THE PROGRESS PARADOX How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse

The journalist/author's liberal and contrarian sensibilities are used to create a panoramic view of why America is so unsettled in the face of its great abundance. He debunks the notion that things are awful (crime is down, we work less hard, own more stuff, have better health), and yet a current of anxiety keeps us wanting more and feeling worse. The answer is that our evolution selected those who were alert to unseen dangers and unhappy with the status quo. Referring skillfully to positive psychology and philosophy, this spellbinding audio is strangely unsettling. Ultimately he provides a political solution and social response that make greater moral sense than anything I've heard in quite a while. T.W. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/ JUL 04]