With doom and gloom everywhere, more people are reaching for Prozac and other happy pills. Is this a quick fix that erases the motivation for great art and other higher callings like saving endangered species?
Eric Wilson says yes, and he worries that America's obsession with happiness threatens to purge sadness and undermine higher callings like great art. If this is true, will Prozac also kill nature conservation?
What motivates nature conservation? Is it sadness over a dire situation? If so, then will the Prozac epidemic drain from us the driving force that moves people to save endangered species?
I'm not so sure that doom and gloom is a useful motivator. Are we driven to save endangered species because science says they're in trouble? Will we stop climate change because of scientific doom and gloom about an apocalyptic future? Or does the motivation for nature conservation come from a different place?
I think doom and gloom hinders action on nature conservation because it paralyzes people. People are more strongly moved towards conservation when they feel empowered and capable, and engaged in building solutions. In contrast, a statement of impending doom, absent a productive solution, seems to drive people away from the cause of conserving nature. Who wants to go into futility?
It's probably a good idea to question Prozac and other options for changing and enhancing people. Are they useful? Are they ethical? How do they change individuals and human cultures?
There's some sense to the argument that it's right to be sad in the face of things bad. But I think doom and gloom can be taken too far. In fact, I think doom and gloom has been taken too far in conservation.It's a laughable stereotype that conservationists are nothing but doom and gloom. The Al Gore cartoon at left wouldn't be funny if there wasn't at least a grain of truth in it.
Eric Wilsom may be right that melancholia is an endangered emotion that needs protection. But conservation is a human arena that needs a little more happiness, not less.