If young people today face a problem totally unique to their generation, it’s one of plenty itself. Simply put, they have too many choices about everything and anything in life, but not enough money or time to possibly have or do it all.
The 19th century novelist Henry James once claimed his works were centered on the inner monologue of his characters rather than the machinations of the plot, where even mundane events can be transformed into life and death struggles. In the preface to his classic, The Portrait of a Lady, he described the writing process years earlier, claiming it began with a vision of the main character, Isabel Archer, followed by asking, “‘What will she ‘do?’ Why, the first thing she’ll do will be to come to Europe; which in fact will form, and all inevitably, no small part of her principle adventure,” but even in the middle of the 1800s, he was aware such a trip would only have constituted a “mild adventure,” far from anything involving “battle and murder and sudden death.” In that case, how is the audience to remain interested in Isabel’s story across what he himself admitted was a long novel? James answered first for Isabel herself, then on a broader level, writing of her relation to the other characters, “Without her sense of them, her sense for them, as one may say, they are next to nothing at all but isn’t the beauty and the difficulty just in showing their mystic conversion by that sense, conversion of the stuff of drama, or even more delightful word still, of ‘story?’” He continued, “The interest was to be raised to its pitch and yet the elements to be kept in their key; so that, should the whole thing duly impress, I might show what an ‘exciting’ inward life may do for the person leading it while it remains perfectly normal.” Thus, many of James’ characters in both The Portrait of a Lady and his other works are essentially rich people with too much time on their hands. Freed from the need to toil all day to feed their families like most of the world back then, their inner monologues transform the mundane into the almost mystical, where the choices all of us must make – what company we keep, who we share our private thoughts with, who we choose to marry, how we spend our leisure time, what sort of marriages we choose to have, and more – are depicted in thrilling detail, both to them because it occupies most of their time and to us, as the reader who needs to entertained.
In what’s widely considered a typical example of the form, Isabel contemplates her loveless relationship with her husband, Osmond, after seeing him having a conversation with a woman who purports to be her friend in the final third of The Portrait of a Lady. “It was as if he had had the evil eye; as if his presence were a blight and his favour a misfortune. Was the fault in himself, or only in the deep mistrust she had conceived for him? This mistrust was now the clearest result of their short married life; a gulf had opened between them over which they looked at each other with eyes that were on either side a declaration of the deception suffered. It was a strange opposition, of the like of which she had never dreamed – an opposition in which the vital principle of the one was a thing of contempt to the other. It was not her fault – she had practised no deception; she had only admired and believed. She had taken all the first steps in the purest confidence, and then she had suddenly found the infinite vista of a multiplied life to be a dark, narrow alley with a dead wall at the end. Instead of leading to the high places of happiness, from which the world would seem to lie below one, so that one could look down with a sense of exaltation and advantage, and judge and choose and pity, it led rather downward and earthward, into realms of restriction and depression where the sound of other lives, easier and freer, was heard as from above, and where it served to deepen the feeling of failure. It was her deep distrust of her husband – this was what darkened the world. That is a sentiment easily indicated, but not so easily explained, and so composite in its character that much time and still more suffering had been needed to bring it to its actual perfection. Suffering, with Isabel, was an active condition; it was not a chill, a stupor, a despair; it was a passion of thought, of speculation, of response to every pressure.” If you consider the passage started several hundred words earlier and goes on for several thousand more, you’ll have some indication of the style.
Though James was extremely popular in his day, revered among both critics and the public alike, the overly wordy approach and the need to dramatize everything into the equivalent of facing down a demon or confronting an angel in the sky has faded over time. Novels in the modern era tend to be more concise, faster paced, and more action driven than anything he wrote, focused on plot twists and other story elements as opposed to relying almost exclusively on the inner monologue. In that sense, it’s reasonable to say his influence has waned, but in another, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that we live in a world of his making, that today everyone is Isabel Archer, or at least thinks themselves so. To hear almost everyone tell it venting on social media and otherwise, their problems can only be an “active condition; it was not a chill, a stupor, a despair; it was a passion of thought, of speculation, of response to every pressure” regardless of their acuteness in the grand scheme of things. By almost any objective standard, life is better today than it was in even the recent past and while every generation faces certain challenges, young people these days face one primarily of having too many options and not enough time or money to chase them all as Isabel herself alluded to by referencing “the infinite vista of a multiplied life,” the closing of which in an unhappy marriage caused so much distress. In truth, the contrast between those living today and previous generations, including Isabel’s, couldn’t be more clear. If you came of age in the early 20th century, you didn’t have any choice when you were shipped to Europe to fight in the trenches of World War I, only to find yourself facing the Great Depression barely a decade later if you were lucky enough to survive. The next generation faced the horrors of World War II followed by Korea and Vietnam, then a period of economic stagnation when inflation was far worse than it is now with mortgage interest rates almost double. Forget whether or not being able to afford a $20 burrito – which with the scarcity of options available and most ethnic foods found only in certain regions likely wouldn’t exist for most people – you were lucky to simply be alive and have a job in the first place, but as even Vox.com was forced to admit earlier this summer, somehow those generations were both happier with their lot in life and far more optimistic about the future.
