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Affluenza

I had heard of the book by London journalist Oliver James, Affluenza, for a little while now. I had seen this book in shop windows and advertised on websites such as Amazon.co.uk. The word is a mixture of the words “affluence” and “influenza” – denoting a desire for affluence that is both contagious and bad for ones health.

You can read more about this book on what appears to be the author’s official website here. You can read a product description, reviews and buy the book on Amazon here.

In researching the book, Oliver James spent nine months travelling the world in search of answers as to why people in developed countries tend to suffer from anxiety and depression more than previous generations. The author suspected that there was a connection between a growing dissatisfaction in people and the incessant need to keep up with ones peer group in relation to status, money and possessions. Some of the destinations that James travelled to include Sydney, Singapore, Moscow, Copenhagen, New York and Shanghai. Despite obvious cultural differences, James noticed that there were shocking similarities in the way that the people continually aspired for more of what they did not have. The more they aspired – the more adversely affected they were from a mental and emotional perspective.

This book seemed to get a mixed bag of reviews on the Amazon.co.uk website. Some complained that it was not well written, others argued that the observations were just that – observations – and they could hardly be substantiated. Whilst others praised the authors work as being true-to-life and an engaging read. I could not help but feel that most of the negative comments were made by people who were already stricken by the “virus” (as the author puts it) and that they certainly had something to defend.

Personally, I found the book a compelling “read”. I’ve intentionally used inverted commas with the word “read” here, as I downloaded the audio version of the book from iTunes.

I’m certain that I have mentioned in a previous blog that I amassed a rather large number of books in the past, in my pursuit of principles and formulas that I believed would change my life for the better – I did this in the form of numerous self-help and “charismatic” Christian books.

On a side-note, I regret not having spent more time and money buying and reading the latest thrillers, like a John Grisham or Tom Clancy novel - but never mind. I recently got rid of most of my books, particularly the self-help and Christians ones, by either selling them or giving them away to a charity shop. From now on, it’s audio books for me. I only downloaded the book today and I’m already halfway through! Another great thing about audio books, besides the time it takes to “read” them, is that they take up far less space than their predecessors.

I enjoyed listening to Oliver James’ accounts of the different people that he met around the world, the way some of them were coping and adapting to rapid changes in the economy and attitudes towards money, possessions and careers. I felt that the book made a good attempt to highlight the disturbing trends towards global commercialism. It is a call for balance and an eye-opener in relation to what is going on around us and the way that it is adversely affecting people. James also backs-up his finding with some rather alarming statistics.

I find that the subject of financial prosperity in relation to self-help and Christianity is a rather difficult one. There tends to be an orientation in people’s attitudes that veer to either one extreme or the other. Personally, I have striven to establish a rather balanced viewpoint which is situation more-or-less in the middle of these opposing camps. If you are a regular visitor to my blog, you may indeed be acquainted with some of my viewpoints on this subject – I will certainly continue to express my beliefs about prosperity in future blogposts.

I recommend Oliver James’ Affluenza to anyone who is feeling dissatisfied with the rat-race and is seeking answers in this area. I feel that James does a good job in summarising what has been going on for some time now; I feel that it goes a long way towards reflecting my own personal beliefs when it comes to the disputed subject of global capitalism and consumerism and its cost on our overall quality of life.

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