Self-restraint in world of excess

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday March 12, 2011

Review by Ruth Wajnryb

WE HAVE MET THE ENEMYDaniel AkstScribe, 303pp, $32.95W e have a bottomless appetite for books that analyse who we are, how we live and where we're heading, such as Daniel Akst's We Have Met the Enemy: Self-control in an Age of Excess. Given the rapid rate of social change, perhaps such books are meant to provide anchors of sense and clarity, so that we might feel some agency in a universe where, if you're over 40, it feels as if you're tossing about on an ocean of chaos.If the title seems familiar, you're probably thinking of the slogan "We have met the enemy and he is us", the line that became the rallying call for a generation of conservationists, as early environmentalists were called. The allusion is apt - Akst (rather makes me think of angst) is on about the West's addiction to self-abuse through excess. Or how to save ourselves from what we want, which happens to be what is killing us.A slow path to suicide, Akst says, painting a picture with anecdotes and statistics - a message that might be more palatable if the author showed more humility. We find out early that he is slim and fit, with temperate appetites, suffering no excessive indulgences or addictions, living with his family in a bucolic corner of New York state - arguably "a good place to hide from temptation".Popular psychology follows a pretty straightforward formula. What's wrong? How did this come about? What can we do about it? Akst begins by exploring the conundrum of self-control, which apparently has worried people through recorded history. A quick dip into Homer will have us appreciate that the challenges of resisting temptation and exercising self-restraint go right to the heart of being human.The problem: we have too much and we want even more. We've forgotten the meaning of moderation: our "off" button doesn't work; nor does "full". Even knowing it's bad for us doesn't stop us. We keep on with it - all the lifestyle decisions that compromise our health and longevity.Of course, Akst's subjects are the overfed First World, not the squillions barely subsisting, whose existential plight defines First World over-indulgence as obscenity. This is not to say that the First World is homogenously affluent or indulgent - witness the pockets of horrendous poverty in the US; the stark contrast between white, coastal urban Australia and depressed, inland indigenous areas; even Japan has its homeless.And excess per se is not new. But what's happening epidemically in the West is a product of a unique constellation of factors - an explosion of opportunity at a time of reduced constraints. Opportunity has ridden into town on the twin wings of affluence and technology, bringing temptation up-close, personal and available. Simultaneously, traditional constraints (home, school, church, community, neighbourhood etc) that once kept behaviour in check and deterred excess have largely dissolved.Protracted adolescence has walled itself off from non-peer influences: technology and social networking provide the tools; the media provide the role models. Parents flounder at their impotence, distracting themselves by shopping, eating and so on. The embarrassment that once deterred condom-seekers from pharmacy counters is a quaint relic.The remedy? If you read the literature - so-called self-restraint studies - you'll see that holding back from an early age augurs a better life. Yet I'm left wondering why this information should have any more deterrent effect than "Smoking is harmful to your health".

© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald

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