One Vote for This Age of Anxiety

Margaret Mead
When critics wish to repudiate~ the world in which we live today, one of their familiar
ways of doing it is to castigate modern man because anxiety is his chief problem. This,
they say, in W.H. Auden's phrase, is the age of anxiety. This is what we have arrived at
with all our vaunted~ progress, our great technological advances, our great wealth --
everyone goes about with a burden of anxiety so enormous that, in the end, our
stomachs and our arteries~ and our skins express the tension under which we live. (1)
Americans who have lived in Europe come back to comment on our favorite farewell
which instead of the old goodbye (God be with you), is now "Take it easy," each
American admonishing the 0ther not to break down from the tension and strain of
modern life.
Whenever an age is characterized by a phrase, it is presumably in contrast to other
ages. If we are the age of anxiety, what were other ages? And here the critics do a very
amusing thing. First, they give us lists of the opposites of anxiety: security, trust, self-
confidence, self-direction. Then, without much further discussion, they let us assume
that other ages, other periods of history, were somehow the ages of trust or confident
direction.
The savage who, on his South Sea island, simply sat and let breadfruit fall into his lap,
the simple peasant, at one with the fields he ploughed and the beasts he tended, the
craftsman busy with his tools and lost in the fulfillment of the instinct of workmanship --
these are the counter-images conjured up by descriptions of the strain under which men
live today. But no one who lived in those days has returned to testify how paradisiacal
they really were.
Certainly if we observe and question the savages or simple peasants in the world today,
we find something quite different. The untouched savage in the middle of New Guinea
isn't anxious; he is seriously and continually frightened --of black magic~, of enemies
with spears who may kill him or his wives and children at any moment, while they stoop
to drink from a spring, or climb a palm tree for a coconut. He goes warily, day and night,
taut and fearful.
As for the peasant populations of a great part of the world, they aren't so much au
anxious as hungry. They aren't anxious about whether they will get a salary raise, or
which of the three colleges of their choice they will be admitted to, or whether to buy a
Ford or Cadillac, or whether the kind of TV set they want is too expensive. They are
hungry, cold and, in many parts of the world, they dread that local warfare, bandits,
political coups may endanger their homes, their meager livelihoods, and their lives. But
surely they are not anxious.
For anxiety, as we have come to use it to describe our characteristic state of mind, can
boo contrasted with the active fear of hunger, loss, violence, and death. Anxiety is the
appropriate emotion when the immediate personal terror --of a volcano, an arrow, the
sorcerer's~ spell, a stab in the back and other calamities, all directed against one's self--
disappears.
This is not to say that there isn't plenty to worry about in our world of today. (2) The
explosion of a bomb in the streets of a city whose name no one had ever heard before
may set in motion forces which end up by ruining one's carefully planned education in
law school, half a world away. But there is still not the personal, immediate, active sense
of impending~ disaster that the savage knows. There is rather the vague anxiety, the
sense that the future is unmanageable.
The kind of world that produces anxiety is actually a world of relative safety, a world in
which no one feels that he himself is facing sudden death. Possibly sudden death may
strike a certain number of unidentified other people -- but not him. The anxiety exists as
an uneasy state of mind, in which one has a feeling that something unspecified and
undeterminable may go wrong. If the world seems to be going well, this produces
anxiety -- for good times may end. If the world is going badly -- it may get worse. Anxiety
tends to be without focus; the anxious person doesn't know whether to blame himself or
other people. (3) He isn't sure whether it is the current year or the Administration or a
change in climate or the atom bomb that is to blame for this undefined sense of unease.
It is clear that we have developed a society which depends on having the
right amount of anxiety to make it work. Psychiatrists have been heard to say,
"He didn't have enough anxiety to get well," indicating that, while we agree
that too much anxiety is inimical to mental health, we have come to rely on
anxiety to push and prod us into seeing a doctor about a symptom which may
indicate cancer, into checking up on that old life-insurance policy which may
have out-of-date clauses in it, into having a conference with Billy's teacher
even though his report card looks all right.
(4) People who are anxious enough keel their car insurance up. have the
brakes checked I don't take a second drink when they have to drive, are
careful where they go and with whom they drive on holidays. People who are
too anxious either refuse to go into cars at all -- and so complicate the
ordinary course of life -- or drive so tensely and overcautiously that they help
cause accidents. People who aren't anxious enough take chance after chance,
which increases the terrible death toll of the roads.
On balance, our age of anxiety represents a large advance over savage and
peasant cultures. Out of a productive system of technology drawing upon
enormous resources, we have created a nation in which anxiety has replaced
terror and despair, for all except the severely disturbed. The specter of hunger
means something only to those Americans who can identify themselves with
the millions of hungry people on other continents. The specter of terror may
still be roused in some by a knock at the door in a few parts of the South. or in
those who have just escaped from a totalitarian regime.
But in this twilight~ world which is neither at peace nor at war, and where
there is insurance against certain immediate, downright, personal disasters,
for most Americans there remains only anxiety over what may happen, might
happen. could happen. (5) This is the world out of which grows the hope, for
the first time in his story, of a society where there will be freedom from want
and freedom from fear. Our very anxiety is born of our knowledge of what is
now possible for each and for all. The number of people who consult
psychiatrists today is not. as is sometimes felt, a symptom of increasing
mental iii health, but rather the precut sot of a world in which the hope of
genuine mental health will be open to everyone, a world in which no individual
feels that be need be hopelessly broken hearted, a failure, a menace to others
or a traitor to himself.
But if, then, our anxieties are actually signs of hope, why is there such a voice
of discontent abroad in the land? I think this comes perhaps because our
anxiety exists without an accompanying recognition Of the tragedy which will
always be inherent in human life. however well we build our world. We may
banish hunger, and fear of sorcery, violence, or secret police; we may bring up
children who have learned to trust life and who have the spontaneity and
curiosity necessary to devise ways of making trips to the moon; we cannot as
we have tried to do -- banish death itself.
Americans who stem from generations which left their old people behind and
never closed their parents' eyelids in death, and who have experienced the
additional distance from death provided by two world wars fought far from our
shores are today pushing away from them both a recognition of death and a
recognition of the tremendous significance -- for the future -- of the way we
live our lives. Acceptance of the inevitability of death, which, when faced, can
give dignity to life. and acceptance of our inescapable role in the modern
world, might transmute~ our anxiety about making the right choices, taking
the right precautions, and the right risks into the sterner stuff of
responsibility, which ennobles the whole face rather than furrowing~ the
forehead With the little anxious wrinkles of worry.
Worry in an empty context means that men die daily little deaths. But good
anxiety -- not about the things that were left undone long ago, but which
return to haunt and hardy men's minds, but active, vivid anxiety about what
must be done and that quickly binds men to life with an intense concern.
This is still a world in which too many of the wrong things happen somewhere.
But this is a world in which we now have the means to make a great many
more of the right things happen everywhere. For Americans, the
generalization which a Swedish social scientist made about our attitudes on
race relations is true in many other fields: anticipated change which we feel is
right and necessary but difficult makes us unduly anxious and apprehensive,
but such change, once consummated, brings a glow of relief. We are still a
people who -- in the literal sense -- believe in making good.

