Are the Pressures Exaggerated?

ARE today’s pressures being exaggerated?

“Yes,” say some. They point out that there has always been a certain amount of crime, war, poverty and discontent over living conditions.

Furthermore, they ask: Is it not true that, even in big cities, the mathematical probabilities of any one person’s being murdered or raped amount to only one in several thousand? Do not drug addicts still represent only a minimal portion of the population? Can we deny that many countries today enjoy prosperity, with workers owning more material possessions than ever before?

Also, while war disrupts some areas, are not most nations at peace? And, despite all the dire warnings about pollution, is it not obvious that people are not by any means ‘dying off like flies’ but keep right on living? ‘Suppose we do have to give up eating mercury-contaminated swordfish,’ they say, ‘what of all the other things to eat?’

This is all very true.

Yet it overlooks some vital factors. What?

Even though those directly affected or visibly hurt by any certain one of these many problems may be a minority, the fact remains that we are all being affected in one way or another.

And the likelihood of finding ourselves among those directly affected or hurt grows with each passing day.

Why the Pressures Are Being Felt

Danger does not have to be immediate or obvious for one to feel damaging pressure. Not everyone lives in a high-crime area. You perhaps can walk outside your home at night with little danger of being attacked. But just knowing that such attacks mount each year can make you uneasy about doing it.

Furthermore, the enormous cost of crime and the cost of fighting it ($60,000,000,000 a year in the United States) is inevitably passed on to the common citizen in the form of higher prices and increased taxes. Really, no one completely escapes, no matter who he is or where he lives.

Drug addiction is steadily reaching into more and more sectors of human society. But even though those on “hard drugs” may still be relatively few, the fact is that much of the world’s population is developing a “drug-oriented culture.” Men and women by the millions are turning to tranquilizers, sleeping pills, pep pills and other so-called “safe” drugs for relief or stimulus. The greater the pressures grow, the greater the temptation to use these to excess​—or to go to more powerful drugs.

“White-Collar” and “Blue-Collar” Worries

Your job may be a good one, with high pay. The company you work for may seem solid and unshakable. Yet more and more persons enjoying such positions today feel uncertain, anxious. Why?

Consider the case of skilled technicians and professional men. Today’s Health (published by the American Medical Association) recently carried an article titled “Dark Days for the White Collar.” It showed that, in the United States, the “rate of joblessness for professional and technical workers is up 27 percent from 1969. Some 1,213,000 white collar workers are caught up in the new unemployment figure,” many now being on welfare.

What of those who have not lost their jobs? They still feel the strain of uncertainty, realizing how unexpectedly even very large businesses can develop deep trouble or even go bankrupt.

Actually, having a high-salaried job, such as that of an executive, often brings its own problems. The trend toward hypertension (high blood pressure) is greater among this class. And medical science now finds that even mild hypertension may trigger heart attacks or strokes.

What about the other end of the labor scale? Is the picture brighter?

Under the title “The Blue-Collar Blues,” Newsweek magazine (May 17, 1971) says: “All in all, the American blue-collar worker of today, while earning more real money (in terms of purchasing power) for fewer hours than ever before, is just plain unhappy.” Why?

Reasons given include the “deadly monotony” of so many factory jobs, the modern plant being likened to a “gold-plated salt mine” where the worker suffers “loss of pride in his job and in his role as the father-provider.” Also there is the feeling that management is more interested in the machines than in the humans operating them.

According to industrial-relations expert William Karp, on the part of the average worker there exists “an unspoken uncertainty that he will be able to go on earning a living.” This uncertainty is largely due to increased automation, with machines steadily taking over men’s jobs.

The picture is similar in other prosperous lands. According to an Associated Press dispatch of June 13, 1971, the chief psychiatrist at a leading Tokyo hospital estimates that about one-third of Japanese salaried men are in the first stages of neurosis.

The situation is much the same in relation to war, pollution, city deterioration and other pressure-causing problems. Not the immediate danger but the fact that these things show so little sign of being solved or even improved​—this is what produces frustration, makes the future lose its appeal, look barren of any bright hope.

Since the pressures today are felt by rich and poor, by people in all neighborhoods, in all lands, where can we look for relief? To what sources are many turning today?