Millions Of Britons Just As Screwed Up As The Rest Of Us

“A more overtly meritocratic society has encouraged people to be more ambitious for themselves, but also made them more vulnerable to failures — and more likely to blame themselves (rather than fate or the class system) if things go wrong. Some of the shock absorbers — from faith to family — that helped us cope in the past have atrophied.” So says a major new report showing that millions of Britons are “unhappy, lonely and unable to cope with profound changes in the workplace, relationships and family life.” So what? Who is able to cope with modern life? Certainly not Americans, and we don’t even have anything near the kind of social safety net that Britons rightly pride themselves on. Whatever happened to “mustn’t grumble” or “it might not happen”? Cheer the hell up, Brits, we’re all going down together.