“Compared to today,” they summarized, “you’ll find the vibes flipped. Roughly 60 percent of Americans tell pollsters the nation is on the wrong track. A majority say its best years are behind it. About three-quarters think today’s children will end up worse off than their parents. Asked a version of that same founding-ideals question from 1976, 77 percent now say the founders would be disappointed in what we’ve become. But just as they were in 1976, the vibes don’t match reality. Set the mood aside and look only at the numbers, and the country that felt so good in 1976 was, by the most important measures, a worse place to be alive than the country that now feels so terrible on its 250th birthday.” As they continued, people report these negative feelings despite living in a world where it’s not much of an exaggeration to say we can push a button that will either take us anywhere we want to go or bring whatever we desire directly to us at practically any moment, accessing services and technologies no one would have believed were possible just a few decades ago, all of which of course comes with some kind of price, for neither magic, nor technology, nor anything else has ever been free. Previously, I attributed the dissatisfaction of today’s progressives described by Vox.com to a lack of control over politics and what they saw as the future of the country if not the entire world, as Democrats and their even further left leaning allies struggle with the reality that they were not the ones they were waiting for to rule forever, but there’s another aspect to it that goes beyond ideological preferences. To hear even a segment of conservatives tell it, the country is also careening towards disaster in the form of an “affordability crisis” that has lead some to label prices “insane,” groceries, housing, colleges, and more complete with dreaded $20 burritos, and others to conclude bizarrely that our standard of living has somehow declined over the past five decades despite this world of extreme plenty.
In their view, the young in particular face almost insurmountable challenges and we should not be surprised they are turning towards socialism as a potential answer. Like many things in life, they are right in a way – the young have unique challenges, starting with simply being young and naive, and they always have, always will – but wrong in the why. If young people today face a problem totally unique to their generation, it’s one of plenty itself. Simply put, they have too many choices about everything and anything in life, from what career to pursue to where to live and in what type of home and apartment what to eat for lunch, perhaps even which dating app to use, but not enough money or time to possibly have or do it all. Choice, much like control, can be a funny thing. If you have few or no choices, you feel you have no control and many become anxious and frustrated as a result, but if the number of choices exceeds a certain threshold, the same anxiousness and frustration can arise. The psychologist Barry Schwartz referred to this as the “Paradox of Choice” and across a series of experiments, he demonstrated that more choice doesn’t equate with increased happiness. In 2000, researchers Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper set up a simple tasting booth experiment at a grocery store, inviting customers to try a free sample of various jams and jellies. At one booth, they had six choices, but at another 24. Interestingly, the booth with 24 attracted more people, but only 3% of those who visited actually purchased one of the jams while about 30% made a purchase at the booth with only six. They also performed a test on college students, promising them gourmet chocolates if they completed extra credit assignments. One group was given six chocolates to choose from, the other 30. The students who “only had” six reported that they were more satisfied with their decisions and were more likely to actually do the extra work than the other group. Psychologists attribute this phenomenon to the additional quantity placing an extra strain on the brain and creating more opportunity for regret. Given more choices, people conclude they will find something perfect for themselves, but the belief leads to disappointment.
The Decision Lab website provides more detail. “Choice overload can cause us to delay decision-making, considering the many options available is taxing on our cognitive systems. Having more options also leads to decreased satisfaction, lower confidence in our choices, and a higher chance that we will regret our decisions.” “Decision fatigue occurs when we’ve made so many decisions that we’ve exhausted our available mental resources, causing the quality of our decisions to deteriorate…Choice overload compounds this mental exhaustion and causes us to reach a state of decision fatigue faster. You’re also likely to experience decision fatigue when you’ve been shopping for a while. As your mental energy declines, you’re more likely to opt for default choices, like the T-shirt hanging at the front of the store or the first toaster that pops up in your Amazon search results. In one study on decision fatigue, people buying cars chose more default features at the end of the buying process than at the beginning, suggesting that selecting among various options earlier in the process had depleted their decision-making capacity.” Finally, “Besides contributing to mental exhaustion, choice overload can also cause stress and anxiety. Interestingly, this occurs even if we’re actively seeking variety. A study exploring the impact of choice overload on online shoppers found that those seeking various options were still significantly affected by an abundance of choice. Not only that, but shoppers experiencing a high level of shopping anxiety were less likely to make a purchase from an online store. The results of this study suggest that people are likely to react to choice overload with overall avoidance.”
