Transcript

90. If America Is a Train Wreck, Why Am I Doing Fine?

0:02 I wouldn't intentionally go to a hospital and ask them to operate on me or give me uh Coca-Cola enema. I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Steven Dubner. And you're listening to no stupid questions. Today on the show. If Americans are generally happy as individuals.

0:22 Why are we so frustrated as a nation? We're going to hell in a handbasket. as a country, but my own life is pretty good. Angela, I recently came across a Gallup poll. Which found that only seventeen percent of Americans are currently satisfied with the direction of the United States.

0:43 That's a little depressing. Not so surprising, and I will say That number has been falling over recent years in the US. But here's the thing. The same pole.

0:55 Found that eighty five percent Of Americans. Are satisfied with the way things are going. In their personal life. Almost the exact opposite, right?

1:03 Yeah. So we can discuss some of the other numbers in the poll later,'cause the breakdown is interesting, but how do you explain This astonishing gap between Personal satisfaction. And our satisfaction with quote the way things are going in the US. When I first heard of this statistic, because it was a pretty widely publicized poll, I thought about what it means to be asked. How satisfied are you, Angela, with the way things are going in this country? Should we try that right now? Should I pretend to be Mr. Gallup?

1:34 Yes, you could be Monsieur Gallup. Gallup? Okay, Angela Duckworth, how satisfied would you say you are with the current direction of the United States? If you're giving me a scale of, you know, really dissatisfied to very satisfied. Say zero to ten, ten being optimal satisfaction, zero being I'm moving to, you know, Nigeria, Canada, fill in the blank. Yeah. I'm close to zero. Ooh. Borderline moving to Nigeria or Canada. I think you're more like a two and a half. Yeah, I'm definitely exaggerating there.

2:05 I mean I'm not gonna move But it has crossed my mind. I just feel like relative to where things were, I don't know, ten, twenty years ago. There's lots to be concerned about Can you give me a moment when you think direction of the country would have pulled at ten across the country? That's a good point. Would it have been seventeen seventy six, seventeen eighty nine? Would it have been maybe nineteen forty five? Nineteen forty five probably was, right? In World War Two.

2:35 But now when you ask me how are things going in the United States My thoughts immediately turn to politics. I'm an optimist by disposition, as you know, Steven, but the polarization of the left and the right, it doesn't feel like things are coming together. It feels like they're coming apart. It doesn't

2:55 feel at all like a positive forward direction politically for the country. Why does your mind immediately turn to politics? Because as far as I know, you don't really care that much about politics or follow it. Well it's a very good question, Steven, because as you know I am pretty out of touch with contemporary or historical politics. So like how do you even know what's going on in the United States, Angela? How do you know enough to be so miserable with the future of the country? I think when occasionally reality impinges upon my own personal life, when a very good friend wants to discuss what's going on. You know, what do I think about such and such and so and so. Then I wake up a little bit and I get myself out of whatever I was working on and I say, like what's going on? Who's invading where?

3:45 I guess uh also there is a kind of zeitgeist of unrest, distrust of our fellow like we're annoyed with each other. I feel like it's palpable. So I would be shocked if you hadn't picked up on that, because yeah, it's really hard to not Even if you don't consume a lot of media. But I think what's interesting about this is it's a good illustration of the power of negative media.

4:09 And we've done a Free Economics Radio episode about this not long ago called Why is US Media So Negative? And the answer Is that we have, as we've discussed on the show before, a built in negativity bias. Right, the bad is stronger than good effect, which was the title of the Roy Balmeister paper that first document this. And major outlet American journalism in particular exploits our negativity bias to maximize profits and then social media algorithms. kind of add fuel to the fire. It doesn't even have to be bad news. It can just be concerned

4:44 Or alarm. Even the weather, right? Especially the weather. Every time it's gonna rain, it's like a catastrophe. I happen to know someone very closely. Someone who I happen to live with. Who may or may not be my spouse who

4:59 Since Covid has made a habit. Of turning on cable news in the morning. Sometimes She will watch An outlet that aligns somewhat with her political philosophies.

5:11 I should say her political philosophies are well thought through and fairly heterodox, just For the record. But then sometimes she will intentionally watch A channel the furthest from her political philosophies. In her consumption?

