The Insidious Deception of 'The Good Life'

A Flawed Blueprint for Living

May 22, 2024

I began writing something based upon my observations about modern young women… then I decided it was not what I really wanted to write, and I discarded it. It’s at the bottom of the post if you’re interested.

This will be a hasty and speculative piece because my attitudes in this area are uncertain, and many of my thoughts and beliefs are based on generalizations or impressions. It’s also highly focused on the female sex. Just as the statement that ‘men as a group have a special relationship with physical violence’ seems indubitable to me the claim that ‘women as a group have a special relationship with modern consumer culture’ seems fairly undeniable. Nevertheless, these are not crystallized beliefs. Rather they are blurry ideas, still forming.

XX / XY

As a man who exclusively dates women I have spent a great deal of time communicating with and pondering them. I remain firmly convinced that men and women are constituted differently and while I recognize that every person has equal civic and spiritual value and is, in that sense, equal, men and women are generally unequal across many attributes. take any trait you like: strength, honesty, courage, agreeableness, conscientiousness, etc. I think you will find variations between men and women and those variations reflect our different social and biological roles. Don’t mistake me: women are superior to men in (according to my perceptions) compassion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, responsibility, cleanliness, sociability, attention to detail, etc., etc. Even across broad traits (like honesty, or intelligence) where men and women might be basically statistically equal the trait can be broken up into subtraits (sense of direction, bluntness, intellectual honesty, emotional intuition) across which there are differences. These (mean) differences reflect our biological roles and our essential nature. That is why they are salient. They help define what human men and human are and while individuals might scatter widely across the field and vary enormously that is irrelevant to my point.

All that to say: men and women are categorically different creatures, and the differences do not (merely) lie in our chromosomes.

Today I want to introduce a construct I’ve come to regard as ‘The Good Life’. It was born in 20th-century consumer culture (perhaps earlier) but it has transmogrified and grown enormously under the thick and noxious fertilizer of social media. Perhaps my label is too plain or silly… but that’s what I call it.

A Note on the Imperatives of Consumer Culture

Consumption is both the sacrament and the purpose of our age. It is the primary activity of our society and it is the function from which all other social functions flow. Earlier ages might have placed hunting or praying or parenting in this position but for us it is spending. Spending requires earning and so our society has created a status hierarchy based upon wealth and acquisition. There are other hierarchies (strength, attractiveness, sociability) but these are older socially- or (worse) biologically-rooted hierarchies and they do not serve our rulers, save as leverage points to encourage us to buy things. Some of them have been systemically minimized, as much as possible.

The dream of our social order is a completely commodified civilization, in which each person is a solitary unit who works and lives alone. He or she offers his or her skills and energies to the market and they receive compensation. They only engage in socializing or parenting or sport or exploring inasmuch as these things can be turned into revenue streams for corporations. As it turns out, such creatures tend to be lonely and adrift and unhealthy and neurotic. That’s okay. These issues are addressed with still more consumption: gym memberships, therapy, medication, dating apps, drinks, vacations, motivational reading, boutique ‘health & wellness’ items.

The Good Life

The Good Life is the vision of reality which now animates and drives many modern women, especially young and educated women in the West (although its tendrils are fast growing into every corner of the planet). It is a consumerist mirage, built especially to motivate and empassion young women. It serves duel purposes: to keep women striving, working, and building (on their own, of course) and to keep women spending money.

The Good Life is the dream of a fulfilling job (important! with authority!) and a nice home (lots of cute items!) and outings to fashionable bars and restaurants and weekend trips (road trip! boat! ski lodge!) on the weekends. Beauty is a premium and endless dollars are spent upon it… but the implication that anyone is lacking in this trait is verboten. The mission is to drive women to spend, not hurt their feelings. Friends are encountered in places which involve spending money (arcades, clubs, art galleries) and they are attractive and photogenic and engaging. Fitness is important, but mostly as a way to sell supplements and gym memberships and apparel to women. Parenting is not entirely forgotten (biology still rules, after all) but it is delayed… a kind of terminal destination after 15-20 years of The Good Life. The Good Life is driven by the twin engines of production (WORK: credentialed, status-rich, profitable… but not too risky or outdoors or work intensive… there needs to be time to buy and spend) and consumption (PLAY: photogenic locations, social hobbies, cute restaurants, cosmetic products, clothes, digital hardware, Sheon, Amazon, Ulta, Meetup).

