople in the middle class in the United States live better than 99.4% of all human beings who have ever existed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wright\u2019s book employs an army of statistics to demonstrate that Americans are living longer, enjoying better health and more luxury, and have more disposable income than ever before. So why don\u2019t we <em>feel<\/em> better?<\/p>\n<p>One of the flaws of Wright\u2019s otherwise interesting book is that he never builds a convincing case for why so many Americans are popping Xanax when their lives are allegedly so much better than their great-grandparents\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Late last year I reviewed the book <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/the-secret-of-happiness-dan-buettners-new-research-sheds-light-on-what-makes-us-happy.html\"><em>Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way<\/em><\/a>, which was far from a perfect read but did make a strong case for why some people are happier than others. The secret is found in our social lives. In a nutshell, people who report the greatest levels of happiness (and, not coincidentally, who live the longest) are enmeshed in networks of family and friends.<\/p>\n<p>And this is where Americans today fall far short of our great-grandparents. By nearly every measure, we are indeed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Community\/dp\/0684832836\">bowling alone<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>We choose careers that take us far from our places of origin and our families,<\/em> when research shows that those longstanding networks are not easily replaceable in the transient lifestyles we embrace.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>We are often removed from the outdoors<\/em>, when being in nature ranks as one element that consistently contributes to a happy life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>We don\u2019t involve ourselves in the community nearly as much as our ancestors did.<\/em> What contributes to happiness, according to <em>Thrive<\/em>, are social clubs and regular interactions, whether it\u2019s meeting the same people every Friday for lunch or being part of a bicycle group and a book club.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>We get married later or not at all. <\/em>Buettner\u2019s research shows that the happiest people are those who get married and stay married, which flies in the face of our culture\u2019s idealization of the swinging single.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>We no longer design our cities in ways that maximize happiness and socialization. <\/em>In today\u2019s planning we have subdivisions with no sidewalks. (!) We worship the car and design our public spaces so that you almost have to own one. We don\u2019t see the value in city parks, public transportation, or bicycle paths, even though people who have access to these things report themselves happier than people who don\u2019t.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>We work too hard.<\/em> I know that Wright disputes this, and perhaps he\u2019s correct that Americans don\u2019t work as many hours as they used to. However, that doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re not working too much overall\u2014and that our sense of being always \u201con the job\u201d has not been exacerbated by smartphones and laptops that make work available to many of us wherever we go.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In short, Wright\u2019s book is a solid start. It\u2019s heavy on the numbers but light on the reasons why people are still not as happy as they used to be\u2014a question that merits considerable analysis.<\/p>\n<p><em>Note: This review is part of a Patheos Roundtable of book reviews for <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Upside<\/span>. Click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/Find\/Religion-and-Faith-Book-Club.html\">here<\/a> for other opinions on the book by Tony Jones, Joel Best and others.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With riots in London, a nosedive in the stock market, and Michelle Bachmann dominating the airwaves, it\u2019s hard to believe that the world is actually getting better. In fact, declension seems all but assured. Yet continuous improvement is the thesis of Bradley Wright\u2019s relentlessly sunny new book Upside: Surprising Good News About the State of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-christianity","category-cultural-commentary"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>If the World\u2019s Getting Better, Why Do Americans Need Xanax?: Bradley Wright Falls Short with \u201cUpside\u201d - Flunking Sainthood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world\u2019s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-\u201cupside\u201d.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If the World\u2019s Getting Better, Why Do Americans Need Xanax?: Bradley Wright Falls Short with \u201cUpside\u201d - Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With riots in London, a nosedive in the stock market, and Michelle Bachmann dominating the airwaves, it\u2019s hard to believe that the world is actually getting better. 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Yet continuous improvement is the thesis of Bradley Wright\u2019s relentlessly sunny new book Upside: Surprising Good News About the State of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world\u2019s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-\u201cupside\u201d.html","og_site_name":"Flunking Sainthood","article_published_time":"2011-08-10T20:39:23+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/08\/upside-194x300.jpg"}],"author":"Jana Riess","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d.html","name":"If the World\u2019s Getting Better, Why Do Americans Need Xanax?: Bradley Wright Falls Short with \u201cUpside\u201d - Flunking Sainthood","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/08\/upside-194x300.jpg","datePublished":"2011-08-10T20:39:23+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-10T20:39:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/fe5046ba89e9602d4de4c0e9b4ef53f8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/08\/upside-194x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/08\/upside-194x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/08\/if-the-world%e2%80%99s-getting-better-why-do-americans-need-xanax-bradley-wright-falls-short-with-%e2%80%9cupside%e2%80%9d.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"If the World\u2019s Getting Better, Why Do Americans Need Xanax?: Bradley Wright Falls Short with \u201cUpside\u201d"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/","name":"Flunking Sainthood","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jana Riess","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/fe5046ba89e9602d4de4c0e9b4ef53f8","name":"Jana Riess","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/954\/9541c99a399647166f0db1fe22b238ecx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/954\/9541c99a399647166f0db1fe22b238ecx96.jpg","caption":"Jana Riess"},"description":"Jana Riess is the author of Flunking Sainthood, a 2011 book about failing at twelve different spiritual practices. 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