Exercise A
Choose the best answer for each of the following;
1. The author of the essay seems to believe that __
a. the chief problem of modern man is anxiety
b. Americans are now weighed down by the tension and strain of modern life
c. the present age is one of relative safety and security
d. it is only appropriate that people now say "Take it easy" instead of "Goodbye" on
parting

2. In the first paragraph, the author gives __

a. her own views on modern life
b. views of the opposition she is going to counter
c. a definition of anxiety
d. a description of modern life

3. The best word to describe the state of mind of the primitives is

a. anxiety
b. worry
c. fear
d. tension

4. According to the author, anxiety is the emotion when

a. one is confronted with immediate danger
b. one sees no immediate danger
c. one has a vague sense that he has no control over the future
d. both b and c

5. According to the author, anxious people

a. know the cause of their worries
b. know that they themselves are to blame
c. always blame other people for their uneasiness
d. have a feeling that something unspecified and undeterminable may happen

6. The author holds that

a. the right amount of anxiety is a good thing
b. our society is built on anxiety
c. anxiety is a symptom of mental illness
d. the more anxious one is the healthier he will be

7. The author holds that anxiety is a sign of __

a. discontent
b. despair
c. tragedy
d. hope

8. By writing this essay, the author tries to convince her readers that __
a. anxiety can give dignity to life
b. all anxious people should see a psychiatrist
c. some anxiety can be good and lead to changes for the better
d. the good old days are gone forever

The Origin of the Text

The essay, written by Margaret Mead, is adapted from Judith Nadell and John Langan's
book: The Macmillan Reader (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987).

Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

Trained as an anthropologist at Barnard College and Columbia University, Margaret Mead

wrote extensively about tribal peoples and American customs. She was born in
Philadelphia in 1901, and began her anthropological work in the 1920s. Her seminal
studies, "Coming of Age in Samoa" and "Growing Up in New Guinea," made her one of
the most well-known scholars in her field. In later years, Mead wrote extensively for
popular magazines and analyzed Western culture with the same intensity she had
devoted to Pacific tribes people. She wrote and worked in her office in the American
Museum of Natural History in New York right up until her death in 1978. This essay first
appeared in The New York Times.

Wystan Hugh Auden（1907-1973）

Auden was born on 21 February 1907, in York. At first interested in science, he soon
turned to poetry. In 1925 he entered Christ Church College, University of Oxford, where
he became the centre of a group of literary intellectuals that included Stephen Spender,
Christopher Isherwood, C. Day Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. After graduation he was
schoolmaster in Scotland and England for five years.

In London, in the early 1930s, Auden belonged to a circle of promising young poets who
were strongly leftist. His book Poems, which helped to establish his reputation, focused
on the breakdown of English capitalist society but also showed a deep concern with
psychological problems. He subsequently wrote three verse plays with Isherwood: The
Dog Beneath the Skin, The Ascent of F-6, and On the Frontier. In 1937 he drove an
ambulance for the Loyalists in the Spanish civil war. In the same year he was awarded
the King's Gold Medal for Poetry, a major honour. Trips to Iceland and China—the first
with MacNeice, the second with Isherwood—resulted in two jointly written books, Letter
from Iceland, and Journey to a War.

In 1939 Auden moved to the US, where he became a citizen and was active as a poet,
reviewer, lecturer and editor. His Double Man and For the Times Being reflect an
increasing concern with religion. The Age of Anxiety, a "baroque eclogue" that takes
place in a New York City bar, won him the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and provided an
apt and convenient name for his era. His numerous other works include Collected Poetry,
the Shield of Achilles, Collected Longer Poems, and several opera librettos written with
the American Chester Kallman. From 1956 to 1961 he was professor of poetry at Oxford,
and in 1972 he returned to Christ Church as a writer in residence. He died on September
28, 1973, in Vienna.

As a poet, Auden bore some resemblance to T.S. Eliot. Like him, he had a cool, ironic wit,
yet was deeply religious. He was concerned to a greater degree than Eliot, however, with
social problems. Possessed of probing psychological insight, Auden also had a supremely
lyric gift.

New Guinea

New Guinea island, about 342,000 sq mi (885,780 sq km), lies in SW Pacific, north of
Australia. It is the world's second largest island after Greenland. Politically it is divided
into two sections: the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya in the west and the independent
country of Papua New Guinea in the east. The island is about 1,500 mi (2,410 km) long
and 400 mi (640 km) wide at the center.

Largely tropical, New Guinea has vast mountain ranges such as the Owen Stanley and
the Bismarck Mounts; Jaya Peak (16,503 ft/5,030 m) in Irian Jaya is the highest point. The
lower courses of the large rivers (the Fly, Sepik, Mamberamo, and Purari) are generally
swampy, with a few grassy plains. The inhabitants are Melanesians, Negritos, Papuans,
and Malay Indonesians. The fauna consists largely of marsupials and monotremes, with
venomous snakes among the reptiles. The island is known for its many unique species of
butterflies and birds of paradise. There are mangrove and sandalwood forests. Near
Tembagapura are the world's largest copper mines. In addition to copper, gold, silver,
and manganese are mined and oil is extracted.

