It’s a question I’ve been asking for a while* here: Why is it people prefer misery? They catastrophize everything. They absurdly exaggerate everything bad. They inductively reason that one outlier instance of something tragic means it’s endemic. They whip up a word salad about some banal thing that’s been happening forever and, while perhaps unpleasant, never caused any actual damage that’s going to destroy humanity before the end of the week. Why? It’s not merely a matter of neglect but an active choice. You want everything to be the worst thing ever and the end of humanity.
Jane Coaston calls it “doomerism.“
Being a doomer — believing that the end is nigh, everything is going to go to hell and maybe we are, too — is big right now.
This isn’t a right or left thing ether, although both will no doubt argue their doomerisming is right while the other side’s doomerisming is crazy.
Last year, doomer doctors garnered big numbers on Twitter predicting that every pharmacy in America would close by February 2022 because of Covid (though one doomer, at least, did revisit her prediction). Now there are doomer professors predicting that the end of society is nigh (and getting praise on Reddit for doing so). There are doomers who have embraced nihilism over electoral politics and doomers creating “bug out” kits for when the world ends because of climate change or the Supreme Court. Doomerism is hotter right now than the street outside my apartment, and that street is pretty damn hot.
Ironically, the New York Times offers an editorial today on the end of the world as we know it.
Yet the news from Washington was all about the ability of a single United States senator, Joe Manchin, to destroy the centerpiece of President Biden’s plans to confront these very problems — roughly $300 billion in tax credits and subsidies aimed at greatly expanding wind, solar, electric car batteries and other clean energy technologies over the next decade. Had it survived, this would have been the single biggest investment Washington had ever made to combat the ravages of a warming climate.
You would think with all those very smart folks on the NYT editorial board, somebody would have responded to the email with, “Well, maybe it’s about Biden’s poorly devised yet expensive plan, about the conflation of global warming and transgender hegemony, the fact that it’s a planetary problem and no matter what the US does, to the damnation of its citizenry, it’s not going to fix the problem if the other industrial nations aren’t on board,” or any of the great many other questions that really need to be addressed to fix this problem. But I digress.
It’s not hard to figure out why we are experiencing a new religion of profound pessimism. For a lot of people, things seem pretty bad right now — whether they’re fearful of Covid or care deeply about abortion rights being taken away, climate change, police brutality or severe restrictions on immigration — and the means by which those bad things might be changed or reversed seem more stuck than ever before. (As if on cue, a global heat emergency descended on us right after the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its bounds in creating the Clean Power Plan.)
The issue here is one of cause and effect, which Jane may be confusing. We have problems? Sure, but we’ve always had problems, and most of these aren’t even new problems so much as the same ongoing intransigent social problems that we’ve struggled with for decades or longer. So why now are these problems so overwhelming, so oppressive, so horrible that it’s the end of the world?
But recognizing that things are bad and could get worse is not what I’m talking about. Rather, doomerism luxuriates in the awful, and people seem unable to get enough of it — the equivalent of rubbernecking at a terrible car accident. That horrible news story you saw? That’s what’s going to happen everywhere, probably soon, definitely to you, and here’s a 22-tweet thread about it. Also, the problems of every town and city are evidence of impending catastrophe, which is coming for you and your family, and no, there’s nothing you can do about it. Covid? Monkeypox? Everything is another harbinger of calamity. And actually, people who aren’t doomers are just lying to themselves, pretending we are not all fated to die in a sick, sad world.
Between nihilism and narcissism, and the deeply unfortunate failure of sending children off to school where they’re taught by Oscar Wilde’s cynics, who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, we’ve grown a generation of depressed and anxious, angry and failed misfits. Les Misérables, but without a hero or good music.
So you’re certain you or your lifestyle is over. Your work life, home life, love life, sex life are awful because you’ve made them that way because you hate yourself and everyone else and the only “pleasure” you can muster is misery. And you will argue that this is how it must be and you are very intelligent?
I have found that the best way to spur action is to begin from a place of optimism — a belief that the thing you want really is possible. (That also means having a realistic vision for what life would look like if you got the thing you wanted.) I’ve used optimism to help people around me change their minds on marriage equality and qualified immunity reform, and argued in favor of those ideas because I believe they are good, not because those are the only ideas stopping us from dying in a horrifying cataclysm.
Jane Coaston has made the choice not to succumb to doom, to squander her life wallowing in misery. Instead, she will use her gifts to do something useful to improve our world, recognizing (as any actually thoughtful person must) that there will always be problems, but that the way to make life better is to strive to fix them. Be like Jane, not the doomers.
*A google search of SJ with “misery” shows 433 results. I’m sure they’re not all on this subject, but many are. And they are for a reason. So many of you are so miserable, living in a world of anger and fear, doom and catastrophe, and hating it, yet refusing to stop being miserable.
Imagine waking up and thinking to yourself, what a glorious day! I wonder what wonderful thing will happen to me today? Will I meet a new friend, find love, help someone in need, paint a masterpiece or cure cancer? Who knows? Can you even imagine such a thing?
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It’s another version of, “If it bleeds it ledes.”
Or not even remotely similar, but cute and simplistic.
You keep saying that Turk is a good lawyer, and Turk keeps demonstrating that he’s a simpleton. Something is not right.
Or he may not invest the same effort here that he does in his law practice.
Turk is an excellent lawyer, and if he feels compelled to leave a comment, then puts in that level of thought here as well.
Allow me to take a stab at what Turk’s inartfully trying to say (and he can correct me if I’m wrong, obviously). That there is nothing unusual happening here, and these pessimistic youth that SHG and Coaston see are no different than the any generation of youth, and it’s just their “bleeding” that leads, so that we hear about the negative rather than the positive.
