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While few social observers will be surprised by this statement, it is still remarkable. We are the richest, healthiest, longest living generation in history. We have shorter working weeks, more leisure time and longer retirements than our parents and grandparents. The social safety net has never been as comprehensive.
In spite of all this, something has gone seriously wrong. "The present generation of children are more troubled emotionally than the last: more lonely and depressed, more angry and unruly, more nervous and prone to worry, more impulsive and aggressive," writes Goleman. I am more emotionally unstable than either my parents or my grandparents, and my children are worse off than I am. Could that really be the case?
My grandparents came to Canada in the 1930s as refugees. They had been displaced by the Russian Revolution from their comfortable villages and homes. They stepped into a new land with a new language after a terrifying journey. They came into a country that had recently fought a World War, was reeling under the weight of the Great Depression and would soon be faced with another World War.
My parents grew up as refugee children. They raised their children under the nuclear cloud of the Cold War in the 1950s. Bomb shelters and air raid drills were part of family conversations and school life. In the 1960s my parents' generation watched as their teenagers proclaimed the dubious Age of Aquarius and were swallowed up in the sexual and drug revolution.
And I have a greater chance of falling into depression than my parents and grandparents? Both the statistics and my experience agree that it is so. Sure times can be tough, but what is going on?
Daniel Goleman thinks he knows: We are short on "emotional intelligence". Emotional intelligence, by Goleman's definition, is made up of "self-control, zeal and persistence and the ability to motivate oneself". Somewhere these qualities have been lost, and the task we face is teaching them again. The answer, he claims, is better education.
I wish Mr. Goleman well in his endeavour, but his description of the problem is more profound than his prescription for a cure. Unfortunately, education alone has not proven itself capable of regenerating human character. We are also the most educated generation in history. The cause of the decay, unfortunately, runs far deeper.
And what is the cause of this state of progressive decay? The answer lies in a well documented parallel. The century of emotional decay was also the century of the rejection of the God of the Bible. This is the God who declared Himself to be the source of morality. He is the God who not only decreed that we teach children morality but who also prescribed the moral code which is to be taught. He is the God who warned that decay would follow for any society which loses its moral base.
However, He is also the God who, speaking in times not unlike our own, said, "If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (II Chronicles 7:14, the Bible).
Maybe all is not lost.
James Toews lives in Nanaimo, B.C.
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