The Satisfaction Quotient

Canadians live in a pretty decent country. Physically it is beautiful and much of it remains uninhabited and pristine, our economy is reasonably stable compared to the rest of the world and except for the odd gang shooting downtown or hockey riot in Vancouver, we’re a pretty safe and stable society.

We have national healthcare and while it is in trouble thanks to years of government dithering and stupidity, it does still provide some measure of health services to anyone who needs it and who is prepared to sit in the emergency room for a few hours waiting for their name to be called.

Canadians are, by and large, a fairly tolerant people although lately we’ve been getting a bit impatient with each other. I think a lot of it has to do with a rising level of frustration with politicians and government but I don’t believe that is the only cause. In fact, I don’t believe it is even the primary cause.

I believe that there is an inability to be satisfied that has gripped too many of us, especially on the left. I call it the Satisfaction Quotient.

Regardless of the issue, we seem less willing to be satisfied with the outcome even if the outcome was precisely what we hoped for and intended. We have created a sliding scale of objectives for every issue which means we can never resolve anything.

Consider the issue of smoking as an example.

It started as an issue of equal rights for non-smokers who had secondhand smoke thrust on them in the workplace and public facilities. It’s pretty difficult to argue with the fact that when the rights of one group start to intrude on the rights of another, some resolution needs to found and it was. Smoking was relegated to specially ventilated and isolated rooms in places like restaurants and airports and banned outright in the workplace.

No sooner had that resolution been put in place than the anti-smoking lobby that had originally applauded and supported these initiatives, changed the objective. They were no longer satisfied that an accommodation had been found that respected the rights of both smokers and no-smokers. Almost immediately the push began to close the specially ventilated smoking rooms and force all smokers to go outside. That too was successful but quickly became unsatisfactory. The objective changed again and it was no longer enough that smokers were outside, now they had to move 9 meters from the entrances to buildings, then out of patios at bars and finally out of parks and other outdoor facilities.

It is no longer presented as an issue of protecting the rights of non-smokers. It is now presented as a healthcare issue. It has gone from balancing the rights of different groups to one group doing everything it can to impose power and control over another by demonizing that group and what they are doing. The fact that it is a legal activity with a legal product has been lost entirely.

The same is happening with obesity. Where the issue was once about promoting healthier eating and exercise, the anti-obesity lobby is now starting to demonize those who are seriously overweight and advocating legislative interference in the lives of others they consider to be obese. 

The Satisfaction Quotient prevents us from ever achieving a satisfying resolution of any issue because quite simply, we are never satisfied.

Where once post-secondary tuition was the sole responsibility of the student, it is now heavily subsidized in Canada but that is no longer satisfactory. Now there are demands for free tuition as was seen in the violent and destructive student riots in Quebec this past spring. You can be sure that if those demands are met, the satisfaction quotient will be adjusted to include new entitlements like subsidized text books, living expenses and perhaps at some point, a moderate state-paid income for attending school.

Think it would never happen? Think again. Some student groups and members of the chattering intelligentsia have already put these items on the table.

Every major issue of our time has never been resolved because too many of us have never found any level of satisfaction with the outcome, even when it was the outcome that was wanted.

I’ve been around more than a few years and while we have some new issues with which to deal like climate change, the simple fact is that the same issues and entitlements are argued and debated today as were decades ago; abortion, euthanasia, education, healthcare, capital punishment, inter-provincial free trade, old age security, Quebec sovereignty, social assistance, bilingualism, employment insurance along with a host of others.

It is an ever-expanding list of never-resolved issues. It is not because there are no solutions but because once the solution is found and implemented, those who are never satisfied evolve the debate by redefining the objective.

It is unbelievable that we can be at the same time a reasonably intelligent people but unable or unwilling to resolve even the simplest of issues once and for all. We waste more time and money arguing the same issues over and over and over again than we actually spend on the entitlements and resolution that spring from the decisions we made.

This isn’t unique to Canada. I follow people from around the world on social media and I see the same tired debates and demands being made that I lived through 30 and 40 years ago. It’s like we are caught in a time warp, a kind of entitlement purgatory where ‘enough’ never arrives because it is constantly redefined.

I blame our political leadership for much of this, especially the leadership on the left who have embraced the concept of the nanny state as a means to pander to the worst of human nature for no other reason than to get elected. But we are also responsible. We allow politicians to buy us with our own money and we demand more when we see others getting more. We are like dogs with a bone that see another dog with a bigger bone. We’re no longer satisfied with the bone we have or even the fact that we have a bone; we want one at least as big as theirs or bigger.

It is not only a threat to our economic stability and prosperity, it has unleashed power struggles between different groups that in recent years have become increasingly intolerant and even violent. Where once we reasoned and debated, now we demonize and demand.

Margaret Thatcher said once, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” She was right but too many in our society still don’t get it. The money they so glibly demand from government is actually other people’s hard earned income. It didn’t fall out of the sky; it was reefed out of the pockets of hardworking Canadians. There are too many demanding more and more of it for their own special causes and issues, too many who will demand even more of it because no matter how much they receive, it will never be enough.

It has never occurred to them that when there is no more money and austerity rips through this self-imposed purgatory like the Angel of Death, it will be too late. Reality will sweep down on us like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and there won’t be much anyone can do about it. At that point, the Satisfaction Quotient will change again only then it won’t be a demand for more. It will be a demand to hold on to at least some of what we have and most of us will be satisfied to have a roof over our heads and food to eat. 

Greece has discovered that reality and their Satisfaction Quotient has dropped significantly. The left has often held Europe’s sustainable energy programs and entitlements up as an example they demanded Canada follow. Increasingly, it is becoming clear that the road many European nations took was the road to perdition, a road driven by an ever-changing and eventually unaffordable Satisfaction Quotient.

In a society where too many refuse to find satisfaction in what they already receive and in what they can earn and achieve for themselves, the Satisfaction Quotient could more accurately be called the Dissatisfaction Quotient.  By any name, however, it remains the cancer that undermines our prosperity, turns citizens against each other and that leads us down a crumbling road that eventually leads to Greece.

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