Anxiety
The DSM-IV criteria for anxiety disorder includes “at least six months of excessive worry,” “tension, fatigue, trouble concentrating, sleeplessness,” and “clinically significant distress functioning in daily life.” Merriam Webster includes in the definition for anxiety, “doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat and . . . self-doubt about one’s capacity to cope with it.” Soren Kierkegaard—whose existential philosophy focuses on how one lives as a “single individual” —uses metaphor to express the truths of anxiety:
“Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eye as in the abyss, for suppose he had not looked down. Hence anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit . . . looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself. Freedom succumbs in this dizziness.”
Pastor Robert W. Kellemen, by contrast, claims that anxiety is simply “fear without faith.” Each of these definitions provides insight into this alarming trend in American mental illness. Since 1980, reported anxiety disorders in the U.S. have increased 1,200%. A 1994 study, which asked a random sample of thousands of Americans about their mental health, revealed 15% who’d suffered from anxiety disorders. Fifteen years later, a similar study found nearly half of the sample—as many as 117 million U.S. adults—had experienced at some point anxiety severe enough to meet the standards for a disorder. Of particular concern for the nation’s future well-being are several studies that reveal “a significant increase in anxiety levels in children and college students.” This is compared to the emotional well-being of kids, teens, and young adults fifty years ago. “If progress is measured in the mental health and happiness of young people, then we have been going backward at least since the early 1950s.”
There might be any number of explanations for why America’s youth might find the world more overwhelming than in the “good ‘ol days.” Before we succumb to the rose-colored lens of nostalgia, consider this: rates of anxiety and depression in young people were far lower during The Great Depression, World War II, The Cold War, and the tumultuous periods of social change of the 1960s and early 70s than they are today. Closer examination reveals that America’s increasingly anxious young people are not the by-product of “realistic dangers and uncertainties” in a global society, nor do they correlate with economic cycles, wars, or life-changing world events. The clearest evidence seems to suggest that children and college-aged students are more anxious than ever because they have lost the essential belief that they are in control of their own destinies. Dr. Jean Twenge observes that “Generation Me”—those born in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s —may be “tolerant, confident, open-minded, and ambitious” but they are also “cynical, depressed, lonely, and anxious.” Growing up in the mall, and in a “bling-saturated” media culture, they could not help but develop a disordered desire for “stuff.” Coming to terms with just how much the latest “stuff” costs, as well as being on the receiving end of relentless messaging about the type of education and career success that is expected of them, has created a seismic undercurrent for anxiety. Perhaps that’s why, during the coming-of-age periods for these generations, there was a marked shift from intrinsic to extrinsic goals:
“Intrinsic goals are those that have to do with one’s own development as a person—such as becoming competent in endeavors of one’s choosing and developing a meaningful philosophy of life. Extrinsic goals . . . are those that have to do with material rewards and other people’s judgments. They include goals of high income, status, and good looks . . . young people today are, on average, more oriented toward extrinsic goals and less oriented toward intrinsic goals than they were in the past.”
How is it that focusing on extrinsic goals has made young people feel less in control and more anxious? Twenge suggests this line of thinking: “To the extent that my emotional sense of satisfaction comes from progress toward intrinsic goals I can control my emotional well-being. To the extent that my satisfaction comes from others’ judgments and rewards, I have much less control over my emotional state.”
In the language of homo incurvatus in se we would say that a disordered desire for admiration, power, wealth, success or desirability—extrinsic goals— leads one to “turn in” on a warped path of self. Although the term “intrinsic goal” may sound more like the action of turning inward, what it actually represents is turning one’s ear toward an understanding of who one is and what one believes, namely, to focus one’s development such that he “will know the truth and the truth will set them free” (John 7: 32 NRSV). This process of coming to know one’s true self rarely follows the strict “test-taking, GPA-boosting, resume-building timetable” that extrinsic benchmarks require. Time spent with friends relaxing means time not spent cramming for an AP exam. Taking up an activity such as skateboarding or hiking or gardening—without the “admissions bump” of being the president of the club or including underprivileged kids in the mix—becomes a luxury for the truly goal-oriented young adult.
But ambition is nothing new. Why then would 21st-century Americans—young and old alike—find it bringing them to such an anxious state? The answer would appear to be two-fold.
1) We’ve come to equate our extrinsic goals with the pursuit of happiness:
“As soon as an American baby is born, its parents enter into an implicit contractual obligation to answer any question about their hopes for their tiny offspring’s future with the words: “I don’t care, as long as he’s happy” (the mental suffix “at Harvard” must remain unspoken). Happiness in America has become the overachiever’s ultimate trophy. A vicious trump card, it outranks professional achievement and social success, family, friendship and even love. Its invocation can deftly minimize others’ achievements (“Well, I suppose she has the perfect job and a gorgeous husband, but is she really happy?”) and take the shine off our own.” (Ruth Whippman, NY Times)
Part of the blame can be placed on the self-esteem movement that swept the nation in the final years of the 20th century, creating whole households chanting the mantra, “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better” —based on no evidence whatsoever. Where once a child who was underachieving, unpopular, unruly, or obnoxious faced painful, instructive, real-time consequences, the remedy of choice for modern children was a booster shot of self-esteem. Referring to the 2010 PISA results, which assess 15-year olds worldwide, Paul E. Peterson, director of Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance noted that in mathematics, “the U.S. ranks number 1 in self-esteem and number 32 in performance.” Faced with a zero-sum college or job market, “specialness” is sorely tested. When it is finally revealed that a grown child is lacking in the skills, attributes, or wherewithal to be The Best (and the parents’ raison d’etre has not turned out as spectacularly as they had hoped), anxiety is inevitable:
“This obsessive, driven, relentless pursuit [of happiness] is a characteristically American struggle—the exhausting daily application of the Declaration of Independence. . . . Despite being the richest nation on earth, the United States is, according to the World Health Organization, by a wide margin, also the most anxious. . . . America’s precocious levels of anxiety are not just happening in spite of the great national happiness rat race, but also perhaps, because of it.” (Whippman)
2) We’ve taken God out of the equation
In doing so, we have robbed ourselves and our children of the security of knowing our place in the world. Kierkegaard, the father of “existential angst,” often uses the words from the Gospel of Matthew 16:26: “‘For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lost his own soul?’ To lose ourselves is to wound our soul . . . That which we forget [or lose] is precisely that which anxiety reveals: that we are a self with the task of becoming ourselves.”
From RECLAIMING THE WISDOM OF HOMO INCURVATUS IN SE: “MAN TURNED IN ON HIMSELF” AS AN ENTRY POINT FOR THE DISCUSSION OF SIN IN 21ST-CENTURY AMERICA by Heather Choate Davis
Heather Choate Davis 