Letter #258: Nutcase Nation

We'd Be OK if we Weren't Not OK

Sponge.

On my Friday podcast, I made some jokes centered on a study that showed large numbers of politically left-leaning people have poor mental health. This made me laugh because I’m cruel and heartless and generally indifferent to the suffering of others. Also it's true. Most studies show conservatives are more mentally healthy than left-wingers.

One left-wing explanation for this is that conservatives are cruel and heartless and generally indifferent to the suffering of others so they aren’t as troubled by the injustices of the world. Obviously absurd. Conservatives are deeply compassionate and would never make jokes about the epidemic of mental illness among leftists. A more plausible explanation is that conservatives are more often married, religious and patriotic, all of which are conducive to mental health.

In any case, these studies confirm my own experience. I have worked in a lot of businesses — publishing, Hollywood, the news media — where left wingers congregate, and have also participated in many right wing gatherings. I can say without a doubt that conservatives, generally speaking, are the happier and saner lot. Children and young adults who have been raised with conservative and religious values are noticeably jollier and better behaved. When I taught for a couple of weeks at Hillsdale, a conservative and religious school, I remember speaking with your mother on the phone. “What’s it like?” she asked from our home in Los Angeles. “It’s like sanity,” I said. The students, mostly home-schooled in youth, seemed well-adjusted, industrious and happy.

I think it’s safe to say that that does not describe the rioters who attacked law enforcement officers in L.A. last week and then staged nationwide demonstrations to demand there be “No Kings,” in America. I too feel there should be no kings here, also no dinosaurs and as few alchemists as reasonably possible. Nonetheless, I opted out of the demonstrations on the grounds we seem to be doing pretty well on all these scores.

In fact, if you take a straightforward look at the state of the union, we seem to be doing pretty well in a lot of ways. Inflation is cooling, the markets look strong, the border is closed, our military is not over-deployed, and while our government contains the usual feckless crew of nudnicks and do-nothings, it is not censoring dissent or charging political opponents with spurious crimes or forcing us to wear masks or inject chemicals into our bodies or stay at home while our grandmothers die alone — all of which it was doing just a few short months ago. So, like, yay.

Really, our most serious problem seems to be low mental health — manifested in rage, hysteria, and depression, not to mention widespread drug addiction, obesity and the failure to get married and have babies.

In short, there are always serious problems in the world, but relatively speaking, we’d be fine if we weren’t nuts. Do conservatives — does anyone — have some realistic, workable ideas on how we might become less insane?

Love, Dad