Is this the point, Turk?
In any event, I completely disagree with Turk that this is just the usual “kids” problem and “they’ll grow out of it” solution, but being wrong isn’t the same as being simplistic, although one can be both.
Sometimes I’m just pessimistic. Misery sells, be it for events or doomsayers and it always seems to outshine the optimism of someone like Coaston.
I should be more like her more often.
I don’t think Coaston is talking about our generation here. Maybe it’s not all about us.
I liked the “ledes” change to the quote.
Like Turk said. The psychologists will provide a better explanation. Something to do with how (other people’s) misery makes us feel safer by virtue of the contrast with our own lives. Unfortunately, for that to work the misery has to be quite heavy-duty, as indeed it is. The deeper question might be why we embrace so bloody MUCH doom and gloom.
Personally I hate it, though I’m conscious it catches my eye more than those lottery winners. But I’m about to rise from bed and it indeed a beautiful day (notwithstanding that’s a symptom of our impending extinction later this century), so I’m off to find some old ladies to help across the road.
What the ever-living fuck did you think this post was about?
The CBT practitioners do not claim to know the cause, but catastrophizing is a long recognized form of distorted thinking. [Ed. Note: Balance of moronic CBT promo deleted.]
Never use SJ comments as your opportunity to pump and dump CBT again.
Robert Heinlein.
“Don’t ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun–and neither can stop the march of events.”
Men do not learn from history. Each generation believes it is brighter than the last, each believes it can survive the mistakes of the older ones. Each discovers each old thing and they throw up their hands and say ”See, look at what I found” Look upon what I know. And each believes it is something new
The Californios Louis L’Amour
I see young people swearing they’re not going to have children because of the impending climate doom and it makes me sad. Why deny yourself a (mostly) wonderful life experience over the types of predictions of catastrophe that have been made forever and have never come true?
And shame on the politicos/experts hawking catastrophic predictions off all kinds and those that spread them.
It may be that climate doom is an excuse for a separate issue of stunted adolescence. They don’t want children because they are children and are incapable of sacrificing their own fun and freedom for the benefit of another, even their own child.
The future belongs to those who show up.
It’s all based on wiping out your memory and reducing the attention span. And, for the younger folks, it also requires the debasing and disrespecting of the words and stories of your elders.
Every new ‘end of the world’ disaster is an utter joke for anyone old enough to remember.
Every heat wave, blizzard, flood, disease, etc., etc., is just another “been there, done that” moment for those who can remember….or more like, a ‘been there, done that.. AND I DIDN’T FUCKING DIE!! moment.’…imagine that.
The constantly changing narrative of the media needs and creates the empty heads it desires to fill, and so it becomes what it now is. Nothing but fear porn for the logically challenged, emotionally reactive mind.
“Freedom is remembering the weight of your chains after they’re off”
Take the chains off. Turn THEM off. Take a walk in the woods. Go sit outside and do nothing. Seize the fucking day.
“…the future that you fear has been programmed into your mind…”
I do so love that song.
Living proof that even idiots can be inspired and cogent. 🙂
Thank you, my friend.
Some write thoughtful blawgs.
Some write thoughtful songs.
The rest of us nod our heads, say “Yep,” and are thankful for both.
The internet facilitates pity parties among birds of a feather flocking together.
It’s been a long time since America had a success that everyone applauded. Every change of consequence is unacceptable to the other 49%. There are no mutually accepted leaders because politics won’t allow it.
When Hobbes wrote the life was nasty, brutish and short, he was talking about a society with no government, but perhaps a dysfunctional government begets some of the same.
What constitutes a “long time” differs to us olds than to you yutes.
I’m 75, but V-J Day was still before my time.
Age is only a social construct, kid.
The last time the nation came together as one (with, of course, exceptions) was after 9/11. Was that a long time ago to a 75 year old? It’s not to me, and I’m a bit younger than you. You might want to get your calendar watch adjusted as it’s not working right.
Will the world end with a big boom?
Or quietly slide into gloom?
Though I can’t really say
It won’t happen today,
Sun’s up, coffee’s on, why fuss and fume?
If you want to encourage the feral mob to take up pitchforks and go kill people, which is a good power protecting move and easily crowdsourced, you can’t get the job done very well with optimism and affirmation.
Neglected to point out that of course the NYT misdescribed the Senate vote because of their bias/narrative. The bill didn’t fail because one Senator didn’t vote for it. It failed because 51 didn’t.
There are a few moderate Republicans in the senate and you’d think that a reasonable climate change bill would have a chance to pick off a couple of them. Hard to say because we don’t get accurate descriptions of bills any more, but the fact that it didn’t suggests that it was larded down with extraneous crap.
Yes, it’s a narrative trope that underscores the dysfunction and toxicity of (D)democratic (P)party thinking: the idea that their efforts fail because of a lack of fealty among their in-group rather than a lack of support for their arguments among the broader public.
Therefore the solution is not to improve the arguments – the opposite, it turns out at times – but more enforcement and punishment of the in-group. It’s harder when you are succeeding as well as when you are completely out of power, so the most useful scenario for enforcement is to be failing by a marginal amount. Doomerism is more politically effective with personification, and bad allies can be even better for this than symbiotic opposition leaders.
Passing laws will have very little effect on climate change. Politicians seem to believe they can tackle any modern problem by passing some form of legislation. Meanwhile, emissions continue to rise globally.
Of course, this is an off topic commnet and I”ll likely be admonished; however, my day will remain gloom free.
The problem isn’t that it’s off topic, but that it says nothing. Passing laws will have very little effect? Why? Because you say so? Who cares? If you have a reason, spell it out. If not, why waste my bandwidth?