5:28 Well, no, I would say it's not to avoid confirmation bias or to be more even in her view, she wants to see What? the crazy people are saying Because it's important to understand those arguments. Like know thy enemy. There you go. Yeah. But also I will say this. If I walk into the kitchen, let's say on ten days in a given month,

5:50 That channel is on Probably six of those days. What? So I'm not quite sure I buy the argument that it's purely opposition research at this point. Here's why though. It is Unbelievably entertaining. Like I don't like horror movies. I don't even like thrillers. I don't get it. Like I wouldn't intentionally go to let's say a hospital and ask them to operate on me or give me uh Coca-Cola enema even. Coca-Cola enema? I don't invite any suffering with the notion that there is a thrill associated with it. And yeah, it seems that people really do

6:26 get off to a degree. on wallowing in horror. Whether the horror is a horror film. Or horrible news expressed in the most horrible way. And because so many people are doing that, I think people like you and I, who may not have

6:41 As much attraction we get caught up in it. That's just kind of a soft masochism, right? I do think the bad is stronger than good. instinct that we have just to say how I understand that concept, it is that when we have a good event and a bad event, what draws our attention and also what carries weight in our consciousness, what we keep thinking about, is the bad event, not the good event. There's an asymmetry there. And the evolutionary explanation is If you have three good things that happen in a day and three bad things or three things that might threaten your life, maybe you should disproportionately allocate your conscious awareness to the bad things because guess what? They might end your life. In other words, bad is stronger than good for good reason. I mean

7:25 To me, the interesting thing in the Gallup poll, the twist of all this or the further mystery is why does that not play out apparently when we think about our own life? Right. Why do we only say, Oh my gosh, we're going to hell in a handbasket. As a country Life is pretty good. That was entirely my interest in this as well. What astonished me was this

7:46 gap that I interpreted as a mismatch. In other words. How can it be that eighty five percent of us are satisfied with the way things are going in our lives. But that only 17% of us, the same people, are satisfied with the direction in the US. And the gap, we should say, is not quite at its all time high.

8:05 It's currently at sixty eight percentage points. Which is huge. It's like the Grand Canyon. You almost couldn't invent a poll that could get a gap as big as that. It's second only to last year's gap which was seventy one points. And just to help draw the picture of what this Cole is getting at

8:25 I'll give you a little bit of detail on the people who are more satisfied with their own lives first, okay? Mm-hmm. Weekly churchgoers. College graduates. And wealthier people are more satisfied on average with their personal lives. And I can just affirm for you, Stephen, that is not a well, maybe that's just twenty twenty one. That's always the case that education, participation in formal religion, and income are all positively reliably correlated with Personal life satisfaction across

8:55 cultures and across history. And we should say You said participation in formal religion. But As, for instance, Bob Putnam, the sociologist argued in his book Bowling Alone, it doesn't have to be religion. It could be

9:08 different social or charitable or even familial networks. which have weakened a lot in the US for the past fifty, sixty, seventy years, but religion remains one that is fairly strong. So I just wanted to put in that pitch for secular networking as well. Trevor Burrus Yeah. I don't think anybody would say that religion or religious services are the only way to be in a social network, but religion has been singled out as a particularly Robust predictor of happiness. And we have overall

9:42 uh very strong religious belief in this country. Now If I were to ask you What Sort of person. Would you say

9:51 Is most displeased at this moment in time with the direction of the US. What would be one category that you feel you would find a lot of people professing that direction? So probably the people who don't like the current political party in their state. There you go. Or in their country, if the presidential candidate that you voted for lost, or at least other people thought they lost, you're gonna be unhappy. Yeah. When this gallop poll was taken quite recently and there's been a democrat in the White House for over a year now. This said that thirty percent of Democrats are satisfied with the direction of the US, which Isn't a very high number. So if only thirty percent of Democrats

10:31 currently are satisfied with the direction of the US while Democrat is in the White House. What share of Republicans would you say are currently satisfied with the US direction? I mean half as many or less. Right, that'd be a good guess. So fifteen

10:47 Maybe ten if you wanted to be aggressive. How about four percent in this poll? Wow. So satisfaction and direction of the US is strongly correlated with political party and it rises when your party is in power and it drops when your party's out. Makes sense. But if we were to go back just before the twenty twenty election, when Donald Trump was president, Biden was just running, it was the Republicans. in this poll who were pretty optimistic about the direction of the US and it was the Democrats who were pessimistic and then it just flips. I think one thing that distinguishes us is that we have a lot of very extreme left and very extreme right and in a lot of countries

