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IP FEATURE |
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| OverSuccess: America's Dangerous Obsession with Success, Status and Celebrity
New book warns of problems and offers solutions |
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by Jim Barnes It's a frightening time in America, and I'm not talking about Halloween. From "Wall Street to Main Street," economic woes prevail: the Stock Market is in turmoil, Americans are drowning in record debt, and consumer economic expectations are at their lowest level of this index's 40 year history. "Unlike previous recessions, it’s about more than high oil prices and a faltering GDP," says author and former New Hampshire state senator Jim Rubens. "After three decades of pedaling harder and faster to meet our culture’s increasingly lofty goals and progressively more inaccessible role models, even the economically secure have reached psychological exhaustion. The good news is that we are ready to question these goals and role models and, in the process, to redefine the meaning of success in America."
than double the friendless rate in 1985. Spouses in dual-income families with children spend an astonishingly small twelve minutes a day talking with each other. Almost 30 percent of working Americans take no vacation time at all, our average vacation being only thirteen days, half that of the next lowest industrialized nation. We say that having sex is our single most favorite thing to do, but we are so busy on our career and debt treadmills that we spend only three minutes a day doing it. How can we get off the hamster wheel of success when mass media constantly makes us want what we can't have by filling our waking lives with images of the beautiful, wealthy, famous and powerful? We in the world of independent publishing know this all too well, as the conglomerated media has brought about larger audiences for "superstar" authors, but made it harder for first-time or little-known authors to break through. Is the solitary nature of the writer even compatible with celebrity? "We need to stop being fixated on 'bigness' and superheroes, and start creating what I call 'new villages' in which to live, work and interact socially and politically," says Rubens. "Building these communities from the bottom-up will require grassroots efforts where people get recognized for their contributions and talents. Smaller political units will be more responsive to people's needs and local media and entertainment will offer healthy alternatives to the national, commercial-based mass-media that feeds our obsession with celebrity and consumerism." "Somehow the American Dream has been replaced with the trappings of wealth and fame, and we need to face this fact and start finding new ways to achieve healthy success." We asked Jim Rubens to explain more about OverSuccess and elaborate on some of his solutions. IP: Why did you say in a recent op-ed that the negative economic and social indicators, driven by forces at work over the years, have come to a head, only this year, 2008? JR: I began predicting this in 2002. It's the various social, cultural and economic indicators that have reached such extreme levels this year that tell me we've reached a transition time, initiating a period of fundamental values questioning. Some of the most sensitive and continuously maintained indicators I watch include debt levels, trust in government institutions, consumer economic expectations, and rating of collective moral values. See more on this specific question at one of my recent postings on www.OverSuccess.com. IP: Your book concludes on a strongly optimistic note, but you warn that many of the changes you suggest will require institutional and political change likely to be opposed by entrenched interests and social conventions. What can we, as individuals, do right now to heal OverSuccess? Here are a couple of simple examples: Common courtesy. We can all take immediate action by dialing down our personal emissions into the open sewer of bad manners, vulgarity, and disrespect, which have spread from MTV and into our workplaces and our childrens’ mouths. Thank the convenience store clerk we will never see again. Apologize for mistakes. Talk less and listen more. Take six seconds to hold the door for the person behind us. If you’ve got only two seconds, smile at a passing stranger. If we were each to add one small act of kindness daily, many more of us would feel respected, and the sour American mood would leaven within days. Responsible wealth display. With American spending on luxury goods reaching $75 billion this year, we have saturated public psychological space with products designed to make our neighbors feel inferior. Among this year’s luxury autos, none gets over 30 mpg, only two over 25 mpg, contributing unnecessarily to global warming and making us all more dependent upon hostile oil-exporters. Instead, luxury marketers could ditch today’s emphasis on ostentation, overscaling, and reckless resource consumption and shift to products featuring functional quality and durable aesthetics. IP: You talk about “new villages” as a solution to OverSuccess. Explain what these would look like in our communities and workplaces? Egalitarianism is not a cure for our success deficit because we are not created equal. The answer is to cool our infatuation with the rich and famous and radically multiply the endeavors and the social and organizational niches where we can pursue success and recognition. Each endeavor and niche would define its own relevant skills, talents, goals, role models, and reference benchmarks, a “multiple intelligences” approach to success. We’d have whistling clubs, local stonewall building competitions, corporations divided into business units of no more than 200 people, and ten thousand new places where everybody knows your name. This "new villages" approach to social organization would overlay and mesh into the huge, anonymous organizations that characterize the global village and the global economy. A good example of new villages in practice in the workplace is W.L. Gore, a $2 billion company that purposefully splits up its operating units if they grow larger than about 200 employees. This permits more durable and deeper human relationships to form and gives most employees opportunity to be genuinely recognized and personally rewarded for their personal contributions and skills. I cover W.L. Gore in the last chapter of the book. IP: Are you saying that someone living paycheck to paycheck in a low-status job should not put in the extra hours, taking time from family, maybe losing sleep, to get ahead economically? Isn’t one man’s rat race another man’s brighter future? By no means do I suggest that people should not put in extreme effort to reach their goals. From this effort comes lasting betterment of the human condition. But a person under economic duress and seeking betterment should not bash their already more fragile psychological condition by flailing at improbable goals relative their qualifications, abilities, relationships, etc. Thus, someone living on the edge should not bank on a big casino. Those of ordinary appearance and without insider contacts should not expect to become a celebrity. Sacrificing sleep on a continuing basis is not a good strategy because their sleep deficits reduce workplace performance to a greater extent than gains that may come from extra hours. Indeed, a person seeking escape should carefully select goals that are challenging, but possible, given that person's individual circumstances. I strongly suggest that those seeking to better themselves economically first do a "signature strengths" self-analysis at www.AuthenticHappiness.com in order to optimize their career/job fit. Indeed, one man's rat race is another's brighter future. OverSuccess damages the aspirant and his/her family, community, and nation, whereas healthy ambition involves having selected goals with some realistic potential of being achieved, and contributes on balance to personal, family, community, and national well-being. * * * * * Jim Rubens served two productive terms in the state senate, lost a run for governor, and chaired his state party platform committee. Today, Rubens is an angel investor and member of the Granite State Angels at the Tuck School of Business, focusing on New England high-tech startups. He consults for the Union of Concerned Scientists on clean energy and global warming policy, and blogs on politics for the Huffington Post. He lives with his wife and 11-year-old son in New Hampshire. OverSuccess: Healing the American Obsession with Wealth, Fame, Power, and Perfection by Jim Rubens Published by Greenleaf Press (October 2008) ISBN: 978-1-929774-76-0 $24.95 Cloth; 451 pgs. Back 
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