The Good Life is a conception which is relentlessly positive, shiny, and indulgent. It steers its acolytes away from many possible sources of trouble: drug abuse, crime, disease. It values many good things and accurately discounts many bad ones.

It is so ubiquitous and it has grown so fast that it’s initially difficult to make out its outlines… like trying to identify a whale suspended 4 feet above you.

The Good Life is not good though. The Good Life is generally healthy and cheerful and pro-social (because women are generally healthy and cheerful and pro-social) but it is also shallow and empty. It resists thought and controversy and reduces life to a series of purchases and instagrammable moments. It corresponds easily with the social justice worldview: both demand no sacrifice or insight and are grounded in impulse and sentiment. Weddings, competitions, home purchases, friendly dinners are all unconsciously assessed for their social appeal and their photogenic effect. The Good Life is intensely social, and therefore relentlessly insecure. It is concerned with fashion and appearance and fun and joy, rather than wisdom or striving or logic or truth.

Enemies of The Good Life

What are the enemies of The Good Life? It’s often easier to define concepts by what they are not than what they are. The Good Life does not like competition. There’s no (or little) commodification available in individuals striving to achieve personal goals and growing as people. It does not like virtue, preferring instead niceness and a kind of relatable attractiveness (which includes one’s behavior). It does not like religion, but it loves ‘spirituality’ (a huge potential earner!). It does not like controversy or conflict, save as avenues for celebrity stories and gossip. It does not like logic or rigid standards, preferring subjectivity and sentiment and ‘equity’. It does not like war or poverty or disease, but it places no burden on the individual to understand or address these conditions. It dislikes them because they’re gross and sad.

Contemplate the things for which little money can be made: volunteering (away from the endless gaze of social media), old literature, family vacations (not posted on Facebook), the wilderness, outdoor swimming and running, sensible diets (not crowd-sourced online), loyalty, faith, grief, growth. These things, and more, are the antitheses of The Good Life.

Implications

I understand that someone could read this and scoff, believing that I’ve just listed a bunch of sexist stereotypes. I have no doubt that men or Asian Americans or martial artists or dog owners also have their general attributes, and some of them certainly relate to self-definition and purchasing and social media use. The Good Life is not cautionary because it is commodified or gendered. It is a social issue because it is literally the blueprint for living for many, many people in our society. Absent children or religion or patriotism or duty people in our culture tend to become a reflection of their purchasing preferences, defined to themselves and to the world by their chosen music and clothes and hobbies. The Good Life is the living example of this par excellence. It is an incarnation of a life lived solely in service of the things you like to buy and do (and your job): CrossFit, Boba, line-dancing, LuLulemon. It is not a negative phenomenon because of what it emphasizes (despite its emptiness and obsession with comfort and craving for attention and social affirmation). It is a problem because of the things it de-emphasizes: duty, service, parenthood, discomfort, frugality, growth, risk, honesty.

The Good Life is not a problem because of the things it includes. It is a problem because of the things it does not. It simply lacks the structural elements of real existence which our ancestors instinctually created. Unfortunately is the the vision that drives many people who live today. Ultimately it is an unhappy (though comfortable and distracted) form of living, and that sense of unhappiness seems to increase as people age and their beauty and energy and vivacity diminish. No matter. People can always buy therapy and skin cream and cruises. They might help… for a bit.

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Discarded Piece, which I wrote before the one above:

There is no doubt that relationships used to be simpler. You mingled with the people you grew up with and worked around and made natural friends with some of them. Chances are you were rarely alone (houses were crowded and work was public) and so you couldn’t help making friends unless you were strange or distasteful. The idea of huge numbers of people living their lives (eating, shopping, earning money, communicating) without physically encountering others would have been literally unimaginable to the residents of this era, which extended from the origin of our species to less than two generations ago.