New Guinea was sighted by the Portuguese explorer Antonio d'Abreu in 1511 and was
named for its resemblance to the Guinea coast of W Africa. During the next two
centuries, the island was visited by Europeans from many nations. In 1828 the Dutch
formally annexed the western half of the island, and in 1885 the British proclaimed a
protectorate over the southeastern coast and the adjacent islands under the name of
British New Guinea; in the same year, the Germans took possession of the northeast.
Australia obtained control of British New Guinea in 1905 and renamed it the Territory of
Papua.

During World War I, Australian forces occupied the German-controlled region in the
northeast, which was mandated to Australia by the League of Nations in 1920. Renamed
the Territory of New Guinea, this area became a UN trust territory under Australian
control after World War II. The island was the scene of bitter fighting between Japanese
and Allied forces. In 1949 the territories of Papua and New Guinea were merged
administratively, and in 1973 they were united into a self-governing country. Full
independence was gained in 1975. Netherlands New Guinea was transferred to
Indonesian administration in 1963 and became a province in 1969, but there has been
ongoing resistance to Indonesian rule by many Papuans. Indonesian legislation in 2001,
however, granted Irian Jaya limited local autonomy.

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company (FMC) entered the business world on June 16, 1903, when Henry
Ford and 11 business associates signed the company's articles of incorporation. With
$28,000 in cash, the pioneering industrialists gave birth to what was to become one of
the world's largest corporations. Few companies are as closely identified with the history
and development of industry and society throughout the 20th century as Ford Motor
Company.

As with most great enterprises, Ford Motor Company's beginnings were modest. The
company had anxious moments in its infancy. The earliest record of a shipment is July
20, 1903, approximately one month after incorporation, to a Detroit physician.

Perhaps Ford Motor Company's single greatest contribution to automotive manufacturing

was the moving assembly line. First implemented at the Highland Park plant (in
Michigan, US) in 1913, the new technique allowed individual workers to stay in one place
and perform the same task repeatedly on multiple vehicles that passed by them. The
line proved tremendously efficient, helping company far surpass the production levels of
their competitors and making the vehicles more affordable.

Henry Ford insisted that the company's future lay in the production of affordable cars for
a mass market. Beginning in 1903, the company began using the first 19 letters of the
alphabet to name new cars. In 1908, the Model T was born. 19 years and 15 million
Model T's later, Ford Motor Company was a giant industrial complex that spanned the
globe. In 1925, Ford Motor Company acquired the Lincoln Motor Company, thus
branching out into luxury cars, and in the 1930's, the Mercury division was created to
establish a division centered on mid-priced cars. Ford Motor Company was growing. In
the 50's came the Thunderbird and the chance to own a part of Ford Motor Company.
The company went public and, on Feb. 24, 1956, had about 350,000 new stockholders.
Henry Ford II's keen perception of political and economic trends in the 50's led to the
global expansion of FMC in the 60's, and the establishment of Ford of Europe in 1967, 20
years ahead of the European Economic Community's arrival. The company established
its North American Automotive operation in 1971, consolidating US, Canadian, and
Mexican operations more than two decades ahead of the North American Free Trade
Agreement.

Ford Motor Company started the last century with a single man envisioning products that
would meet the needs of people in a world on the verge of high-gear industrialization.
Today, Ford Motor Company is a family of automotive brands consisting of Ford, Lincoln,
Mercury, Mazda, Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin, and Volvo. The company is beginning
its second century of existence with a worldwide organization that retains and expands
Henry Ford's heritage by developing products that serve the varying and ever-changing
needs of people in the global community.

GMC

General Motors Corp. (GM), the world's largest vehicle manufacturer, employs 340,000
people globally in its core automotive business and subsidiaries. Founded in 1908, GM
has been the global automotive sales leader since 1931. GM today has manufacturing
operations in 32 countries and its vehicles are sold in more than 190 countries. In 2002,
GM sold more than 8.6 million cars and trucks, nearly 15 percent of the global vehicle
market. GM's global headquarters is at the GM Renaissance Center in Detroit.

The GM Group of global partners includes Fiat Auto Spa of Italy, Fuji Heavy Industries
Ltd., Isuzu Motors Ltd. and Suzuki Motor Corp. of Japan, which are involved in various
product, powertrain and purchasing collaborations. In addition, GM is the largest
shareholder in GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Co. of South Korea. GM also has
technology collaborations with BMW AG of Germany and Toyota Motor Corp. of Japan,
and vehicle manufacturing ventures with several automakers around the world, including
Toyota, Suzuki, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. of China, AVTOVAZ of Russia and
Renault SA of France.

