In the end society depends on the mood of its people. In medicine there is the concept of reactive depression and endogenous depression. Reactive depression is supposed to be when a healthy person is depressed by her surroundings, by bereavements, by strains put upon her, and by misfortune of any sort. Endogenous depression, in contrast, is supposed to come from inside and to be due to chemical changes in the brain which are not a reaction to outside events. As we begin to learn more about the biochemistry of the brain we find that the distinction between the two may have some pragmatic value but that the overlap is considerable. Changes in brain chemicals may be caused by events, or these changes may occur spontaneously. The balance of chemicals is different in different people and some are more ‘robust’ than others. In truth we are almost back to the ancient Greek idea that moods were caused by different combinations of certain ‘fluids’ (humours) that perfused the body: hence ‘melancholy’ was due to black bile.
We can apply the same concepts of mood to society. Much of the mood of society is due to events and much to more general features like morale, lack of faith in politicians, violence, inflation and so on. Of course a mood in one person becomes an external event for everyone around, and so moods spread.
But there is a growing feeling that it is not just a series of events and that if these changed the mood of people would change. There is a growing feeling, proposed for example by Professor Ivor Mills of Cambridge University, that some basic features of society cause profound mood changes. For example overcrowding in animals causes changes in the glands leading to a drop in fertility and an increase in aggression. In depressed women there can be profound glandular changes caused as a result of the depression. We do know that the whole chemical regulation of the brain, of mood and of the glands is closely interconnected. Professor Mills has been particularly interested in the problems of coping. Society may simply be growing too complex for people to cope, and the result of this failure to cope is a change in the brain’s chemicals followed by depression.
In 1975 the health service in the UK spent £12,063,000 on antidepressants. One in every six women and one in every nine men will need psychiatric help in the course of her or his life. Depression occupies the time and attention of most general practitioners.
There seems to be an urgent need to do something about the complexity of life. Paradoxically it also becomes a mixture of boredom and complexity because in a complex society doing nothing is not peace but boredom. As aids to coping we use such things as alcohol (which is showing a rising consumption in almost all developed countries), the caffeine in coffee and Coca-Cola, the nicotine in cigarettes, and prescribed medicines. Three thousand tons of marijuana are imported into the United States from Mexico every year, quite apart from other sources of supply.
So in the future we will have to look not only at the cultural determinants of mood – which will still remain important – but also at the mechanical determinants such as the complexity of the world around us.
By the time he is twenty the average youngster in the United Kingdom will have spent the equivalent of eight full working years watching television. That is assuming he watches no television until the age of five. The amount is quite staggering.
We have no idea what television viewing for hours on end does to the brain chemicals. The continued stimulation may facilitate the production of certain chemicals and in turn this may bring about the production of an increased amount of the ‘inhibitory’ or balancing chemicals. This would mean that when the stimulus was not acting there would be an excess of the ‘downer’ type chemical with depression and apathy. At the same time there would be aggression and irritability and a search for excitement that would again produce the ‘upper’ or stimulant effect. All this is largely unknown territory and there is much speculation, but from what we do know, something of the sort may well happen. The overall result would be depression, apathy and a search for excitement such as that produced by violence. We suspect that the brain becomes internally ‘addicted’ to its own chemicals – those that produce ‘highs’.
Quite apart from these chemical effects the sheer passivity of television results in general passivity, lack of involvement, lack of the habit of achievement (as through a hobby or craft) and perhaps lack of proper development of the ‘will’. By ‘will’ I mean the developed intention to do something as distinct from just reacting.
There is also the undeniable fact that those eight working years spent watching television would otherwise have been spent doing other things (perhaps worse, perhaps better). On balance, does the amazing educational and exposure value of television, which can bring to the meanest home experiences otherwise reserved only for the super-rich, outweigh the harm?
All the effects listed above are to do with the mechanics of television and are quite independent of the content. Much has been written and said about the effect of violence and the consensus of research indicates that television violence does seem to increase aggression and general violence. It could be a general effect on aggression. It could be straight imitation. It could be a de-sensitising effect so that the threshold into violence is much lowered. It could also be a change in the attitude to law and order, since the television heroes are usually cast in the loner role, relying more on purity of heart than on adherence to the law. Many of the possible remedies are in the hands of the consumer: for example an indefinite boycott of all products advertised in association with violent programmes. That would strike terror into the hearts of programme producers because negative advertising, once set off, might take years to recover from.
Noble beasts stalk through the jungle free to express their potential and make their own way. Their power is their protection. They owe nothing to the jungle. Survival is the name of the game. What is offered is taken. Let the weak scurry away. For some this is their view of society. Society is a jungle landscape featuring regulations, people, institutions, governments and all the other vegetation. You travel light and boldly, taking what you can. The ethic is ‘what you can get away with’. If you are caught or thwarted you shrug and move on. There is no sense of responsibility. Let everyone look after themselves. Nor is there any need to change society. You find your way by your wits through the jungle, you do not seek to improve it – improve it in what direction? The ‘rip-off’ ethic is smart and clever. A lion does not stand dutifully in a queue in order to make its kill.
