These kids don’t think their lives suck.

If you’re unfamiliar with the acronym, WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic. The term was coined as part of a psychology meta-study (a study of studies) that concluded that we in the West have a pretty different relationship with the world and with each other than pretty much every other society on the planet. Turns out we’re also a lot less religious than the rest of the world too. As a matter-of-fact, the more prosperous a nation is, and the less its citizens contend with “existential threats to their lives and their culture”, the less likely that population is to be religious. In other words, spiritual practices and religion are negatively correlated with a high standard of living (more on that term later too).

An atheist would say, “See?! It’s just the backward and ignorant nations of the world that are using religion as a ‘coping mechanism’ to deal with their crappy lives. If we’re free from fear, we don’t need religion!” The most interesting question to me though is, “Who is living the most authentic human experience?” Is everyone in the world meant to achieve this level of prosperity (with its attendant problems of materialism, waste, and ennui) or is the level of prosperity currently enjoyed by the Western world a temporary anomaly… a departure from the entire history of human civilisation, and a learned ignorance of the precariousness of humanity that can’t be sustained indefinitely? Isn’t fear, death, and uncertainty an inalienable part of the human experience and we in the West are just exceptionally sheltered from them?

The Covid pandemic provided to the West a glimmer of the sense of precariousness that the rest of the world lives hand-in-hand with… every… single… day. If the infant mortality rate in your country is 10% and your life expectancy is 55 years, you live pretty close to death. Many of your loved ones have died. And you’re keenly aware that every day might be your last. Here in the West we’re seeing a massive surge in mental illness, even though the current situation isn’t really all that bad (a disease with a < 0.5% fatality rate, massive government stimulus packages, impact to daily lives mitigated by the internet etc). And although life is hard in a place like Afghanistan, people adapt and adjust to the hardship through the resilience and optimism fostered through spirituality. I repeat: War-torn impoverished nations aren’t filled with people lamenting their lives and hand-wringing. They live with suffering by faith. Is it a coping mechanism? Does the answer matter?

But back to Covid — there are no guarantees that it won’t happen again, or that a worse global catastrophe won’t hit the globe. Two years ago, we would’ve dismissed the possibility of a pandemic in the West (my country, Canada, dismantled our pandemic early warning system because of this lack of foresight). Now at least we’re open to the possibility that a disease might alter life as we know it. What about war? Or an environmental disaster? Or a world-wide computer virus that collapses the internet? We’re actually not quite as safe and secure as we think. Maybe we do have something to learn from the developing world. Maybe we need a better “coping mechanism”.