GM's automotive brands are Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden, HUMMER,
Oldsmobile, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Vauxhall. In some countries, the GM Group
distribution network also markets vehicles manufactured by GM Daewoo, Isuzu, Subaru
and Suzuki.

GM parts and accessories are sold under the GM, GM Goodwrench and ACDelco brands
through GM Service and Parts Operations. GM vehicle engines and transmissions are
marketed through GM Powertrain.

GM operates one of the world's leading financial services companies, GMAC Financial
Services, which offers automotive and commercial financing along with an array of
mortgage and insurance products. GM's OnStar is the industry leader in vehicle safety,
security and information services. GM's other major businesses are Hughes Electronics
Corp. (GMH), which provides digital television entertainment and satellite-based
services, and GM Electro-Motive Division, which manufactures diesel-electric locomotives
and commercial diesel engines.

In 2002, GM set industry sales records in the United States, its largest market, for total
trucks and sport utility vehicles. GM became the first manufacturer to sell more than 2.7
million trucks in a calendar year and the first to sell more than 1.2 million SUVs. GM also
increased its market share in the North America, Asia Pacific and Latin
America/Africa/Mid-East regions.

The ideas may help you in your tasks.

What is the author's attitude toward critics of the modern world?
The author points out that savages were seriously and continually frightened.
The author stresses that terror and fears have been replaced by good anxiety.
The author thinks this is a world out of which grows hopes.
The critics of the modern world say our age is one of anxiety. Do you agree?
Agree. With the increasing tension of competition, people bear more pressures and
have more worries.
Disagree. Modern people are anxious for good.
What does the author think about the anxiety?
Anxiety is an appropriate emotion.
Certain amount of anxiety is a positive force in order to make the world develop.
Anxiety may force people to be more responsible and do more right things.
The author says, "...we now have the means to make a great many more of the right
things happen everywhere." Do you agree with the saying?
Agree. The anxiety can bring a glow of change for better; we are the people who
believe in making good.
Disagree. It's also true that we have the means to make many of the wrong things.

What is the thesis of the essay?

1. Advantages of anxiety over the terrors of primitive peoples. Benefits in anxiety for
individuals. Benefits in anxiety for the society.
2. How do the critics of the modern world illustrate that ours is an age of anxiety?
They quote W. H. Auden's words. They use the changed greetings as an example. They
list out a group of favorable words for their argument.
3. What does Mead mean by "good anxiety"?
The author regards good anxiety as a positive factor for getting the right things done.
Mead draws a connection between accepting death and becoming more responsible.
4. According to Mead, there are three kinds of people in the world. What is the purpose
of her division?
Those who are anxious enough. Those who are too anxious. Those who are not anxious.
5. Locate several places where the author acknowledges other points of view in order to
refute them. How effective is this tactic in developing her argument?
The pressure the modern people bear in their lives. The leisure life the savages
and simple peasants enjoyed. Calamities and disasters existing nowadays.

Text Analysis

As the title of the essay indicates, the passage mainly presents the author’s attitude
toward the modern world in which we are living. In order to argue for her ideas and
against others’, the author organizes her writing quite precisely and logically.

The passage can be divided into 5 parts.

The first part of the passage, consisting of the first 2 paragraphs, introduces a somewhat
popular belief that our society is an anxious one.
· Anxiety is the chief problem of modern man;
· W. H. Auden’s phrase: “the age of anxiety”;
· Other ages were the ages of trust or confident direction.

The second part includes the following 3 paragraphs (Para. 3, 4 and 5), in which the
author analyzes with specific examples the living conditions the critics favored and
argues that the savage and peasants in other ages were not anxious but frightened,
hungry and full of dread.
· Savage on South Sea island;
· Savage in the middle of New Guinea;
· Peasants in most part of the world.

The third part, the next 3 paragraphs (Para. 6, 7 and 8), tells what our anxiety really is:
Although we still have many things to worry about, anxiety is a kind of emotion.
· The appropriate emotion;
· Vague characteristics;
· Uneasy state of mind.

