The main thesis of my economic case is that the class of
quite well-off middle class people (the initiatory class) are now
so busy and stressed that they have little time left over to buy and use
the sort of major items -- as was the car and TV in the last century --
that will have significant stimulatory effects on the economy as a whole
as they subsequently cascade down through the rest of the consumer
strata. Even though the sub-middle class are straddled with huge credit
card debts on average, they are not spending their money on anything
really new and significant but are simply maintaining expenditure on
items which have long since become the norm -- cars, holidays, electronic
equipment, etc.
Another way of saying this is that modern society in developed countries
is now pretty heavily stressed. In an article in today's Sunday
Telegraph, Jeff Randall, also the Business Editor of the BBC, devotes
an article to this. He rather spoils his case in places by being somewhat
tongue-in-cheek as though he doesn't really experience stress (at least
in his own daily life) but, nevertheless, he acknowledges its existence.
He doesn't actually give much specific evidence of stress, except to
quote a varied collection advanced by others, but two of these I regard
as being strong cases of both causes and consequences of stress --
namely, not having children, and being in debt. I have already mentioned
the latter. As regards not having children, then I believe that the
rapidly descending fertility rate in developed countries in the last
couple of decades as being among the most potent indicators. Almost all
of the adults of Europe, Japan and now, the white component of America
are now not replacing themsleves.
The negative replacement rate of families with much fewer than the
necessary 2.2 children per family is, in truth, a sort of collective
suicide. It is no exaggeration to suggest that this is a society that
believes in itself so little that it doesn't want to survive. The same
argument applies, I believe, to the high incidence of homosexuality, a
significant contributor of contraception today. Nothing anywhere near
this has ever happened before in history. Some would suggest that it was
quite common in ancient Greece and Sparta. This is not so. Some
high-class gymnasia (philosophical discussion groups) would take
handsome boys under their wing, as it were, with the express permission
of their fathers, but these boys would grow up to be quite normal
heteroexuals and fathers in turn. In the case of Sparta, the boys who
were selected to be future warriors would live together for years until
they were young men and no doubt were practisting homosexuals for the
duration (just as many men are in prison or prisoner-of-war camps) but,
in due course, they got married, if only to make sure that the warrior
caste would continue. In some cases, their wives had to practise a form
of behaviour therapy for a while (including cutting their hair short so
that they looked like boys) until their husbands adjusted and spent more
of their time with them.
Such is the political climate surrounding discussion of homosexuals that
those, such as myself, who think that homosexuality is not really to be
desired, particularly as it restricts the experience of a great many
adolescent males, find it difficult to talk or write about it without
receiving a great deal of abuse as somehow being a reactionary. Lately,
however, I think the tide has begun to turn. At least one paper (by the
highly-liberal and respected Professor Spitzer) discussing cures (for
those who want it) has been published.
Also, wearing my hat as a publisher of choral music, I am currently
experiencing a phenomenon which suggests very strongly that the issue of
homosexuality, though hidden for the most part, is a great deal more
stressful than polite discussion in an urbane liberal society would
suggest. To introduce this, let me first give an example of what happened
after the devastating Al-Qaeda attack on the New York Trade Center on 11
September 2001. Immediately -- by this I mean the next day -- my sales of
music declined precipitously. Most of my normal sales of choral music
goes to American choirs (via the internet) and most of these are to
church choirs. On 12 September my sales dropped to a quarter of their
normal levels and stayed that way for weeks, rising only very slowly in
the following months. If this had not happened so dramatically -- that
is, on the very next day -- I could not have believed that sales could
ever have been so badly affected for this particular reason. In fact,
sales didn't reach their normal monthly levels and normal rates of growth
until 15 months later.
A similar effect has happened recently. Since the beginning of this month
-- which has normally been my second busiest months of the year for the
past seven years -- sales have halved. This drop in sales, at a time when
choral directors are arranging their singing programmes for Christmas and
the winter season, has been so significant that there must be an obvious
cause. But I couldn't for the life of me think what it could be. And then
the penny dropped. The Anglican church in England and its equivalent in
America, the Episcopal church, have, for the past fortnight, been going
through what can only be described as an earthquake. Since the election
of a bishop, Gene
Robinson -- and a practising homosexual at that -- discussion on whether
he should be confirmed in that position has produced talk of a schism
within the Anglican church which could divide the church from top to
bottom and in many countries. In England, some months previously,
Archbishop Rowan Williams had persuaded Jeffrey John -- gay, though
celibate -- to stand down as putative bishop of Reading and the
controversy had died down. But Gene Robinson in America has refused to
stand down and so the issue errupted this month. Not being a churchgoer
myself and with no knowledge of church politics, I had no personal
intimation of the depth of this controversy, but it is quite clear to me
now from reading the newpapers that this matter must be of the most
profound unease within the Anglican church itself.
