Read Online The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett - Free Book Online
Authors: Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett
Tags: General, Social Science, Economics, Political Science, Business & Economics, Economic Conditions
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revealed a stark contrast between the way people see and present themselves to others in the two countries. In Japan, people choose a much more self-deprecating and self-critical way of presenting themselves, which contrasts sharply with the much more self-enhancing style in the USA. While Americans are more likely to attribute individual successes to their own abilities and their failures to external factors, the Japanese tend to do just the opposite. 22 More than twenty studies in Japan have failed to find any evidence of the more self-serving pattern of attributions common in the USA. In Japan people tended to pass their successes off as if they were more a reflection of luck than of judgement, while suggesting their failures are probably attributable to their own lack of ability. This Japanese pattern was also found in Taiwan and China.
Rather than getting too caught up in psychological terminology, we would do well to see these patterns as differences in how far people value personal modesty, preferring to maintain social bonds by not using their successes to build themselves up as more able than others. As greater inequality increases status competition and social evaluative threat, egos have to be propped up by self-promoting and self-enhancing strategies. Modesty easily becomes a casualty of inequality: we become outwardly tougher and harder in the face of greater exposure to social evaluation anxieties, but inwardly – as the literature on narcissism suggests – probably more vulnerable, less able to take criticism, less good at personal relationships and less able to recognize our own faults.
LIBERTY, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY
The demand for ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ during the French Revolution shows just how long the issues we have been discussing here have been recognized. The slogan focused attention on the dimensions of social relations which matter most if we are to create a better society and make a difference to the real quality of our lives. ‘Liberty’ meant not being subservient or beholden to the feudal nobility and landed aristocracy. It was liberty from the feudal shackles of inferiority. Similarly, ‘fraternity’ reflects a desire for greater mutuality and reciprocity in social relations. We raise the same issues when we talk about community, social cohesion or solidarity. Their importance to human wellbeing is demonstrated repeatedly in research which shows how beneficial friendship and involvement in community life is to health. ‘Equality’ comes into the picture as a precondition for getting the other two right. Not only do large inequalities produce all the problems associated with social differences and the divisive class prejudices which go with them, but, as later chapters show, it also weakens community life, reduces trust, and increases violence.
4
Community life and social relations
Among the new objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me with greater force than the equality of conditions. I easily perceived the enormous influence that this primary fact exercises on the workings of the society.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the southern United States, devastating cities in Mississippi and Louisiana, overwhelming flood protection systems, and leaving 80 per cent of the city of New Orleans under water. A mandatory evacuation order was issued for the city the day before the storm hit, but by that time most public transport had shut down and fuel and rental cars were unavailable. The city government set up ‘refuges of last resort’ for people who couldn’t get out of New Orleans, including the Superdome, a vast sports arena, which ended up sheltering around 26,000 people, despite sections of its roof being ripped off by the storm. At least 1,836 people were killed by the hurricane, and another 700 people were missing and unaccounted for.
What
Rather than getting too caught up in psychological terminology, we would do well to see these patterns as differences in how far people value personal modesty, preferring to maintain social bonds by not using their successes to build themselves up as more able than others. As greater inequality increases status competition and social evaluative threat, egos have to be propped up by self-promoting and self-enhancing strategies. Modesty easily becomes a casualty of inequality: we become outwardly tougher and harder in the face of greater exposure to social evaluation anxieties, but inwardly – as the literature on narcissism suggests – probably more vulnerable, less able to take criticism, less good at personal relationships and less able to recognize our own faults.
LIBERTY, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY
The demand for ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ during the French Revolution shows just how long the issues we have been discussing here have been recognized. The slogan focused attention on the dimensions of social relations which matter most if we are to create a better society and make a difference to the real quality of our lives. ‘Liberty’ meant not being subservient or beholden to the feudal nobility and landed aristocracy. It was liberty from the feudal shackles of inferiority. Similarly, ‘fraternity’ reflects a desire for greater mutuality and reciprocity in social relations. We raise the same issues when we talk about community, social cohesion or solidarity. Their importance to human wellbeing is demonstrated repeatedly in research which shows how beneficial friendship and involvement in community life is to health. ‘Equality’ comes into the picture as a precondition for getting the other two right. Not only do large inequalities produce all the problems associated with social differences and the divisive class prejudices which go with them, but, as later chapters show, it also weakens community life, reduces trust, and increases violence.
4
Community life and social relations
Among the new objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me with greater force than the equality of conditions. I easily perceived the enormous influence that this primary fact exercises on the workings of the society.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the southern United States, devastating cities in Mississippi and Louisiana, overwhelming flood protection systems, and leaving 80 per cent of the city of New Orleans under water. A mandatory evacuation order was issued for the city the day before the storm hit, but by that time most public transport had shut down and fuel and rental cars were unavailable. The city government set up ‘refuges of last resort’ for people who couldn’t get out of New Orleans, including the Superdome, a vast sports arena, which ended up sheltering around 26,000 people, despite sections of its roof being ripped off by the storm. At least 1,836 people were killed by the hurricane, and another 700 people were missing and unaccounted for.
What
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