Affluenza [Paperback]

"A wonderfully clear and cogent thesis." -"Guardian"
"Should be mandatory reading for everyone." -Will Self

"as Oliver James's very important book demonstrates...he has thought about the problem a lot and he approaches it in a very winning fashion...he is consistently engaging in both his apercus and his occasionally eccentric asides"

The paperback of the Sunday Times bestseller: Oliver James tours the minds of the middle classes in search of an answer to the question: is it possible to be successful and stay sane

There is currently an epidemic of 'affluenza' throughout the world - an obsessive, envious, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses - that has resulted in huge increases in depression and anxiety among millions. Over a nine-month period, bestselling author Oliver James travelled around the world to try and find out why. He discovered how, despite very different cultures and levels of wealth, affluenza is spreading. Cities he visited include Sydney, Singapore, Moscow, Copenhagen, New York and Shanghai, and in each place he interviewed several groups of people in the hope of finding out not only why this is happening, but also how one can increase the strength of one's emotional immune system. He asks: why do so many more people want what they haven't got and want to be someone they're not, despite being richer and freer from traditional restraints? And, in so doing, uncovers the answer to how to reconnect with what really matters and learn to value what you've already got. In other words, how to be successful and stay sane. (20040315)

World-renowned psychologist, Oliver James, tours the minds of the affluent middle classes, in search of an answer to the question: is it possible to be successful and stay sane? --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Oliver James trained and practised as a child clinical psychologist and, since 1987, has worked as a writer, journalist and television documentary producer and presenter. His books include Juvenile Violence in a Winner-Loser Culture, the bestselling They F*** You Up and Britain on the Couch, which was also a successful documentary series for Channel 4. He is a trustee of two children's charities: the National Family and Parenting Institute and Homestart. (20040315)

PROLOGUE

In September of 2003, the proposal for this book was sent to a publisher. What happened next illustrates its main point.

I had high hopes of being offered a substantial advance because my last book had sold a fair few copies. I was living with my wife and twenty-one-month-old daughter in a fairly modest house in Shepherd's Bush, and apart from book-writing, my sources of income were journalism and the occasional television appearance. The wedge for the new book would need to be decent-sized because the gag was to visit seven nations and spend three weeks in each, interviewing citizens about their lives. My wife and daughter would accompany me to New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Shanghai, Moscow, Copenhagen and New York, and this mind tour was likely to take the best part of a year. I would investigate the extent to which the different nations were afflicted by what I term the `Affluenza Virus' - the placing of a high value on money, possessions, appearances (physical and social) and fame. Many international studies have shown that people who hold such values are at a greater risk of being emotionally distressed - depressed, anxious, substance abusing and personality-disordered. I would use existing scientific studies of national rates of such problems as my starting point, and then see how Affluenza was panning out locally, around the world. I also pictured myself as an itinerant Marie Curie, returning triumphantly clutching vaccines which immunise us against the Virus, phials of tactics for making the best of the very bad job that the world has become. But to do this I needed money.

Money - to buy a new computer, a better mobile phone, an international datacard for emails, a portable DVD to keep our daughter quiet, and sundry other essential goods and services for the intrepid twenty-first-century investigator of the harm done by being over-preoccupied with money. Although the British Council had very generously agreed to help by providing accommodation and finding the interviewees, it would take a lot of time and cost a good deal in air fares, even though British Airways' business magazine (for which I wrote) was prepared to stump up for some of mine.

When the publisher came back with an offer that was less than half the amount they had paid for my last book, a black and impenetrable cloud descended on our household. My agent expressed incredulity, my wife despaired at losing an extended holiday from our normal suburban bliss, our daughter continued enjoying Teletubbies, and I? I did not know what to think. Perhaps the idea was worthless, maybe the proposal had been badly written. But worst of all, could it be that the publisher's valuation had exposed a gulf between a bloated self-estimation and The Market? Surely not. Unbowed, I rewrote the proposal and sent it off again. Oh yes, this time they would see sense. A further derisory bid was returned to sender.

I confess to having suffered a measure of discombobulation. It was true that a bird in the hand can't see the wood for the trees; then again, maybe a poke in the eye with a blunt stick meant the world was my oyster. It did seem a bit rum that I was being offered considerably less than I had received for my (successful) last book. I liked to think that my own sense of worth as a writer of psychology books was not tied to some publisher's grubby estimate of how much they could make from selling them. Nonetheless, despite my pronouncements that one should look within oneself for authenticity and identity, which I frequently intoned to friends, readers of my journalism and indeed anyone who would listen, I was feeling less than chipper.

But you are reading this book, and we did make that journey, so you will know that the story didn't end there. My agent sent the proposal to other publishers, and within a very short time a bidding war ensued, which was won by Vermilion. `Well, come on then, what was the final amount?' you ask. To which I am tempted to reply, `None of your business!' But suppose I were to say £300,000 - what then? If you are a merchant banker, you might think, `Pathetic! Call that money?' If a nurse, `Nice work if you can get it'; if a Tesco checkout worker, `Jammy bastard!' But whatever your response, how you are feeling about me at this moment is profoundly affected by how much I have been paid, just as I am ashamed to say that it affected my view of myself - my inner life was governed by how much The Market valued my work. Unless you are most unusual, you cannot help comparing what I get with what you get, and your attitude to me is affected by that, as is mine.

In fact, the figure I have given is fictitious. My point is to underline a very simple and fundamental fact about our lives: we have become absolutely obsessed with measuring ourselves and others through the distorted lens of Affluenza values.