Posted on December 30, 2009 - by David

Busyness in America

In the “busy” spirit of the season, I share with you this essay by Liah Greenfeld, published in 2005 in Social Research, on busyness in contemporary American society. By comparing the lives of Americans today with life in other historical and some contemporary societies, she argues that the sense of busyness we experience is not actually caused by how much we have to do:

We are busy not because our physical and economic survival requires constant exertion on our part, leaving us little opportunity for spiritual restoration–relaxing, getting rid of the sense of busyness–but because we are incapable of perceiving and taking advantage of the opportunities for repose. We are restless. And our busyness is an expression of this inability to rest, rather than its cause. Much of our busyness comes from our leisure activities, in fact: preparations for and participation in family gatherings, holiday shopping (how often every one of us heard–or exclaimed–the desperate “Oh my! It is December 15, and I have not yet done my Christmas shopping!”), visits to the hairdresser and the gym; the phrase itself, “leisure activities,” is telling. We regard all these occasions for relaxation as duties and external pressures: we exercise not because we like it and can afford to indulge ourselves, but because one must keep in shape. We read New York Times over breakfast because one must be informed; go to concerts, movies, and dinners with friends because it is important to be culturally au currant and sociable. We are veritably torn into pieces by all these simultaneous and necessarily conflicting demands that oppress us every minute of our waking life and eventually invade our sleep.

So, if work conditions have improved and hours have gotten shorter, if quality of live has risen steadily and our options for relaxation and entertainment are constantly expanding, why do so many of us feel busy to the point of anxiety and exhaustion? Greenfeld claims that in distinction to past societies:

Americans who suffer from busyness today do not prioritize. They treat all their occupations– work, family, and even leisure–as equally important…

This disturbing inability to prioritize, which is the direct, proximate, cause of our oppressive sense of busyness, is undoubtedly related to the difficulty modern men and women, Americans above all, have forming their identities.

As in her other work, Greenfeld states here that the problem of identity formation stems from the anomie which comes as a built-in feature of modern culture, which is organized around the principles of popular sovereignty and egalitarianism. These principles, which open wide a world of possibilities, also fundamentally change the way identity is formed, because we must now create for ourselves what was once provided to us by culture:

Modern culture cannot provide us with a sense of order because its constitutive beliefs and attitudes, its supreme values and norms, consistently undermine order…

To insist on the fundamental equality of members in a community is to leave them fundamentally undefined vis-à-vis each other, to leave them without an identity. To proclaim and defend popular sovereignty and the individual’s freedom to make oneself is to demand that each one construct one’s identity on one’s own. Lifting limits from our desires, paradoxically, places very heavy burdens on our shoulders.

For me, this explanation rings true. I seem to feel busy all of the time, whether working, in the car with a junior bacon cheeseburger in one hand and my cell phone in the other, or just sitting on the couch in sweatpants with a book and a cup of coffee. I’ve asked myself again and again recently, how can I possibly be so busy and have so little to show for it? While I haven’t pinned down one identity for myself yet, I know that I can do a better job of prioritizing and actually relaxing when that’s what the moment calls for.

So, take a break from this sensation of busyness, enjoy the long weekend, and have a happy new year.