The problem with generalizations

“We live in a troubled time.”

“The world has never been more unstable”

“The U.S. economy is the strongest it’s been in years”

“Europe is facing an existential crisis”

Every day we are bombarded with generalizations, sweeping statements that suggest an all-encompassing reality. We make those generalizations, and we consume them. I do it. You do it. It’s almost impossible not to. And for the most part, that’s fine. What’s not so fine is that we tend to accept sweeping statements about what’s wrong in the world, but we immediately challenge generalizations that say something positive.

Take the four examples above. Which one stands out? The one about the economy. And yet, statistically, it is unequivocally true, and more based on facts than the other three statements. Unemployment hovers at 4%, which is better than most of the past 75 years, where between 1948 and 2024, the unemployment rate has averaged 5.6%. Inflation is once again back in the mid-2% range, which is where it was for most of the 2010s and lower than much of the 20^th century. No, prices haven’t gone back to their pre-inflation, pre-Covid levels. That isn’t the way inflation works. Returning to those prices would be deflation. Tamer inflation simply means that the rate of price increases has slowed.

For every major gauge, the picture is bright. Incomes have risen for the bottom two-quartiles at the fastest pace in decades; income for the top earners has risen even faster. Interest rates are coming down again, as are mortgage rates, making homes at least marginally more affordable. Stock markets are on a tear, with both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq up more than 25% year to date. And compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. economy is stellar. U.S. stocks now account for over 60% of the market capitalization of all companies globally, which directly benefits tens of millions of pensions and 401(K)s. Per capita income has been making steady gains, and GDP growth of 2.5% is better than the rest of the developed world.

These numbers more than conclusively demonstrate the truth of the statement, “The U.S. economy is the strongest it’s been in years.” And yet, most people blanch at the generalization.

True, some Trump voters will likely decide that indeed, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well now that Trump is about to be president, even though it was doing pretty well post-pandemic when Biden was president and pretty well pre-pandemic when Trump was. That is an eye of the beholder issue. Even so, very few people have accepted the positive generalization that the economy is doing well.

Yet many of us seem to have no objection to sweeping negative statements that are rooted more in perceptions and feelings than in facts. Europe may be described as being in an existential crisis, but there is no quantitative measure of existentialism, nor a clear way to define when it becomes a crisis. While there are undoubtedly troubled spots in the world, far more places remain free of conflict, crisis, or war. For instance, if there are 10-15% more violent conflicts globally today than there were twenty years ago, that can be used as a proof statement that security is getting worse. Yet, there are also fewer conflicts than there were a decade ago, when people in the United States and Europe at least perceived the world as more stable and safe. In the West, conflict in the Middle East creates more tremors and more perception of conflict than does conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America or much of Asia. Similarly, the flight of millions of Venezuelan refugees has triggered less angst than the exodus of millions of Syrian refugees, largely because most Venezuelans have not migrated to the United States or Europe.

The often-repeated line “we live in troubled times” also goes largely unchecked. It speaks to how so many of us feel, but it is fairly detached from any historical comparison other than to an imagined and fictitious past where we all felt part of a community, where kids had wholesome values-based upbringings and where we felt economically secure.

The problem is that positive generalizations trigger an immediate “yes, but…” response, while negative generalizations go unchallenged. What I just wrote is, of course, also a generalization about how most of us process positive versus negative generalizations. Still, it is clear that saying, “the economy is doing well” or “we live in a safe and stable time compared to the past” will lead a considerable number of us to object.

The problem is also that the nature of generalizations is to…generalize. A statistical map of the U.S. economy that is unequivocally positive is still just that—a statistical map. Statistics are stories we tell about numbers and data. They are numerical generalizations distilled from vast amounts of raw data. An average often blends highly disparate numbers into one single number, which can erase numerous individual realities. There is an old joke that when Bill Gates walks into a bar, everyone there becomes a millionaire per capita (and today depending on how many patrons, everyone there might become a billionaire per capita). Statistics aren’t meant to match every single lived experience. Generalizations aren’t meant to encompass each individual reality.

Generalizations are, however, vital. They help us to describe the world. But we need to remember that in a world of 8 billion people and nearly 200 countries, and within each country of states and cities, urban and rural, different education levels, family backgrounds, there will always be countless exceptions to any generalization. That doesn’t make the generalization wrong unless you have an expectation that a generalization describes everything and everyone accurately. Saying that life expectancy continues to rise is a legitimate statement even if a close friend dies of a heart attack in his fifties or your aunt succumbs to breast cancer at the age of 63.

What we also need is to allow for the validity of positive generalizations just as much as we allow for the negative. That is not the case in today’s culture, except perhaps for those who say, “The United States is the greatest country in the world.” We need to grace positive generalizations with the same legitimacy as negative ones, and we need to apply as much skepticism to negative generalizations as we do to positive ones. Absent that, we allow for lazy negative stories and hence listen more to the Cassandras than Cassandra herself was ever listened to. We also discount and dismiss positive stories and news more than we should.

And most of all, we need to remember that almost no sweeping statement is ever entirely true. These statements help make sense of a chaotic world, and we need that. But we also need to allow that multiple, even contradictory, generalizations can be true at the same time. For instance, there is more deadly conflict today, with drones and better weapons, and there is also more rule of law everywhere across the globe. More people are living longer, healthier lives, yet more people appear less content with their governments and societies. Social media showcases ample evidence of hate, pettiness, and rage—but it also offers more examples of joy, silliness, and wonder than any of us could have personally witnessed in earlier eras. Yin and yang, plus and minus, beauty and the beast. Embrace the duality; it’s all we’ve got. And that’s a generalization that should guide us.