As we’re coming close to the end of the year, the time will come when some people form New Year’s resolutions. As a sociological datapoint, such resolutions can be informative, especially when compared with common resolutions from earlier eras. Resolutions have changed over the last seven decades, perhaps not dramatically, but one does notice a shift in emphasis, with people from earlier eras being somewhat more concerned with religious, moral, and spiritual concerns and people from today’s era tending to focus more on self-actualization.
According the a Gallup Poll, the top ten New Year’s resolutions from 1947 are as follows:
Improve my disposition, be more understanding, control my temper
Improve my character, live a better life
Stop smoking, smoke less
Save more money
Stop drinking, drink less
Be more religious, go to church more often
Be more efficient, do a better job
Take better care of my health
Take greater part in home life
Lose (or gain) weight
The top ten resolution for today:
Lose weight
Get organized
Spend less, save more
Enjoy life to the fullest
Stay fit and healthy
Learn something exciting
Quit smoking
Help others fulfil their dreams
Fall in love
Spend more time with family
While both lists share resolutions in common (e.g., losing weight and quitting smoking), an adjustment in orientation is clearly evident concerning the question how one should seek a better life. It is almost as if the character of the nation has not so much changed as shifted. Human nature remains the same but it manifests itself in somewhat different ways. The resolutions of 1947 are of a sterner quality. They arise from a firmer, less mouldable, more tradition-based point of view. Even when the resolutions are almost identical, the wording is different. In 1947, the resolution to achieve greater physical well-being is phrased “take better care of my health,” whereas nearly seventy-five years later this resolution is rephrased as “stay fit and healthy.” This might suggest that people in the forties were not as healthy as they are today—that in 1947 they had to convince themselves to seek better health, whereas seventy-five years later they are so healthy that they need merely maintain what health they already have. But from such phrasings of resolutions, can we safely conclude that people are, on average, more healthy today than they were seventy-five years ago? I wouldn’t be so sure of that. While it’s true that people are living longer, that is more a consequence of improved medical technology than better overall health. And while it’s also true that people smoked a lot more in the forties than they do today, on the other side we must factor in the huge increases in obesity and diabetes that recent decades have witnessed, even among the young.
The real change, I suspect, has more to do with a decrease in self-awareness and greater alienation from the home truths central to the human condition. Folks seventy-five years ago were more inclined to see themselves as they really were and to be dissatisfied by what they saw. Hence the emphasis on improving character, whether that means controlling one’s temper, being more religious, or taking greater part in home life. Also note how in 1947 people believed that improving their character was the key to living “a better life.” You see little if anything of that among today’s resolutions. Instead, the emphasis is on improving one’s personal experience: “enjoy life to the fullest”; “learn something exciting”; “fall in love.” Even the resolution “to help others fulfill their dreams,” although obviously charitable and often considering beyond reproach, does seem to be more experience oriented—i.e., the focus is clearly on the experience of helping others have better experiences (i.e., achieve their dreams). Seventy-five years ago the emphasis would have been not on mentoring people so they can lead better lives for themselves and others. Seeking to help people achieve their dreams, although that may sound meritorious, is somewhat pretentious and self-gratifying. It is not clear we live in the kind of world where people achieve their dreams. Or, if that sounds too pessimistic, perhaps a better way to put it is that, to the extent that people can attain a sense of real self contentment, that can only be achieved by an improvement of character.
In sum, these resolutions suggest that over the last seventy-five years the nation has slid toward the moral decadence side of the spectrum. People have become less realistic, less tough-minded, less prone to blame themselves for their own short-comings while at the same time becoming more focused on having exciting experiences and improving their self-image.