Whether the issue will divide the Church of England and the Episcopal
Church in America I have no idea. How long the drop in sales will
continue, I also have no idea. I'm fairly philosophical about it and I am
reasonably sure that sales will not be permanently affected, if only
because the early music I sell is also bought by secular choirs. I
suspect, however, that the controversy within the church will give some
courage to those who don't believe that homosexuality should be accepted
as a normal and welcome state of affairs, but would like to talk about it
calmly without being jumped on. However, even though the atmosphere might
become a little more balanced, it still won't alter the fact that our
present type of mass production, mass consumer society is very highly
stressed and that many sorts of correction need to take place before it
become much worse.
Keith Hudson
<<<<
ALL THIS TALK ABOUT STRESS
Jeff Randall
Do you ever get the feeling that Britain is cracking up? I don't mean
physically, though our well-documerited problems with rail, roads and
power would suggest that the country's infrastructure is indeed falling
apart. No I'm talking about cracking up between the ears: growing signs
that most of us simply cannot handle life's everyday problems without
tummg them into a full-blown, brain-behding crisis.
My parehts' generation generally encountered difficulties far greater
than those faced by most of us today. In the 1940s, Britons were poorer
and less healthy. The housirig quality was lower, and for those in big
cities there was the additional inconvenience of being bombed by the
Luftwaffe.
Yet somehow, they seemed to cope better; they got on with it.
Aggravation was accepted as part and parcel of the daily grind. This is
no longer the case. Now, when life is less than perfect, which for just
about everybody is all the time, we seem ever eager to develop mysterious
illnesses and scream "stress!".
I mention this because last week two newspaper headlines grabbed my
attention. One, in the Daily Express, was "Official:
mortgages can make you SICK". The other, in London's Evening
Standard, was "Official: commuting by rail makes you ill".
According to figures from Sainsbury's Bank, more than 6 million Britons
are physic`ally and psychologically damaged by fears about mortgage
repayments. And when money matters aren't doing our heads in, travelling
by trains is. A report from MPs concluded that raiol commuters face a
daily "trauma", with many passengers reaching their
destinations "stressed".
OK, keeping the bank manager happy is no joke and travelling by rail,
especially on the London Underground, is often a pain. Butg, hey, are we
British now so brfittle that we can no longer handle problems that many,
less fortunate people around the world would love to have?
I fear this is the case. The Health and Safety Executive claims that 6.5
million sick days are being taken every year by Bntish workers as a
result of stress. The Trades Union Congress says the figure is closer to
9.0 million.
What is this obsession with stress ? Britain's famous stiff upper lip
appears to have been been replaced by mass hypochondna. Can stress levels
really be as bad as we claim, or in an age of self-indulgence have we
simply become addicted to whingeing?
Clearly, many jobs do impose terrible burdens. Few of us, I'm sure, would
last long as a teacher in a sink-estate comprehensive, where the staff
are joften regarded as "the enemy". And only last week, we
learned of a paramedic who killed himself after attending five deaths in
six weeks. That is real stress.
But for too many of us, pseudo-stress has become a fashion accessory.
We're not happy unless we're parading it. Sytress has replaced house
prices as the main burden of conversation at suburban dinner parties. A
doctor told me recently that, after the common cold, stress was the
ailment most complained about in his surgery. Stress, or at least what we
believe to be stress, is also demaging the economy. The Mental Haleth
Foundation says that stressed workers are costing British industry £3
billion a year. Tellingly, a survey by the Institute of Personnel and
Development concluded that ione third of all days taken off sick by
British employees were not due to genuine illness.
Though I have no time for skivers, there does appear to be a burgeoning
industry, comprising doctors, psychologists, social workers, academics
and assorted meddlers, dedicated to reminding us just how stressed we
are. While researching this piece, I entered the word "stress"
into the search engine on the BBC New website -- and up popped 416
items.
These are just some of the domestic institutions that have recently
published reports, surveys or studies into stgress: the Industrial
Society, several universities (indlluing London and UMIST), the NHS, the
Office of National Statistics, local councils, market research groups,
the Department of Trade and Industry, The Work-Life Balance Trust, the
British Heart Foundation, the Institute of Psychiatry, the Royal College
of Psychiatgrists and the british Association for Counsellling and
Psychotherapy.
Wiht that lot bearing down upon us, is it any wonder we're all feeling
stressed out? And as more and more bodies promote the danger iof stress,
new causes seem to turn up every day. Among those identified were:
low-paying jobs, hbigh-paying jobs, changing jobs, oo much work, not
enough work, having children, not having children, being a student, being
a teacher, living in cities, living in the country and being in
debt.
The Sunday Telegraph 19 October 2003
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