During my morning reading, I came across a slightly alarming statistic.
It was a graphic chart showing life expectancy in major Western Nations. The thing that was alarming about it, was that it showed that in 1980 the US had a life expectancy that was approximately in line with most major Western civilizations.
50 years later, the US had the lowest life expectancy of these nations, and what was more alarming was the fact that over the past four or five years that life expectancy has actually been declining.
Now, it's easy to say "yeah, but Covid and blah, blah, blah..." and use that to shove away what the graphic suggested to be true. But let's not forget that all these nations had Covid to deal with.
I believe that what the graphic really shows, is that you're looking at a nation where so many people are struggling to get by in life that they quite simply wear themselves out, in a way not dissimilar to how those working the fields 14 hours a day 200 years ago lived shorter lives. Meanwhile, the only people whose life expectancy has gone up are those in the top few percent of the socio-economic spectrum, where they can afford all the goods and services that help increase your lifespan.
I shared the statistic with a group of friends, and the reaction was actually interesting — and to some degree predictable — in the sense that most of them got a bit defensive and in some way turned out to be apologists for the statistic.
Only a minority looked at it and came back with the admission that "something is definitely rotten in the US of A, and we should be dealing with that." But they were a minority.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, some even came back and responded to the fact that life expectancy in the US is going down as "liberal propaganda." Which to me just shows that this country which I live in — and I've lived in by choice, for 40 years — has grown into a nation of people who seem inclined to stick their heads in the sand and point fingers, rather than knuckling down and solving problems.
There's also a subtle subtext here, that somehow if we actually own up to and address this massive inequality problem (which is now showing very tangible and possibility life diminishing outcomes) somehow it robs people of the opportunity to sit as "lottery winners" among those top one or five percent, whose life expectancy is actually rising.
It all made me think back to my earliest days after I moved to the US from Europe and one of the earliest societal trends that struck me is that the US is an "All or Nothing" nation.
People often doubt me when I say that, but then I point to simple societal context that perhaps supports what I'm saying.
The first place I noticed it was with sports in the US. Coming from Europe (in 1981) my paradigm was that a sports contest ending in a tie or a draw was a perfectly acceptable result. Then I came to the US and discovered that there was no such thing as a draw here — you have to have a "winner" and a "loser" and people will go to great lengths of overtime and shootouts to determine who won and who lost.
Maybe that seems like a very small thing, but it sort of represents the subtext that drives societal values. We love to have winners and losers in this country. The idea of "everybody doing pretty well" sits very poorly with the mindset of how we view the world, and some even would label it "socialism," regardless of whether or not it were functionally beneficial for a society.
Meanwhile, our system seems to have "evolved" to a place where it is actually causing people to die sooner.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!
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Created at 2023-10-26 00:05 PDT
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