If anything, the situation is compounded by our image-saturated, social media obsessed society where people pretend their living what used to be called the “Life of Riley” for being carefree and extravagant (interestingly, the phrase originated in an 1883 song, “Is That Mr. Reilly?” written and performed by Pat Rooney though the spelling has changed), or to return our original subject, perhaps we should call it the life of Isabel Archer. The protagonist in James’ novel wasn’t only either gifted or cursed with an overactive inner monologue. She was also faced with no shortage of choices, far more than most in her era, and as it turns out those choices were ultimately her undoing. Before then, James sets up something of a psychological experiment to drive the plot. After being plucked from New England and deposited in the estate of her extraordinarily wealthy aunt and uncle outside of London, her sickly cousin secretly gives up more than half of his inheritance so Isabel can live a life free from monetary constraints, essentially choosing to do whatever her adventurous spirit desires. When the uncle passes, Isabel becomes rich beyond her wildest dreams and is empowered to choose to live anywhere she wants, spend her time however she wants, and marry whoever she wants, most of which is rendered in intense inner monologues for the reader. Unfortunately, she chooses wrong, hence the realization partially quoted earlier in this post. Despite being actively pursued by a wealthy American and a high ranking British Lord, she believes she’ll find happiness in a middling fellow of no real accomplishments beyond being known for impeccable style and taste, Osmond. Though James doesn’t show us her making this choice, we understand that his middling nature is part of the appeal, but Isabel soon realizes her life with him isn’t what she thought and he is not what he seems. Regardless, having made her choice, she remakes it again at the end despite being lost and lonely, miserable when once she was happy and free.
Today, it seems to me that we are all Isabel Archers now, armed with inner monologues that place us in the middle of an epic battle of forces arrayed mainly against us, preventing us from realizing ourselves. In reality, we’re faced with more choices than we can handle, having a problem of plenty rather than the lack of it most generations have been forced to deal with. Interestingly, James provides another parallel to the modern world that helps illustrate the absurdity. One of Isabel’s suitors, Lord Warburton is among the wealthiest men on the planet and yet proclaims himself to be a socialist. In a conversation worth quoting in full, Isabel talks to her cousin Ralph after learning this:
“I like your specimen English gentleman very much,” Isabel said to Ralph after Lord Warburton had gone.
“I like him too—I love him well,” Ralph returned. “But I pity him more.”
Isabel looked at him askance. “Why, that seems to me his only fault—that one can’t pity him a little. He appears to have everything, to know everything, to be everything.”
“Oh, he’s in a bad way!” Ralph insisted.
“I suppose you don’t mean in health?”
“No, as to that he’s detestably sound. What I mean is that he’s a man with a great position who’s playing all sorts of tricks with it. He doesn’t take himself seriously.”
“Does he regard himself as a joke?”
“Much worse; he regards himself as an imposition—as an abuse.”
“Well, perhaps he is,” said Isabel.
“Perhaps he is—though on the whole I don’t think so. But in that case what’s more pitiable than a sentient, self-conscious abuse planted by other hands, deeply rooted but aching with a sense of its injustice? For me, in his place, I could be as solemn as a statue of Buddha. He occupies a position that appeals to my imagination. Great responsibilities, great opportunities, great consideration, great wealth, great power, a natural share in the public affairs of a great country. But he’s all in a muddle about himself, his position, his power, and indeed about everything in the world. He’s the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn’t know what to believe in. When I attempt to tell him (because if I were he I know very well what I should believe in) he calls me a pampered bigot. I believe he seriously thinks me an awful Philistine; he says I don’t understand my time. I understand it certainly better than he, who can neither abolish himself as a nuisance nor maintain himself as an institution.”
“He doesn’t look very wretched,” Isabel observed.
“Possibly not; though, being a man of a good deal of charming taste, I think he often has uncomfortable hours. But what is it to say of a being of his opportunities that he’s not miserable? Besides, I believe he is.”
“I don’t,” said Isabel.
“Well,” her cousin rejoined, “if he isn’t he ought to be!”
If that doesn’t sound familiar, you aren’t paying enough attention.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 