In 1966 Simon and Garfunkel adapted Edward Arlington Robinson's Richard Cory to music and recorded it for their Sounds of Silence album. That was my first introduction to the enigma of Richard Cory:
He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,
And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,
So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head.
Arlington's version was no more informative:
WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
The question of why someone who apparently had everything that people desire, "power, wealth and style", would commit suicide animates much Psychiatric work.
The poem came to mind when I was reading Dick Meyer's piece at NPR, Apocalypse News? which concerned the pervasive unhappiness of Americans in the face of our incredible wealth and comfort:
Though most all of the objective conditions of American life have improved since the 1960s, Americans have a sustained crankiness.
Civil rights have been extended in meaningful ways to communities that lacked them before the 1960s: racial minorities, homosexuals and people with disabilities.
And no nation on Earth has ever been more long-lived, healthy, well-sheltered, prosperous, safe from foreign intrusion and free in the pursuit of happiness.
But happiness, the social scientists tell us, has declined in America.
Poll numbers and statistics just hint at things deeper. In ways impossible to quantify, Americans have become down on America, allergic to much of what goes on in public.
...
In politics, the vacuum of strong leadership, effective political parties, bipartisanship, sober media and political tolerance has been filled by media, marketing and phoniness. In private life, the vacuum of tradition and community has been filled by, well, media, marketing and phoniness.
In the 1970s, Americans looked to a new generation of politicians and to political "reform" for renewal. At the beginning of the 21st century, we are still looking.
Dick Meyer focused on the failed expectations aroused in the 1960's generation. Long before Barack Obama declared "we are the ones we have been waiting for", the generation that came of age in the 1960s believed that "All You Need Is Love" to fix the world. The world has not cooperated but this is only a surface manifestation of a greater problem.
First of all, I do not believe that the vast majority of Americans are unhappy, though there are large numbers telling pollsters we are "on the wrong track." I suspect the breakdown in optimism versus pessimism about the future and about one's prospects is similar to the disparity in reported happiness by liberals versus conservatives. Consider Dick Meyer's last lines:
In the 1970s, Americans looked to a new generation of politicians and to political "reform" for renewal. At the beginning of the 21st century, we are still looking.
Those who look for politicians and political reform for renewal will never find what they seek. Looking to our politicians to offer us meaning and a better life is not just foolish and leaves one open to and doomed to disappointment, but it reflects a passivity that too easily leads to victimhood. People who take a passive position toward the world define themselves as incapable of actively producing anything of value.
[Among those who I would consider as taking a passive position toward the world are those whose passivity is disguised as action. There is a growth industry in this country of those who are actively passive; ie, they are "activists" who see their job and calling as involving working to more effectively extract largess from others, such as the government and corporations. Despite their overt activity, they are defining themselves as being incapable of generativity. All their energy is devoted to getting from others as opposed to producing value.]
When a large cohort continues, 40 years after the 1960s, to look for others to do for them, they are remaining children desirous of love and comfort from their parents. Government as parent has been a disaster in the West. We have grown more and more comfortable and found less and less ability and motivation to protect and defend our way of life. Barack Obama's speech in Germany contained one real idea, that Europe should do more to assist the Afghanis in confronting terror. The idea was met with a resounding silence. Doing more for others rather than expecting the government to do more for them is the prevailing ethic in Europe. Their is little will to fight or even sacrifice for others, including for their own progeny, who are missing in large numbers.
Richard Cory had everything yet he killed himself because his life was empty of meaning. He had all the trappings but was missing an unidentifiable something that would have made his life worth living.
Science fiction writers have often explored future worlds in which there is no material want and elites have effectively attained immortality. For the writers, they can only imagine that once having surmounted time and material want, their protagonists would inexorably descend into sybaritic excess and ennui from which suicide was the only exit. The West has to a very great extent banished material want and the result is a generation of people who, given the choice, want nothing more than to continue suckling at the government's teat, and engage in the slow suicide of demographic collapse.
Maybe "losing our religion" wasn't such a good idea after all.
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