AMERICA: WHAT, US WORRY?

The cover story in today's New York Times Magazine is about anxiety -- specifically, about researchers' belief that certain people are predisposed to a higher level of anxiety than others, a predisposition that can carry on through life and rise to the level of a mental disorder.

Curiously, the article doesn't mention people at the other end of the spectrum -- those innately predisposed not to worry. At some point, believing nearly all the time that everything's going to work out fine surely causes problems. At some point, surely, it becomes a bit unhealthy and delusional. But you'd never know it from reading this piece.

But that's America, isn't it? We tend to like people who don't worry, who never anticipate calamity or even unpleasantness. We make them heroes. We elect them to office. Oh, yeah, sure -- we don't always elect them to office. Every so often we elect someone to office who says there are problems in this country. Usually we do this after people who aren't capable of anticipating calamity have screwed everything up for us so much that we need someone to clean up the mess. (And then we tend to blame the mess-noticer for the continued existence of the mess.)

Most of the time, though, the vast majority of Americans don't want to hear it if you feel any anxiety. Full speed ahead! Why are you being such a gloomy Gus ? You're worried that something could go wrong if we invade Iraq? You're afraid the housing boom could be a bubble? You have health insurance and don't have a serious illness and you're worried that if you have a really serious medical problem you might not still be insured, or might not be truly covered? Hey, enough! You're bumming us all out!

I sometimes think the reason liberals struggle in this country is not that we're wrong (as right-wingers believe) but that we're right too soon. We're the first ones to see clouds on the horizon. We're aware very early of the downside risk.

And most of the time we're loathed for it. And our opposite numbers, the power-of-positive-thinking types, are the culture's football heroes, even though they're the ones who actually screw things up. Their utter inability to see danger even when it's actually present, or imminent, isn't seen as a problem at all.

The author of the Times article tells us:

In the modern world, the anxious temperament does offer certain benefits: caution, introspection, the capacity to work alone. These can be adaptive qualities.... high-reactive kids ... grow up to be the Felix Ungers of the world, ... clearing a safe, neat path for the Oscar Madisons.

People with a high-reactive temperament ... are generally conscientious and almost obsessively well-prepared. Worriers are likely to be the most thorough workers and the most attentive friends. Someone who worries about being late will plan to get to places early. Someone anxious about giving a public lecture will work harder to prepare for it. Test-taking anxiety can lead to better studying; fear of traveling can lead to careful mapping of transit routes.

But it's usually assumed that you'll do all this worrying and preparing in a quiet corner all by yourself, for the benefit of a cheerful optimist who takes advantage and gets the glory. Heaven forfend you should peek out from that corner and inject your concerns into any discussion of a serious issue. That's now how we do things in America. We divide the world into doers and doubters. Problems? They'll take care of themselves ... won't they?