The fourth part, consisting of paragraphs 9~13, discusses the benefits or necessity of
the anxiety.
· Right amount of anxiety makes the society work;
· Advantages of anxiety over terror and despair;
· Born of knowledge...;
· Active and vivid anxiety binds men to life.

The last paragraph can be regarded as an independent part, which shows the author’s
views about the modern world and asks people to believe that our age is hopeful.

Key Points
1 chief: leading, most important; first in position
He is the chief executive official of that company.
The chief criminals shall be punished without fail.
Chiefly: above all, mainly but not exclusively
The peasants usually tended livestock, chiefly cattle and pigs.
2 go about: move from place to place; set to work at; make a habit of doing
something
It seems that he always goes about with his girl friend.
How can we go about the job in a right way?
The boy goes about telling lies.
3 in the end: finally, at last
We tried hard to win the debate, in the end we lost it.
4 comment (on/upon): (v.) give opinions; make remarks; (n.) opinion given
briefly in speech or writing about an event, or criticism of something
Mrs. Smith is a carper; she likes to comment on whatever she knows.
He argues that the social problems are typically a comment on some unresolved
issues in the society.
5 farewell: leaving-taking; departure
a farewell speech, a farewell kiss
6 break down: fail in (esp. mental) health; destroy; collapse
His health broke down.
Let's go down into his basement and break down the door!
7 be characterized by: mark in a special way; give character to
This election campaign has been characterized by violence.
The camel is characterized by the ability to go for a long period without water.
8 presumably: as may reasonably be presumed
Presumably, tomorrow will be a fine day.
Presumably the bad news from the stock market upset him.
9 contrast: (v.) compare so that differences are made clear; show a difference
when compared; (n.) the act of contrasting; difference which is clearly seen when
unlike things are put together
His actions contrast sharply with his promises.
The writer contrasts good with evil.
There can be no differentiation without contrast.
His public statements have always been in marked contrast to those of his son.
10 assume: take as true before there is proof
He's not such a fool as you assumed him to be.
They assumed that the Iraq War would not end quickly.
11 somehow: for some reason; in some way
Somehow I don't believe the days the primitive lived in were really paradisiacal.
We shall get to the destination before dark somehow.
12 simple: innocent, straight-forward; plain, not much decorated
His mother is a woman of simple goodness.
He lives a very simple life for a man who has become incredibly rich.
Simply: only; merely; in a simple manner; absolutely
When applying for a visa extension, state simply and clearly the reasons why you
need an extension.
The anxiety is usually explained simply as an uneasy state of mind.
13 conjure up: cause to appear in the mind
The author conjured up the image of a hardworking and resourceful peasant.
The very sight of the hill conjures up memories of my childhood.
14 meager: insufficient; scanty; poor
There was a meager attendance at the council meeting yesterday.
Their food supply is meager.
15 set in motion: set going or working
The authority is determined to set the inquiry in motion as soon as possible.
The director is quite good at setting in motion the working enthusiasm of his staffs.
The success of the "city beautiful" movement depends on whether the governors can
set in motion the enthusiasm of its citizens.
16 end up: reach a specified state, action, or place eventually
Those who start with the aim of doing harm to others will only end up by ruining
themselves.
If you go on doing that kind of thing you'll end up in prison sooner or later.
How does the story end up?
17 impend: be imminent; be about to come or happen
I awoke with a feeling of impending disaster.
People in the town are well prepared for the impending floods.
Her retirement is impending.
18 toll: payment required for the use of a road, bridge, harbor, etc.; (fig)
something paid, lost or suffered
My telephone toll last month reached $300.
The war took a heavy toll on the nation's manhood.
19 twilight: faint half-light before sunrise or after sunset; a state of being vague,
mysterious and strange
He likes to go for a walk in the twilight.
Someone believes that we are living in a twilight world which is neither at peace nor
at war.
20 bind (to): restrain; put in bonds; tie or fasten tightly
Commerce binds the two countries to each other.
The police bound the criminal to the seat with rope lest he should escape.
21 in the/a literal sense: in most basic sense; interpreting (statement, etc.)
literally
In many cases, the people there are fighting, in a literal sense, for their homes.
I hear nothing in the literal sense of the word.