There is a very simple question worth pondering, why are Europeans happier than Americans? Or why are Europeans the happiest people in the world (in human history)?
Of course, not every European is happy. The happiness I mean by happiness is not simply consumerist happiness. Not every American is unhappy.
Facts speak louder than words. Overall, European society is a place of shocking joy. They are not perfectly pure – they are being swept by a wave of extremism that has swept the globe. Americans, by contrast, are so unhappy that suicide rates soar, depression rates soar, anger epidemics, and the general atmosphere of society changes dramatically between a painful despair and black nihilism.
My answer is obvious: social democracy. Europeans enjoy generous public goods – public health care, retirement, education, high-speed rail, and so on. As a result, they don't live a life of being bruised, beaten, and endlessly competitive like the Americans. Americans work until their lives are in danger — and ordinary Americans die of debt. Europeans, by contrast, simply have what Americans are forced to compete for — health care, retirement, and so on. So the stakes of American life are life and death — losing that job? bang. You're dead. Life in Europe is more moderate – because social democracy is fundamentally more humane.
Go a little deeper. What pushes society in the direction of social democracy? What ignites the spark of social democracy?
I slowly discovered that Europeans had more interpersonal interactions than Americans. They were able to be together, not only more, but better. Their contacts with each other are completely different, richer, more substantive and fundamental.
When I was in paris on the elevator, with complete strangers, everyone greeted me and said goodbye. It is impolite not to do so. And the american courtesy is to stare blankly at the door. In Barcelona, when you are introduced to someone, you hug and kiss them. Old friends hugged for a long time— even though they had just separated yesterday. In the United States, we shake hands politely. As sociologists put it, it's not just a "warm culture." Even in the old-fashioned Germany, the Netherlands or the cold Scandinavia, the stereotypes are wrong: they are by no means ruthless, but often long, enthusiastic, and complex discussions and interactions.
What are Americans doing? We are always working alone. In life, we are always exercising, getting thinner, richer, more popular, more famous. We work hard all the time with a cold, determined smile. Our fun is work, our relationship is work, dating is work, and then there's "real work". For us, life itself has become a capitalist project, an endless labor that produces the perfect self—thus standing above others, or running ahead of others. But what's the point? We are not a happy people. Happiness is an experience that transcends the individual, and it is of little use to be the perfect, the prettiest, the richest, the most prosperous.
What exactly am I talking about? Physically close? Leisure moments? Am I saying hugs and kisses illuminate the path to social democracy? To put it this way, I think there is a fundamental difference in human behavior, emotions, and the way of life as a whole that works in Europe.
In the United States, social relations are alienated and commodified, in the terminology of the European thinker Marx. How do Americans get along? The first question is not "What do you do?" Followed by "Where are you from?" "We're trying to put another person on the ladder of social status, in the mental model of our social structure. Are you a doctor? Are you minnesota? Are you a taxi driver? Are you Congolese? Wait a minute.
And if I ask these questions at a local dog park in London, or in Paris, Nice, Berlin or Barcelona, people will quickly roll their eyes, stop talking to me, and avoid me as much as possible. They'll think I'm a total fool, a guy who'd better not be involved with. What self-evident social norms have I violated?
I violated the norms of equality and dignity. It doesn't matter what the other person does. In the parks, cafes, bars, restaurants, squares of Europe, wherever we are, we are equal, truly equal. We will step out of the superficial roles that various organizations or systems have given us. We will live together as equals. You are an industrial giant, I am a humble worker. You're a brain-computer interaction scientist, I'm just a teacher. It's just two people walking the dog, that's all. Here and now, we are just equal human beings.
So what can we talk about? How are you feeling today? Oh, my mom is sick. My friend is not so good. Ah, middle age – what a strange moment! We can talk about anything. Feelings, emotions, memories, time, dust. The meaning of our lives, how many small victories we have had, how many mistakes and failures we have made. yes! I'm such a fool. Laughter echoes around friends for a long time.
