Was life better in black and white?

The 1998 film Pleasantville opens in a typical suburban high school with a montage of teachers speaking at their students.

...For those of you going on to college next year, the chance of finding a good job will actually decrease by the time you graduate. The available number of entry-level jobs will drop 31 percent over the next four years. Median income for those jobs will go down as well. Obviously, my friends, it's a competitive world, and good grades are your only ticket through. In fact, by the year 2000…
...The chance of contracting HIV from a non-monogamous lifestyle will climb to 1 in 150. The odds of dying in an auto accident are only 1 in twenty-five hundred. Now, this marks a drastic increase…
...from fourteen years ago, when ozone depletion was just at 10 percent of its current level. By the time you are thirty years old, average global temperature will have risen two and a half degrees, causing such catastrophic consequences as typhoons, floods, widespread drought, and famine...

High school senior David is appalled at the world he lives in and longs for what he believes was a better, simpler time — the 1950s world depicted in his favorite television series. His twin sister is the embodiment of the MTV generation. Through a twisted (and obviously unrealistic) set of events, the two are catapulted into the archetypal 50s suburb: Pleasantville. David is thrilled, insistent that people "are happy like this." Jennifer could not disagree more — "nobody's happy in a poodle skirt and a sweater set."

Throughout the course of the film, it becomes apparent that no one is quite as happy as the family dinners and school dances would lead the observer to believe. Stay-at-home mothers feel confined, occupational choices are limited, students barely question the material they are learning and no one has ever left the tiny little town they inhabit. Radical ideas begin to spread among the youth, prompting censorship and punishment. The town leader insists that it is necessary to "separate out the things that are pleasant from the things that are unpleasant," raising questions of discrimination and diversity of thought.

By the end of their journey, David's perfect vision of the 1950s has been shattered. He is forced to learn that "there is no 'right' life, no model for how things are 'supposed to be.' " (1) The good old days are not quite as "good" as they seemed. Though the people were able to live unhampered by technology and in tight-knit communities, they had their fair share of problems. Choices were more limited in terms of lifestyle, employment and even in what kind of thinking was permitted.

The movie was marketed to the very MTV generation it placed under the microscope, intended to serve as "a morality tale concerning the values of contemporary America by holding that social landscape up against both the Utopian and the dystopian visions of suburbia that emerged in the 1950s." (2)

David came away from his journey to Pleasantville disillusioned by the 1950s paradise, while Jennifer, the original skeptic, opted to stay in the past rather than return to her normal life. Though the movie does advocate some degree of nostalgia, it is "nostalgia leavened with a hint of danger or risk."

The take-away point of the nostalgia in Pleasantville is that one cannot make a value judgment as to who was happier: the teenager in the 1950s or the teenager in 1998. The differences are plentiful, but they span the gamut in both the positives and the negatives. Which is better (or worse): blatant discrimination and segregation or the stress and pressure of the college admissions process? Will innocent hours spent in the library or time passed on YouTube make us happier? Make us smarter? Make us more well off?

The movie's lesson is that even trying to make the comparison is imperfect. David envied the lifestyle of a Pleasantville teenager, but the Pleasantville teens had just as many complaints about their lives as he did. And with the experiences of a 90s kid, he could not appreciate all of the elements on Pleasantville — and quickly became disillusioned by the picture-perfect world.

Standard of living may have increased, health care may be better and information may be more acceptable, but it is impossible to state — objectively — if we are happier than we might have been in the 1950s (and vice versa). The best we can hope for is that we have learned from our mistakes — like the confinement of the Pleasantville social structure — and that we work toward improving the "unpleasant" aspects of life today. Like Billy Joel sang, "the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."

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(1) McDaniel, Robb. "Pleasantville (Ross 1998)." Rev. of Pleasantville. Film and History May-June 2002: 85-86

(2) Beuka, Robert A. SuburbiaNation: Reading Suburban Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Fiction and Film. 1st ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2004. 14-15.

Happiness is...

I must be experiencing the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon (I had to dig deep into my memories of Psych 1 to remember that one), but ever since writing about happiness, I have come across innumerable articles identifying the variables that affect our choices, our wealth and our subsequent happiness.

First: Religion. In discussion section, we argued (and were unable to agree) as to whether religion is an absolute or religious need. Do people require faith in absolute terms, or do they desire to belong to a religious group because their neighbor does? What sacrifices are made in the name of religion?

A recent study examines the breakdown of wealth in America by religion — and finds distinct variation between groups.

The article provides minimal analysis, but does raise a number of interesting questions, particularly the begging question of causation versus correlation. Jewish wealth is often traced back to the Middle Ages when people of all other faiths (well, Christian-derived faiths) were prohibited from entering the banking profession. Even if those historic roots are able to account for current wealth distribution, how can the other breakdowns be explained? Is it a reflection of the ties to race and ethnicity that religion have? Do different faiths place different values on work and leisure?

Second: Education. Studies point to the affirmative — YES, education does make us happier. (Comforting news to the college student currently in the library.) But, there is a growing consensus arguing a somewhat contrary position: that we are overeducating our children.

Though having a bachelor's degree may correlate to a certain level of happiness, is this really the best route for everyone? It's a viewpoint Americans are reluctant to express — we're supposed to be ever dreaming upward —but in other countries (Spain, for example), the "risk of overeducation" is a more widely expressed opinion. Because a college education does not necessarily guarantee a better occupation or lifestyle, students I met while studying abroad there put much more thought into whether or not to attend university. Comparatively, my friends and I stateside just viewed college as the automatic, the next step. Choosing not to go was never an option most of us considered. So although Brown is the happiest school in the country, are we actually happier because of the choice we made?

And if the quantifiable factors aren't satisfying for you, here's an article proving that happiness can be generated just by imagining how awful your life would be without the positive things you already have.

Come on, get happy

Keynes and Mill both wrote about their ideal societies, which came with a "destination," a "stationary state," some eventual point when advancement would stop and a leveling off would occur. Keynes wrote that all absolute needs would be fulfilled; Mill said populations would stop growing. Neither could be certain when such an endpoint would arise, but they knew it was coming.

The concept of an "end date" for societal development is odd to picture. Though Keynes was writing at a time when technology was nothing compared to what it is today, it is still difficult to fathom how he thought we would eventually just stop developing new technology. There always seems to be a next step, a new moon to fly to. Innovation is an expensive investment, but it is what keeps us asking questions, moving forward. In a dynamic world, why would a population choose to become stagnant?

Defining the endpoint is also tricky. In discussion section, we struggled to understand what the theorists meant — is it the moment in which every member of the society has exactly the same possessions, the same income, the same occupation? This Stepford world does not seem ideal. How can a construct exist that defines when everyone would be happiest? Keynes wrote that "there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the age of leisure and abundance without a dread."

From my vantage point, this could not be farther from the truth. The values placed on work and leisure are cultural, even individual, constructs. It is impossible to delineate what would make an entire country happy, prosperous and complete. Gallup recently conducted a survey, measuring all 50 states on a "well-being" index. The variables that feed into such a measure do include basic access to necessities and a "work environment," but other aspects of living — healthy behavior, emotional health and life evaluation — are also considered. Is Hawaii the happiest state because there is no innovation, or because everyone has the same possessions?

Happiness, from my perspective, is achieved when individuals have the ability to choose. Some will choose to live without innovation, some will choose to work 15 hours a week, while others will choose to work 60 hours a week. What is vital though is that it was a choice. If we are to imagine that, like Keynes and Mill said, society will eventually level out, I believe that can only occur when all individuals have the ability to choose the work, the life, the environment that will individually, make them happiest.