Culture Shocker

A new book by acclaimed clinical child psychologist, author and journalist, Oliver James puts into words what many people have thought or felt in their guts as they make the move to Andalucía from more northern, urbanized and Anglo-Saxon parts of the World.

The Selfish Capitalist is not, as its title might suggest, a Marxist tract about the exploitation of the masses by Big Business, but it does make you think hard about the assumptions that we all make about modern society and politics. It also sheds light on some of the questions that we’ve all thought at one time or another about the differences between the cultures of continental Europe and those of the English-speaking countries of the West.

For example, as a psychologist, what James tries to fathom is the wildly differing rates of mental distress exhibited by seemingly similar nations. By distress he’s talking about the full range of mental disorders from mild depression to schizophrenia, suicide and a myriad neuroses. He quotes dozens of scientific surveys from universities and the World health Organisation that demonstrate that levels of distress in Anglo-Saxon countries (The U.S.; the U.K.; New Zealand; Canada; Australia) is double that of continental Western coutries such as Spain, Italy, Germany and other developed nations such as Japan. Gene-pool differences are easily dismissed: “For example, Italian-Americans seem to have prevalences (of emotional distress) three times higher that the desendants of Italians who remained in Europe. Likewise, African-Americans of Nigerian origin would appear to have rates six times higher than Nigerians whose ancestors were not taken as slaves.”

His analysis is that the difference between the Anglophone and other parts of the developed World is what he calls the influence of Selfish Capitalism, an influence that developed primarily in the US and, since the late-Seventies, has migrated to Britain and the Commonwealth, but which has yet to fully conquer continental Europe or the developed Asian nations.

It’s a sophisticated theory. Anyone who has worried about the widening gap between the rich and poor, the culture of workaholism, the declining importance of family and community and, above all, the spiraling of society into a cycle of rampant materialism, consumerism and celebrity and status obsession owes it to themselves to read The Selfish Capitalist. James calls this social change Affluenza; it’s a disease that no one is allowed to treat because it is one that serves the interests of the tiniest but wealthiest stratum of society. Those that own the shares, the Media, and the politicians have everything staked on the idea that a “free” market, a privatised state and an ever-less-secure workforce are the essentials of a modern neo-liberal society. The sole driving motivation of such a social structure is that the rich should get richer.

It’s a powerfully made argument but leaves the reader a bit depressed at the lack of hope and ideas for challenging the seemingly relentless tide of big corporations and wealthy oligarchs crushing all resistance like a Star Trek Borg, “Resistance Is Futile!” In the end he places his hope on the likelihood of a cyclical shift in public attitudes and the natural adapability of human beings. He concludes, “Given that the English-speaking world has been hijacked by something as toxic as Selfish Capitalism for the last thirty years, it is always possible that a far better alternative is just around the corner – that... sanity will prevail.”

The book does raise other, less apocalyptic, thoughts too, however. It invites the reader to think past the book’s central concern, that of mental distress, and consider other points of comaprison between the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental versions of modern Western culture.

Close to home, why shoud it be that those people who assimilate better into their adopted communties, who gain a high degree of fluency in the local language, who don’t cocoon themselves in an expat ghetto suffer lower rates of depression, alcoholism and failure to settle? And more fundamentally, why is it that economically similar and geographically nearby countries should have such widely different social cultures. Why do the Spanish place such a strong emphasis on family relationships and are far more sceptical about the role of political authority? Why is Italian bureaucracy the worst in the EU and the French predilection for, at times, violent direct action so strong?

Could it be a question of perspective? Had I been writing in the Sixties or early-Seventies, no one would think that there was a great difference in the way British and French workers pursued industrial disputes, Italian bureaucracy might not have been so exceptional and British or American families might have felt just as close and self-supporting as a Spanish clan. Perhaps it’s not that continental Europe is the odd one out but that Anglo-Saxon culture has changed so rapidly and fundamentally that cultural differences are increasing, not reducing.

Whether you like or loathe the slow pace of life in Spain, the limited opening hours, the interminable waits for official documentation, the huge numbers of public holidays, the anarchic ways of queuing, the laissez-faire attitudes towards the behaviour of children, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, it could be that it is the changes in your country of origin that has created the disparity rather than the backwardness and social conservatism of your new home that is out-of-step.

Is it the materialistic, self-centred, want-it-all, want-it-now attiudes of an Americanised Anglo-culture that is making you discontented with whatever you have or whatever you have chosen. Reading Oliver James, and a number of the writers whose work he cites, it is the increasing materialism of modern Selfish Capitalism that allows for no alternative ways of seeing or behaving in the modern World that is what is causing the record high levels of mental problems, from obesity and anorexia to manic depression, multi-personality disorders and self-harm.

Is there an alternative? A whole string of neo-conservatives from Margaret Thatcher to Nicolas Sarkozy would argue not but, consciously or unconsciously, many of those of us who have decided to leave the Anglo-Saxon society have assumed and opted for something different, something more authentic, less money- and status-driven. Think about it, is that what you have done?

(This article first appeared in The Olive Press in July 2008)