The other idiom is that of the nursery. Children did not ask to be born. They are being ‘exploited’ anyway because someone – the parents – are indulging their need to have children. Children owe nothing. The purpose of childhood is to have the maximum amount of fun. There is always time to get serious later. The idiom is different from the jungle idiom because, of course, children are owed a great deal by their parents. They are owed affection, food, shelter and entertainment. It is the right of children to expect these things – not in exchange for accepting certain obligations but because they exist as children. If the ‘goodies’ are not forthcoming then there are sulks and rebelliousness and even violent demands. For parents we can read ‘them’, government, society in general. There is not even a sense of responsibility to oneself as there is in the jungle idiom (where you survive on your wits or die quietly) because if you are unhappy or in trouble then your parents owe it to you to rescue you.
Literature and art have for decades indulged in anguished self-examination until every pimple on the soul has been squeezed and picked at. The dominant fashion in art has become intensely self-centred: the artist has to tell the world every nuance of his feeling, every whisper of his libido. The reviewers and the critics want more and more detail, closer close-ups. This, they tell themselves, is really what life is about. This is not romanticizing – this is where it is at. There is an obsession with apparent truth, especially if that truth is anguished or sordid. Passions are noble just because they are passionate. Pop stars sing of the loves and anxieties which everyone imagines to be his own. A hero is someone who has as many pimples as you but bigger ones and ones he is not shy about exhibiting. It is the mirror ethic of art. In time people may get as bored with it as a schoolboy does with his first microscope after he has subjected everything at hand to its intense scrutiny.
As a result of this idiom many people make as careful and as detailed a production of their own souls as any theatrical director makes of a play. The lighting is changed, the words are changed – surely this production is worthy of an audience. Anguish is manufactured by expectations. A person at an encounter group who cannot break down into tears like the others, feels that unlike their warm human souls he has merely a transparent acrylic device.
Heroes are not super-heroes carried away by the nobility of their mission. Nor are they robust people striding through life taking things as they come and finding time to eat, drink and have a laugh. Why fish in the sea if you can make an aquarium of your soul?
It may be that once art has discovered that some mirrors are distorting mirrors and produce grotesque images which bear little resemblance to reality, it will find a more positive concept to follow. Should we then expect love stories between tractors in the manner of Russian or Chinese art or the romance of a laser-implosion mission?
Much has been achieved by the protest movement. Man has become more conscious – just in time – in his duty to the environment. Man has become more conscious of his duty to his fellow human beings. The quality of life has been shown to be more important than an accumulation of material goods. The change of mood is remarkable. And it has been brought about by dedicated and committed protesters. Long may they act as the conscience of society.
But protest by itself is not enough because positive construction is needed. It is too easy to wear a badge of protest and regard that as a sufficient contribution to society. Nor is working to put right the grievance a sufficient idiom because correction of faults – though necessary – is not sufficient for design.
As a result of the protest ethic young people tend to be anti-business, anti-material goods, anti-government, anti-politicians, anti-routine and anti- many other things. There is a noble yearning for the idyllic, simple life of a small community of happy, relating, people. Who could quarrel with that? The only dispute is whether it is best to work towards such ideals by working towards them or by being against everything else. We may need to build the frameworks within which that sort of choice will be possible.
Outsiders exist not as lone rangers but as bands of outlaws. Avant-garde trend-setters band together like surfers on the same wave. Individual ideas are suspect because ‘ego-trip’ has joined the other sneer expressions. Groups are cemented together more by their common enemies than by their common interests. Like soldiers in an Omdurman square they come together to let off synchronised volleys of sneers at the hordes around (dull, square, middle-class, privileged, etc.). There is no change here. To be fair the genuine trend-setters may indeed be individuals but the media speed so quickly equips them with a crowd of followers that the original individual is lost amid the group idiom.
On the positive side there is an immense amount of good. Young people are more idealistic then ever. They do care more about other people and about the world in general. When the Laker sky-train from London to New York was over-popular the long queues of young people organised themselves superbly and waited cheerfully. There is less hypocrisy, and more concern for human values. Many people are yearning for a purpose in life to harness their energies and motivation. There is an apathy of futility because government seems so remote and so corrupt (because of a natural media focus on that), and there appears no channel for effort. People do want to be people. The rip-off artists, the self-indulgent and the jungle cats are no doubt in a minority but a trend-setting minority – for lack of any other trend.
Does mood follow situation or does mood create situation? Both happen. There may be very dangerous effects of modern society that threaten to change the mood of the people permanently quite apart from what is happening within society. That would be a very serious matter because we cannot proceed into the future as chemically doped zombies. Many idioms such as the protest idiom and the ‘reflection’ cult of art have probably passed their peak of usefulness and need supplementing with something more positive. The jungle ethic and the nursery ethic are both a danger to society. Against them can be set an increase in idealism and caring which at present lacks focus and structure.