A recent report by ICT Results (associated with the European Information Society and Media Directorate-General) begins as follows:
“From a global perspective, most Europeans have little to complain about in life. We have food to eat, a roof over our heads, largely free education for our children. And even when unemployment bites or disaster strikes, robust social support systems generally come to our aid.
Yet our quality of life features at the top of all political agendas. Why? Because quality of life depends on far more than a full stomach and somewhere warm and dry to sleep. There is always more to be done so that citizens can be comfortable, safe, independent and happy.”
Can you imagine any U.S. policy brief starting with, “Hey, things are pretty good here for everyone, but there’s always room for improvement…”?
I wish one day the US would wake up out of their 18th century Enlightenment fixation with the rights of property and pursuit of profit, and realize that there is more to life than making lots of money.
I just read a case for a class I am taking about two hospitals in Wyoming that were considering consolidation to save money and duplication of services.
In a survey of physicians and other interested parties in the community, the opposition to consolidation centered mostly on ideological grounds that doing so would be destructive to the idea of competition. The case authors also mentioned that the conservative physicians were opposed to any form of state or national health care, which is no surprise, given the recent debate in the US over the recently passed health care reform legislation.
The main reason why the US is still the only industrialized nation not to have national health care, goes all the way back to the 18th century Enlightenment and its emphasis on the free market, competition, property rights and rugged individualism, all signs of what is called in Spiral Dynamics, the Orange vMeme (the Scientific/Achievist/Materialistic value system).
Europe, on the other hand, was influenced more heavily on the 19th century Enlightenment, which emphasized the rights of workers, and the poor and the average citizen to be protected from the abuses of the market economy. One of my professors claims is it an outgrowth of feudalism, but we know that feudalism never protected people from sickness by paying for their medical care, never paid for their children’s education, and never fought to protect them from economic exploitation.
In this regard, Europe has made the evolution along the spiral that the US seems unable to make, having transcended and included the Blue and Orange vMemes, into Green egalitarianism and communitarianism. Is everything perfect there ? No, of course not, but the difference between Europe and the US, is they want to constantly improve their societies, while we turn a blind eye to all of our problems and go about watching stupid reality shows and dreaming about winning millions of dollars so we don’t have to think of things that are not good.
This is the crux of the US’s immaturity as a nation, and of Americans as a people, and we’d better grow up before it’s too late.