11:26 Or in this country fifty years ago or even thirty years ago when the media worked differently. Those would be considered fringes and you wouldn't hear about'em. Now you're talking about magnification through what social media? And regular media and being elected to Congress, let's say. I mean, there's four hundred and thirty-five of them. So the fact that there's ten on either side that if you're on the opposite side you might consider Total lunatics. Is not really that surprising, but

11:55 When those voices are amplified because they get more microphones, Then it changes the perception for everybody. But I feel like the actual middle is very, very large in this country. And almost never discussed. So Stephen, if I'm

12:09 Toward the low side of the scale on like how are things going in the United States, where I'm curious are you? Well, actually we budged you from a zero to a two and a half, so you're kind of standard really. I would say that I'm nowhere near as negative about the future of the country. If I had to put a number on it, zero to ten, I don't wanna be the Ostrich with the head in the sand? I don't think I am, but I would say about a six and a half to seven and a half. Wow. I mean look, if this were school, that's a C plus. So I'm not saying it's great.

12:46 But let's just think for a second about What it means to create and live in and sustain a society. Infrastructure, електриці, education Law and order, access to food, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Compared to the rest of the world over history, we're doing it about nine point nine. But then on the flip side, You don't want to say, well

13:07 And I think a lot of people are having this conversation right now about Putin and Ukraine. Is this nineteen thirty nine? Germany? Is this nineteen forty one Germany? Is it neither? And that's the kind of misjudgment one does not want to make again. So I'm not saying that Pollyannish is the way to be, but I do believe that a little bit of perspective can go a long way. Still to come on No Stupid Questions, Steven and Angela discuss why other countries might not experience the same gap in individual versus national satisfaction. Is it gonna affect your personal life if, for example, the communists prevail?

13:47 and the nationalists lose. Before we return to Steven and Angela's conversation about the poll on national satisfaction, let's hear some of your thoughts on the topic. We asked listeners to send us voice memos about moments when the broader direction of their country actually did affect their personal lives. Here's what you said. Hello. British person here. When Brexit happened, I was

14:18 Unbelievably embarrassed. To be British. I work in research so I have lots of friends from all over the world and It felt like my country had become racist overnight. And I just

14:35 I felt so ashamed. So like a lot of people, the 2016 election messed me up. I'm half Mexican and half Caucasian. My mom, she emigrated from Mexico and she was a kid, so I grew up identifying as that. But I present as white. I found the election results. Shocking. I remember turning to my mom the day after the election and I'm being like

14:59 I feel like half the country hates me. And she was like, It's certainly Feels that way, doesn't it? Hi Steven and Angela. This is Irena. After completing my undergraduate degree in the UK, I remained working there under a visa with hopes of becoming naturalized as a citizen.

15:17 And at the time, I had in a very privileged and youthfully brash way made it part of my expat identity to denounce my Americanness. and had gotten fully behind things like free healthcare and smaller portion sizes at restaurants. But after the twenty sixteen election, instead of feeling like I was lucky to have escaped, I suddenly felt like I had abandoned This country that I didn't even understand anymore during a really important time. So while many of my friends stateside were threatening to move to Canada, I actually made the move back.

15:50 Plus with Brexit looming, my future in the UK felt less encouraged and certainly less expansive. That was respectively Yvan Kouch, Susan Astorga Kemp. And Irena Wong. Thanks to them and to everyone who sent us their thoughts. Now back to Steven and Angela's conversation about the gap in America's national versus individual satisfaction.

16:16 When I read this poll, the first thought I had went back to first year anthropology and this Concept of Emic and Ethic. You remember this? I did not take first year anthropology or second year or third year anthropology. Tell me about Emic and Etic. It's a way that anthropologists talk about looking at a society or a group from two different viewpoints. Emic is from within the social group and etic is from outside. It also made me think of this concept that I know even less about these Japanese concepts of hone and tatame. Hone is how a person truly feels and what they actually want, whereas Tatame is often a very different portrayal of that same person in a public setting where their private or personal desires are not expressed. And so I was thinking, well

17:06 Maybe Americans we just have our own way of having to totally different and maybe contradictory impulses to describe the world. One from within. Where I really know it intimately and I'm mostly happy with it. And one from ourselves looking out and saying, Oh my goodness. I'm pretty cool, but out there it's just a sh show. It's like NIMBYism. Not in my backyard, damn it. Yes. Not in my backyard. I was like, oh, is there some asymmetry where we hold inconsistent

