9
1.4 Relative Comfort and Quality of Life
Once basic needs are provided for, the bar that marks minimally acceptable creature
comforts quickly rises. Each additional requirement to elevate an individual or family above a level of subsistence living with minimal heat, food, and shelter adds to
the number of goods and services needed to satisfy them. Each comes with an additional energy cost and attendant harmful environmental emissions. The relative
increase to the store of material possessions and replacement when they are no
longer fit for purpose is largely what comprises our Pursuit of Happiness today.
Underpinning and constantly operating below the surface of this culture of pursuit is a subtle psychological process that keeps most of us comparing our relative
positions in society, in either obvious or subtle ways (Dubois and Ordabayeva
2015). It is at play, whether we examine it or not.
Karl Marx uses almost exactly the same example of two adjacent houses to illustrate how ego and striving for recognition fuel the desire to acquire and the impulse
to consume conspicuously:
A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it
satisfies all social requirements for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a
palace, and the little house shrinks into a hut. The house now makes it clear that its inmate
has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it
may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal or even
in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more
uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls. (Marx 2008)
Comparisons
In the summer of 2014, my 4-year-old daughter, Sara, walked up to me in our
yard and reported, “Becky says we live in the tinyeeeest house.” My little girl
was looking at me with one eye through the sliver of space between her forefinger and thumb as she repeated what her next-door friend had said. She
didn’t seem bothered by the observation, but I felt compelled to respond with
something like:
“Most people live in houses that are bigger than some and smaller than
others,” I said, “and for a long time humans didn’t live in houses at all.” That
brief exchange started me thinking about the decisions that had led my wife
and I to this leafy enclave in Northern New Jersey and why, ultimately, we
bought this particular small one-and-a-half-story Cape Cod in the town of
Wyckoff. Although the public schools were highly rated and the taxes reasonable by New Jersey standards, what we found most captivating was the street,
neighborhood, and the sense of community with its relatively densely packed
post-World War II housing built for returning GIs and their growing families.
When we first visited on a sunny summer day, with kids running around in
neighboring yards and a nature reserve just around the corner, it seemed like
a great place to put down roots to raise our newborn. The south sun flooded
the living room of the corner lot at the mouth of the cul-de-sac all day long,
and in 2009, after the bottom had dropped out of the housing market, the price
1.4 Relative Comfort and Quality of Life
1.4 Relative Comfort and Quality of Life
Once basic needs are provided for, the bar that marks minimally acceptable creature
comforts quickly rises. Each additional requirement to elevate an individual or family above a level of subsistence living with minimal heat, food, and shelter adds to
the number of goods and services needed to satisfy them. Each comes with an additional energy cost and attendant harmful environmental emissions. The relative
increase to the store of material possessions and replacement when they are no
longer fit for purpose is largely what comprises our Pursuit of Happiness today.
Underpinning and constantly operating below the surface of this culture of pursuit is a subtle psychological process that keeps most of us comparing our relative
positions in society, in either obvious or subtle ways (Dubois and Ordabayeva
2015). It is at play, whether we examine it or not.
Karl Marx uses almost exactly the same example of two adjacent houses to illustrate how ego and striving for recognition fuel the desire to acquire and the impulse
to consume conspicuously:
A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it
satisfies all social requirements for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a
palace, and the little house shrinks into a hut. The house now makes it clear that its inmate
has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it
may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal or even
in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more
uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls. (Marx 2008)
Comparisons
In the summer of 2014, my 4-year-old daughter, Sara, walked up to me in our
yard and reported, “Becky says we live in the tinyeeeest house.” My little girl
was looking at me with one eye through the sliver of space between her forefinger and thumb as she repeated what her next-door friend had said. She
didn’t seem bothered by the observation, but I felt compelled to respond with
something like:
“Most people live in houses that are bigger than some and smaller than
others,” I said, “and for a long time humans didn’t live in houses at all.” That
brief exchange started me thinking about the decisions that had led my wife
and I to this leafy enclave in Northern New Jersey and why, ultimately, we
bought this particular small one-and-a-half-story Cape Cod in the town of
Wyckoff. Although the public schools were highly rated and the taxes reasonable by New Jersey standards, what we found most captivating was the street,
neighborhood, and the sense of community with its relatively densely packed
post-World War II housing built for returning GIs and their growing families.
When we first visited on a sunny summer day, with kids running around in
neighboring yards and a nature reserve just around the corner, it seemed like
a great place to put down roots to raise our newborn. The south sun flooded
the living room of the corner lot at the mouth of the cul-de-sac all day long,
and in 2009, after the bottom had dropped out of the housing market, the price
1.4 Relative Comfort and Quality of Life