Every time I go to lunch with Dr. Moisy Shopper, a nationally known psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, I bring a notepad. It's cheaper than the couch. This time, I want to know how he thinks Americans are reacting to the collapse of our ostensibly free market. He glances pointedly at the notepad I've shoved under the butter dish and warns that he has no scientific analysis to offer, just biased conjecture.
"Seems to me that's all the economists have to offer," I reply. "I just keep wondering how long a society of consumers" (read: "I") "will be able to stay away from the malls."
"Well, at this point, it's a choice," he says. "Later on, it won't be."
A chill runs through me, and I look hard for a bright spot. "So is it really possible that a little financial anxiety has, in one stroke, ended our love affair with mindless consumption and cut short the excesses of our desires?" He nods. "I guess we weren't as addicted to stuff as I thought we were!" I say, determined to be perky.
"I think everybody was living on easy credit," Moisy says gently. "Now, they're scared. Even supposedly well-managed companies are failing. What can you have confidence in?"
That, it seems to me, is an even larger question. So many certainties have collapsed--our creeds are outworn, our identities stolen daily, even old categories like maleness and femaleness have blurred. And now, quite a lot of us can't put money in a bank or buy stock or buy a house or work without worry.
At least those who were already struggling are no longer alone, Moisy points out dryly. "We've all realized that the old myth--'Learn, be proficient, and the world will reward you'--has holes in it."
"So"--I casually produce my real question--"who will survive the uncertainty with grace, and who...won't?"
He shrugs, decades of psychiatric practice in the gesture. "That's the mystery. Most of us know our blood type, but we don't know our stress tolerance--or our courage. One person will run into a burning building simply because someone's inside; others will say, 'Oh, it's too bad they didn't get out.'"
"But what makes the difference?" I press.
"Some of it's genetic, some is experience, some is what we've seen our parents or siblings do under stressful conditions. But I think the most important factor is how much stress--of whatever kind--an individual has encountered, and how people close to him have helped him deal with it. Or shielded him from it. Some of us fall down, cry, and wait for a kind soul to pick us up. Others fall, cry, and figure out how much we can do for ourselves.
"Right now, everyone is scared, but many are hopeful," he continues. "The real question is how long will hope last, how will it be kindled or extinguished, and what will happen when too many people lose too much hope. Then we will have not only a financial but an emotional depression, which in some will mean more suicides and the reverse, murders."
And I was worried about malls?
--Jeannette Cooperman, staff writer
