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For some Americans, feeling good about yourself is a sacred duty, like placing your
hand on your heart at certain patriotic moments. “I weigh four hundred pounds, smoke four
packs a day and have just taken a machete to all three of my kids, but I still feel good
about myself” is the kind of declaration that might win you a spontaneous burst of applause
on certain American TV shows. One of the problems with the country is that not enough
people feel bad about themselves. Too many people believe in themselves on palpably
insufficient evidence, rather as too many people believe in guardian angels on similarly
slender grounds. For every sufferer from low self-esteem who needs cuddling, there is a
megalomaniac who needs kicking. De Tocqueville thought that Americans were “in a state
of perpetual self-adoration,” and had constantly to be flattered. “No [American] writer,” he
comments, “no matter how famous, can escape from the obligation to sprinkle incense over
his fellow citizens.” “Self-adoration” is far too strong, and Americans today can be as open
to criticism as anyone else; but the cult of self-belief still strikes one as excessive. You can
buy a wheeled suitcase in the States inscribed with your name and Web site in large letters,
so as to market yourself while strolling through public places. Someone might always step
up, impressed by your chutzpah, and invite you to become president of United Artists.
There is, however, a price to be paid for the success ethic. A recent study showed that
rich Americans tend to be more selfish and less empathetic than the poor. Compassion is for
the most part a working-class virtue, not an upper-class one. Working people respond much
more strongly to images of starving children that rich people do. This is gravely embarrass-
ing for the political left. For years, they have been at pains to point out that the self-interest
they deplore is a social question rather than an individual one. It is a whole class they are
criticising, not this or that banker or industrialist, who can no doubt be as soft-hearted as
Santa Claus. It is not personal greed that drives the system, but the need to amass profit in
order to stay competitive, a need which is as impersonal as moonlight. It now turns out that
this case was far too sophisticated, and that images of the wicked, top-hatted, lip-curling
capitalist have much to be said for them.
It is not true that what you feel is what you are. Donald Trump, for example, clearly feels
that he is an astonishing success as a human being. In any case, this is to assume that we
can always be sure of what we are feeling, which is far from true. I may have no idea what
I am feeling, or imagine that I am feeling angry when in fact I am afraid. You may be able
to describe my emotional state far better than I can. The belief that how you feel is how you
are assumes that we are always transparent to ourselves and never self-deceived. Nobody
could ever surprise me by telling me that I am thoroughly miserable. On this theory, I am
in full possession of my own experience, as I am in full possession of my Bermuda shorts.
The theory also assumes that happiness is a state of mind rather than a condition of being.
A galley slave who can look forward to another forty years of rowing sixteen hours a day,
while being lashed every fifteen minutes, cannot be happy even though he might think he
is. To call himself happy simply goes to show that he does not know how to apply the word
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