Clay Routledge is the Vice President of Research and Director of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute. He's the co-editor of Profectus, a magazine on human progress and flourishing.

Federal Newswire:

Why don't humans reach their full potential? Why don't we flourish more?

Clay Routledge:

Oh, wow. That's a big question. There's a lot of reasons. Some of them are things outside of our control. Some of them are the societies we live in. This is why at the Archbridge Institute we care so much about things like economic freedom and people having more opportunities.

There are a number of barriers within us too, our own fears and anxieties, our own laziness sometimes, our own lack of competence.

We don't live completely independently from social influence and from the culture and society we live in. There's a constant relationship between the world we live in and how that influences us, and how we see ourselves and our own capacity. We're very interested in both the broader external barriers, but also our own internal psychological ones.

Federal Newswire:

How did you become interested in free markets and limited government?

Clay Routledge:

I've always been interested in the psychology component. Going back to when I was an undergraduate, I was very interested in advanced human capabilities. We have these brains that use a lot of resources and energies, because we're thinkers, we're smart. 

In some ways, we're too smart for our own good. We can think about all sorts of things that terrify us and make us anxious. With great intelligence comes great anxiety, and I was really, really interested in that capacity. 

But also, I started to think about how we are social organisms too. We don't just sit around and come up with our own ideas. We often cooperate, compete. We're influenced by others, we influence others.

People in social psychology are very interested in that, of course. But one thing I thought was often missing was we tended, in our field at least, to stop there. Really, humans exist in a larger national and international context that implicates all sorts of other disciplines, like economics. 

So, I became really interested in how human psychology fits into this more complex web of societal functioning. 

What I noticed in academia, at least in American academia, is a lot of that was missing, especially the free market perspective. Because as a number of surveys have shown, academia leans very left. I know a lot of people want to think that that doesn't influence the decision-making that happens, but it does. If you don't have a balanced or more heterodox academy, you're often missing important perspectives. 

On the one hand, you have a lot of economists, especially outside of academia, that point out all the ways in which economic freedom has brought people out of poverty, has given people more opportunities around the world, and has really advanced human progress. 

While at the same time in academia, you have a lot of disciplines such as psychology, and neuroscience and related behavioral sciences, that are doing a lot to understand the intricacies of the human mind and the human brain, and all the great ways that make us creative, but they weren't connecting it to this other piece. I really became interested in bringing those two things together.

Federal Newswire:

Is the American dream now different from the tradition of striving to do better for ourselves?

Clay Routledge:

Yeah, it's great you brought up that example. If somebody goes to a therapist and says, "I feel hopeless. I feel like I don't have any control over my life outcomes," a goal of a good therapist is to teach you to feel like you do have agency, that you have autonomy, that you're able to change your life. You can change how you think about things, and that's the first step to positively changing your life. 

Now, scale that out to the societal level. What if you have a society that says, "Everything has to be top down. No, you don't get to decide. You're not responsible for yourselves." At the very micro level of clinical psychology, I think professionals understand the importance of freedom and autonomy. People need to feel like they're in control of their destinies and can pursue their dreams, such as the American dream. They have the ability to build a life that's meaningful, aspirational, and puts them in the captain's chair. 

But when that scales out at the sociological level, often that's lost. You start to see these ideas that are at that broad level we know are very harmful to economic growth, entrepreneurship, innovation and all these things. 

But again, we're not seeing this connection. In fact, unfortunately, we're teaching young people to be depressed. We're teaching them to be hopeless.

Federal Newswire:

Are we coddling adolescents in ways that delay them from reaching adulthood?

Clay Routledge:

I think there's definitely something to the coddling hypothesis. For instance, there is research from psychologists like Jean Twenge, who have shown what's called the slow-growth hypothesis. The fewer kids we have, the more wealth we have in society, ironically, the more we protect and coddle kids and we delay adolescence, through helicopter parenting, and types of micromanagement practices. 

Which on the one hand sounds like we're giving kids more opportunities, a longer time period to be kids to grow up, or whatever. But at the same time, we're also seeing skyrocketing rates of anxiety and depression among these younger groups, which suggests that what seems well-intentioned to protect children might actually be preventing them, or at least serving as a barrier to them becoming independent, autonomous, resilient young adults.

Federal Newswire:

Is it important to give kids agency and make sure they feel invested in themselves and the situations they are in?

Clay Routledge:

Absolutely…I remember when I was 13, I started a paper route and needed some money…I wanted to save for a car, so I could get my driver's license when I turned 16. We know from a lot of data that young people are less likely to have teenage jobs, they're less likely to get driver's licenses. 

There's a lot of evidence young people aren't taking the steps towards independence through work and driving, and other things that get them out on their own, able to make their own decisions and explore the world as in the past. 

Some people might say, "So what?" By other indicators we see they're really struggling as they're emerging into adulthood.

Federal Newswire:

Did the pandemic affect this?

Clay Routledge:

The growing rates of anxiety [or] lower rates of childhood independence were certainly happening pre-pandemic, but the pandemic really accelerated things because of school closures, for instance. 

I'm not a professor anymore, but I still talk to a lot of professors. All the professors I talk to say since trying to reopen the universities, it has been a real struggle. Students do not want to come back into the classroom. A lot of universities are caving to that and trying to make it so students can do more online. 