In terms of romantic relationships, the path was just as well-worn and intuitive, and the social rules were even more explicit. Boys began courting young women in high school and made a bid for one’s affections and commitment near the start of adulthood. Once you’d picked your match and she’d accepted the path ahead was broad and clear: you would get married in your town and she would begin to have children (provided she was healthy). You would go to work and she probably would too, although not as much. By age 30 you would probably own your home but even if you were a rentier your place would be filled with the laughter and shouts of children. Life would roll onward. They would grow and begin their own cycle of learning and courting and settling down.

Certainly there were exceptions and I suspect that they were so numerous as to be large pluralities in some factors… but the norms were clear. You could disregard them if you wanted, if desire or belief pulled you in different directions, but everyone knew what the model for life looked like and most goals and standards and decisions were essentially preset by society. While the details have varied enormously every society has structured itself with such group norms and goals. All human groups seem to partly define themselves according to their view of and path for life. Being a good mate and a good group member and a good friend and a good parent have apparently been important to and valued by every human society we know of.

Our society has changed radically. We still have norms and standard paths, but there are more of them and they revolve around earning and spending money, rather than being a parent/friend/community member.

I write this from the perspective of a man who has spent years dating women in the United States. While there is a good deal of selection bias in group of the women I’ve dated (I’m not just choosing women at random, and only certain women are choosing to date me) the sample size from which I draw these conclusions is not small.

These are the observations I have made:

Women generally seem to have more and stricter standards for dating than men. This is what a person might predict, knowing that men have traditionally functioned as providers and that dating and sex entail many more risks for women but it nevertheless seems to be true. Men generally want attractive and kind women whose company they enjoy. Women want these things as well, but they often want someone who’s hunny and engaging (not a premium for men) and they select based on responsibility and status and wealth. I don’t think women look for wealthy men in most cases but being poor or marginalized is a deficit for women in ways that they simply are not for men.
Women are more fickle and flighty in their romantic choices, and seem to take dating much more seriously than men. I don’t know how many times I’ve dated or spoken to women once or twice only to have them approach me apologetically and explain that they’re simply not in a place for a relationship. Some of these cases might be women who simply lack interest in me and are trying to let me off easily (which is kind but unnecessary) but I doubt that most of them are. There seem to be a large number of women out there who take the prospect of dating a man seriously enough that they find themselves ‘checking in’ with themselves and reluctant to perform the possible emotional labor of dating. I suspect (with absolutely no data) that many of the men who say this to women are actively recovering from heartbreak or tragedy, whereas most of the owmne who have said that to me do not seem to be dealing with major life stress and seem fairly psychologically stable, including having been single for one or more years. For them I think that they are leery about what could turn out to be a kind of commitment
Women are busy. Women are usually fully employed, and often add school or church to their activity rosters. They enjoy going out to restaurants and travelling and taking photos of their food and themselves more than men. On top of the myriad obligations of modern life (bills, shopping, chores, gym) women often seem to be socially engaged and gainfully employed. They do not seem to evidence the variation of men, some of whom spend 3 nights each week in nightclubs and more of whom spend all of their free time at home on the computer. Again, this could be selection bias (the women who advertise themselves as looking for dates tend to be more socially engaged). Even if selection bias is a factor though, women tend to cluster around a few popular activities: restaurants, gyms, shopping, tourism/travelling. These activities usually involve a strong social element and they usually involve spending money.
Women are divided in their focuses and goals. The program for man and women that our society has constructed are fairly similar: people should complete school and college and enter a career and buy a house and a car. Unfortunately for women they are not men and so, if they want to include marriage and childbirth in their lives, they must complete every item on this list and get romantically serious by around age 30. This number factors in the unreliability of men and the tendency of romantic relationships to fracture. It’s rare these days to end up marrying to first person you begin dating while looking for marriage. Often relationships progress for years and fall apart, brining women years closer to their