The quote in the title line comes from an article in the Sunday New York Times that attempts to answer the question of whether or not happiness is a contagious condition. This post will have nothing to do with the subject of that article but only with the quote, by a 75-year-old woman named Eileen, that rang true to me. That quote strikes me as particularly poignant and perhaps the cause of much of what is wrong with the world according to progressives from coast to coast. Eileen was referring to American obesity in this particular instance but this causal analysis could also be applied to global warming, excessive human waste, increased levels of violence, increasing passivity of civil society, and even such social phenomena as racism, classism, and sexism. Studies are increasingly coming out that show links between factors external to the self and bad habits/ negative traits that allow people to excuse their behavior as the result of their inferior childhoods, predisposed genetic traits, or even ignorance, etc.* This is happening as the internet simultaneously provides unprecedented opportunities to separate one's self from one's self (there's probably a psychological term that could communicate this idea more concisely... maybe something akin to "cognitive dissonance"). Less stringent religious practice is probably also a contributor to the state of affairs that Eileen describes (not that I think that this is at all a negative thing).
* Saying that people blame negative behavior on ignorance needs explanation. Information is more easy to come by than ever but it is this very availability that makes it easy to claim ignorance. People often do not want to contend with the intimidating wealth of knowledge (from competing sources) that make up our information sources.
Update: Upon re-reading I'm not sure if any of the above makes sense but I'm going to leave it because, why not? It felt profound at the time of writing...
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