Boredom

George Will writes, in context of the U.S. presidential campaign for 2008 that's well underway:

Note: The article is about Hillary Clinton's campaign. She was supposed to be the obvious candidate. But a young upstart -- Barack Obama of Illinois -- has stolen her thunder. Will's point is that any time someone positions themselves as the "inevitable candidate," people tend to rebel. Will: "Memo to the Clinton campaign: Inevitability is boring."

Boredom, the sociologist Robert Nisbet wrote, is among the universal and insistent forces driving human behavior. Mankind's nervous system evolved during millions of dangerous years (saber-toothed tigers, etc.). Now, however, mankind has suddenly, in a few millennia, encountered the monotony of orderly life, which bothers human brains formed by and for hazardous circumstances.

Among the cures of boredom that Nisbet listed are war, murder, revolution, suicide, alcohol, narcotics and pornography.

I suspect there's tremendous truth in this, and not just with respect to U.S. politics. When a society's needs are met too easily, isn't boredom one of the things that eats away at it?

What's the saying ... "Idle hands are the devil's workshop?"