It's a completely different way of communicating with each other than we Americans. In these equal and dignified shared spaces, human vulnerability is revealed. It is visible and known. This is true sharing. Pain, longing, despair, sadness are always there. Maybe you think it sounds exaggerated, but it doesn't happen in a simple way. A word, a look, a little gaze at the withered old tree, will leave a deep and warm memory for everyone. Life goes on, but it's never easy.
Europe is more dynamic than the United States. People are more energetic. Life is more vivid. There's more life to live there. That's because there's more life – I'm more than just a consumer, a producer, a competitor. First of all I am a person, and so are you, and we are the first to exist as a human being between the universes, and not the labels that other people have given us, in fact, this is crucial.
I came to understand that this expansive approach to life produced a magic power. As social thinkers put it, the norms of equality and dignity are "copied" and nourished and maintained. People are able to interact with each other in a truly equal capacity, with the same dignity. They understand that everyone experiences similar things in life, but only a few things, such as birth, love, struggle, age, time, death. The power of life itself has become much greater than that of us Americans.
I think all of this is the foundation of social democracy. These attitudes of equality and dignity are so firm, gentle and beautifully woven together and incorporated into European culture, attitudes, values and social norms. In this way, the vitality of life can be unleashed.
In the United States, we don't have these norms. We have two opposing forces: capitalism and hegemonism. We have centuries of slavery and apartheid, we have centuries of capitalism, capitalism and hegemony are sometimes really hard to tell. Which force is the most important in the process of human trafficking supporting the US economy and allowing it to dominate the world?
Capitalism and hegemony make it impossible for us to interact with each other equally and with dignity. So, instead, every conversation starts with "What do you do?" and then "Where are you from?" "We're asking: Where are you on the two tiered ladders. First, the capitalist ladder of money, and second, the bloodline ladder of whites. We can quickly assess someone's status – how useful they are to us.
Are you just a Mexican worker? Good bye. Are you a white "CEO" in your twenties? This is my business card, call me! We can only be interconnected as producers and consumers (or as competitors, as predators and prey). We have internalized our relationship with each other as economic entities, and we have fixed our relationship as objects or subjects of power. Technically, we always try to build vertical social relationships (I'm above you, not me next to you), and Europeans build horizontal social relationships. But happiness comes from the latter, not the former.
This is the confinement that history has brought us. Can we have a social democracy without changing it? First as humans, then as producers and consumers, and finally as competitors, we are interconnected, and in America we lack this soil.
Those gentle, beautiful norms of equality and dignity are so Europeanized that they work in a way that we don't yet understand at all.
What does "horizontal social relations" mean? What happens when I walk my dog in the park and there is a person next to me? We are not just interconnected as economic entities or objects of power. I also have a friend next to me. And a guy like me. He is a mirror image of my fragility, self-inflicted wounds: birth, struggle, love, age, time, death, dust. My life is their life. We are just two friends, in this little green, accompanied by a little blue embellishment, galloping in the endless darkness. We were just two dog walkers, we were just two wanderers in the same desert, looking for the same ocean.
What did I get? I got, and at the same time gave comfort, empathy, grace, truth, meaning, strength, courage. Our weaknesses are common. We're looking, shaking hands, getting to know each other. These small things that millions of people do every day make society truly full of happiness. Because happiness is not what we Americans think: not to pursue more, but to be free from constant pain and trauma.
As Camus said, it's just a feeling of having friends around. Know that you are walking on a strange and impossible path—birth, struggle, love, time, death, dust—and believe that it will yield decent rewards. They are like the seasons, every day, fleeting. Only in the process of being with others, people like you, a fragile, limited thing, will have these rewards. Don't compete with them. Don't try to overtake them, hit them, conquer them. Just be with them. Just see them, just as they see you, and each person's vulnerability is shared with the other person. I saw you, did you see me? I exposed myself, are you exposed? Can a society function better in other ways? That's how people live their lives.
Maybe it's hugging and kissing that create a better world. Let those who are gentle and strong enough stand together and get close to each other, even in the fragility, fear and despair of life. Perhaps we Americans, like the Romans of those days, wanted to build a real society when our understanding of life was far from enough, but it was really just an empire. As my Spanish friend said: abrazos; and we say, hug it.