17:38 beliefs but we're motivated to hold them because one is about ourselves and we have a self-serving bias to think positively and then the other is about other people. But honestly, Steven, I don't think it's that deep. I don't think it's a cognitive error. I just think when you say oh how do you think things are going in the United States, people are not asking themselves How happy do I think other people are with their lives, all three hundred million of them? I think they just think about politics and economics. I do know a little bit from working with Ed Deaner and then also Louis Tay, these are two leading researchers in well being, and they have specifically looked at what goes into your answer, hey Steven. Overall, uh how satisfied are you with your life? And at Diener worked with Gallup for many years all the way up to his recent death. Deaner specifically looked at how do questions of my own personal well being match up to questions of how do you think this country is doing overall. And they did it not only in the United States, they did it for the whole globe. And one of the things they found is that in an individualistic society like we have, we're more easily able to separate, hey Steven, how's your life going from hey Steven, how do you think the country's doing whereas in countries that are typically less developed

18:55 They have lower GDP and they're less likely to be in the Western hemisphere. These communitarian cultures tend to have a closer link. It's less likely that someone will give you one answer for their personal life and an entirely different answer for how things are going in their country. So It's kind of American to be able to feel that your life is Different and kind of walled off in a way from the national direction. But then I'm also thinking about when you live in a country where nationalism is not as prominent or maybe national media is not as large as it is in ours.

19:35 The degree to which your own personal life and fortunes are intertwined with the state or the government or the community, especially when it's much smaller. So I could imagine that the gap could be quite different depending on your circumstances, just literally how much you feel the national direction of the country affects you. Right. Eighty five percent of us are disturbed by the direction of the US.

20:02 But then think about Ukraine being invaded by Russia. How much do we Americans feel that kind of existential threat? Does that Event make anyone

20:15 Take a perspective check and say, Oh, wait a minute. Maybe I'm overassessing the degree to which we are in the toilet. Because Think of the multitude of ways in which things could be much, much, much, much, much worse. I mean, my parents grew up in China during the communist revolution, and if you ask them like, hey, is it gonna affect your personal life if, for example, the communists prevail and the nationalists lose, they would have said, Oh yes, absolutely. In fact they fled

20:48 the country because they were on the losing side and they didn't want to be tortured or killed or imprisoned. So there's clearly that reason why we can remove ourselves from how things are going in the United States. Also, I wonder whether the difference between the left and the right in this country, which seems to be about as far as it could possibly be. But maybe if we took a global perspective and we saw what was going on and Peru, in Ukraine, and other countries, we would see yet larger differences between parties that are vying for power. For example, I think most Americans believe that democracy is a good political system. I think most Americans to some extent believe in capitalism, a free market. Not a communist state. So if we could Take a global perspective, we would see that our left and our right aren't as

21:36 Extreme as they might appear. I do wonder how we as humans individually think about ourselves or other individuals versus the population. Maybe it's just because we have a really hard time assessing how a big, let's say, complex dynamic system works. And therefore we assume a lot of Not just mystery, but downside to it. Whereas ourselves

22:02 We understand. And there's also just The size issue. So if you think about the direction of the country that just sounds impenetrably large, impenetrably complex and dynamic. I don't usually quote US Senator Ted Cruz, who I believe is one of your

22:18 Favorite politicians. Huh. Not a Ted Cruz fan. So Ted Cruz is someone I would not describe as a pro social rationalist, which is, you know, maybe a phrase that I would apply to you and probably to me to some degree. But He was recently talking about the fundamentals of political conservatism. And here's what he tweet. He said, Let me suggest a simple principle.

22:39 Big is bad. Big government. Big tech. Big Hollywood.

22:44 Big universities suck. It is very US senatorial language, I have to say. Did he say suck? Yes, he did. Oh gosh. Furthermore, any accumulation and centralization of power is fundamentally dangerous for individual liberty. So that sounds like a kind of standard small C conservative argument in twenty twenty two, although I would have to say if Ted Cruz were president and he were trying to ramp up Some defense department or education department or transportation department. Then he would say big is good. Yeah, he would say economy of scale, et cetera, et cetera, because that's the way politics works.

23:19 But When I read that I thought hmm. You know, I do think a lot of we individuals. Have a really hard time getting our mind around the big complex dynamic system that is a country and the future direction thereof and all the political and social and economic elements attached to it. So what do you say to that, that we're just sort of Intimidated by the complexity.

