I don't think the author has a point here. I think he's appealing to the fact that, on an emotional level, humans think they're entitled to always have their standards of living be equal or better to what they were before to make people think they live in uniquely hard times.
Looking to the world outside of the US might provide some badly-needed perspective as to why that is not true.
I think it is important to differentiate people's subjective feelings of being let down from there actually being a problem, or their lives being "nasty, brutish and short".
I don't think the author has a point here. I think he's appealing to the fact that, on an emotional level, humans think they're entitled to always have their standards of living be equal or better to what they were before to make people think they live in uniquely hard times.
Looking to the world outside of the US might provide some badly-needed perspective as to why that is not true.
I think it is important to differentiate people's subjective feelings of being let down from there actually being a problem, or their lives being "nasty, brutish and short".