23:42 in judgment decision making research over the last fifty years, if there's anything that's been shown to be really reliable is that we're not very good at calculating, computing, synthesizing lots and lots and lots of information, some of which is an uncertain. Like when you ask me Angela. things are going in the United States. Think about how many dimensions that problem. Also, I don't even know what people's lives are like in, you know, Idaho, right? I have no idea. So here's what people do. We start with our own life and then we extrapolate a little Now in this case, I don't think we're extrapolating from our own personal well being to the national direction, but we might be extrapolating from ooh, I really hated that city council person who was just elected, and I hate what's going on in my daughter's school. So I'm very dissatisfied. I don't know that people are sitting there and thinking for minutes or hours about how collectively the entire country is going socially, economically

24:42 Politically and culturally. So If we were to summarize, we might say that it's natural, or at least American to feel better about one's own situation than the surrounding direction.

24:57 In terms Uh Prescription especially from you the positive psychologist who I have to say If we were

25:07 Two Negativity sounding Geiger counter on your voice. I don't blame you because that was the nature of the question, but you actually have sounded distressed during this conversation. And for that I almost want to apologize that I brought to you a question that distressed you so that's okay. On the other hand, it's good to have that color in your palette. You know, as a positive psychologist. So how would you be prescriptive here? I would say that if we learn anything from that poll, it is that the questions that we are asked aren't necessarily the ones that we're answering. That's one thing. Second

25:44 Maybe not only because we're American, but particularly as Americans, we're able to answer differently about our own personal lives versus how we think politics and economics are going in this country, but that's not true if you're living in a war torn country or in an impoverished country where there really is more of a relationship. In terms of prescriptions, Steven, like what to do with all this, I think that For me, and I'll reveal my personal bias here. Because you usually play it so close to the vest, we should say. I know I'm cryptic and distant. Look, if you are like so many people in this poll feeling like overall your life is pretty great. And if you are like so many people in this poll somewhat dissatisfied, then do something. Like what are you doing? Don't just go on Twitter and get more indignant. What would you like To see

26:41 different and go and do something, especially if you feel like your life is so great and things are so bad. Why not spend an hour that would make things better? I'll make a slightly parallel argument. to the general argument of this conversation. I will say that the current direction of the podcast ecosystem.

27:03 It's Absolutely. Terrible. It is Rife with misinformation and disinformation.

27:12 Consolidation and Homogenization. But I think this podcast is A OK. Fantastic. Coming up after the break. А факт, чек а в тоді с конверсейшн.

27:34 And now here's a fact check of today's conversation. In the first half of the episode, Steven jokingly interviews Angela as Monsieur Gallup. The global analytics firm does have a namesake, but he wasn't French. Iowa born journalist George Gallup founded the American Institute of Public Opinion. The precursor to Gallup in 1935. His first major success came three years earlier.

27:58 When Gallup correctly predicted in the first scientific political survey ever conducted that his mother-in-law would win Secretary of State in Iowa. Later, Steven wonders when in American history the direction of the country would have pulled at 10 across the board. Unfortunately, George Gallup wasn't on the scene in 1776. So we don't have relevant data from the country's origin, and Gallup only began polling American satisfaction with the direction of the United States in nineteen seventy nine. However, the institute does have data on presidential job approval going back to President Harry Truman in 1945. As Steven predicted, that year the president enjoyed an all-time high approval rating of 87%.

28:42 Ironically, сеven єртер. Truman also had the lowest ever presidential approval rating of just 22%. Finally, Steven jokes about requesting a Coca-Cola enema at the hospital. A 2021 article from the Journal of Health and Allied Sciences actually documents two cases where this treatment was successfully used to remove large masses of hardened feces from a patient's colon. Please don't try this at home.

29:11 That's it for the fact check. No stupid questions is produced by Renbud Radio and is part of the Freekonomics Radio Network. No Stupid Questions is produced by me, Rebecca Lee Douglas. This show was mixed by Elnar Osborn. Arthine song is and she was by talking heads.

29:32 Special thanks to David Byrne and Warner Chapel Music. To learn more or to read episode transcripts, visit Freekonomics.com/slash NSQ. Thanks for listening. There have been periods in US history Where our Congress, for instance, was much more vicious.

29:53 than it is right now. They would like beat each other with canes, didn't they? Yeah, and pulling guns and knives and literally wanting to kill each other. In a way We've replaced that sort of violence with Twitter. The FreeCONOMX Radio Network The hidden side of everything.