To be clear, I'm all for technological advancement. But I think something we're noticing is, in terms of education at least, the quality of interaction really goes down when these students aren't having in-person opportunities to listen, to talk, to engage their fellow students. They're not developing critical social skills for how to talk to people, for how to interact with professors. I think this is just contributing to the growing anxiety problem.

During the pandemic, I was teaching in the business school. We had online classes and sometimes students would log in from their bed, or the best one was somebody was actually going through the drive-through of a McDonald's or something. I guess credit to him for doing two things at once.

Federal Newswire:

Can the adage “if you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail” apply to teaching and raising children?

Clay Routledge:

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we're very focused on at the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute is this constant drumbeat of negative fear-provoking news. One of the things a good clinical psychologist will try to help a patient understand is, you can decide where you put your attention in life. You can focus on exaggerating the worst possible outcomes, or you can dedicate yourself to focusing on a more constructive and positive path. 

If we're taking relatively low probability risks and making everyone think they're happening all the time, then you're creating a recipe for anxious, depressed, and pessimistic people. You're also contributing to this growing victimhood mindset, that you're just going to be a victim your whole life as opposed to somebody who can really do great things.

Federal Newswire:

Can a depressed or paranoid population lead to greater government control?

Clay Routledge:

Yes. Think about anxiety from a kind of adaptive point of view, why humans or any organism would be anxious. Anxiety is your brain telling you, now's not the time to be super trusting, or now's not the time to go out there, take risks, interact with people. It's the time to lock down, to be defensive. 

In those situations, people will, often out of a desire for self-protection, easily turn over their freedom to authority. [They’ll] say, "Protect me. Make the world safer." 

That's understandable when there's a legitimate threat. If there was an alien invasion like in the movie Independence Day, then that might be the time to say, "Hey, now's not the best time for us to talk about these issues. Somebody has to take charge and tell us what to do, and we have to come together and defend ourselves.”

But the problem is, that's not happening. When you create that mentality that we're constantly under threat, you constantly should be afraid of your neighbors, afraid of everybody, that the world's going to end in 10 years because of climate change or whatever, then that creates panic, paranoia, and fear. 

That's really bad for freedom, and it's bad for everything we associate with freedom, economic growth, entrepreneurship, innovation. Things that really advance civilizational progress are going to be hard to do when people are anxious and depressed.

Federal Newswire:

What work does the Archbridge Institute do?

Clay Routledge:

[If we use] climate [change as an] example, some of us lean more towards free market solutions, innovation, and competition. Other people lean more towards regulatory solutions. But I think you can have a healthy debate in an environment in which [we agree that] "This is a challenge, but let's not panic." 

Because what happens when people panic is… they're going to insist on something very radical, which isn't going to be very economically viable or practical for most people. Then, other people are just going to not want to engage at all because they think, "Well, if you're going to be that radical and say the world's going to end in 10 years, then why should I bother caring about it all in the first place?" 

So, it's going to be hard to make progress in that environment. It's important that people are calm-headed and rational, and recognize that we can accept challenges and move forward with an optimistic spirit. Anxiety and fear are not going to be the best recipes for that.

At the Archbridge Institute, we're very, very focused on these issues. Not necessarily environmental policy or anything like that, but we're focused on the broader cultural conversations around human progress and flourishing. We see these narratives that we've been talking about–pessimistic, hopeless, dystopian narratives that everything's falling apart, that the environment's horrible, that racism's never been worse. 

Pick your issue, everything's apparently, according to some people, just getting worse. We're saying, "Well, that's completely in conflict with facts, for one.” By many indicators, lots of things are getting better. 

It's not to say we don't have problems or don't have challenges, or there aren't some issues that are getting worse. But on the whole, there are a lot of things to celebrate, especially in the Western world and in the United States. 

How do we build on that? How do we make it to where people have more opportunity, fewer barriers? But critically, how do we do this in a positive aspirational way that puts freedom and opportunity at the core?"

Federal Newswire:

Why does empowering people to act on their own behalf help produce better results?

Clay Routledge:

I think there's a number of reasons. One I've been thinking about a lot lately is how much of these debates revolve around the best way to do things. Take the student loan issue as one example. A lot of the focus you see that I think is well-intentioned is just focused on an outcome. 

People have this debt, we don't want them to have it, right? But by focusing on a particular outcome, that's a very static one-off idea. 

One thing I've seen, and there's been some recent research on this, is there are people who have student loans that weren't through the federal government, and so they weren't suspended. Then, there are people who have them suspended by the government. The people who had the suspended [loans] actually have taken on more debt.

That's a good example of, if you focus on an outcome it fails to capture the human element. We're not static, we're always in motion and there's always a tomorrow. 

In addition, there's the human condition and what we really want deep down. People want to feel meaningful. They want to feel like they're in charge of their own lives and that they actually matter in the world. That they're making contributions. 

I think one of the things that's often missed in our public policy discussions is most people don't want to be taken care of and feel like they're dependent on others. They want to feel like they're contributing in some way, and that's often neglected in these conversations. What does it mean to be a human organism on this planet? What gives us fulfillment, what gives us meaning?

Federal Newswire:

How do our instincts play into how we interact in general?

Clay Routledge:

I'm what's called an existential psychologist, so I'm very interested in what are the deep questions that humans uniquely ask? What uniquely drives us? 

It turns out humans all over the world, regardless of what type of culture they live in, what type of government they have, have a longing for autonomy. They want to feel self-determined. So, there's this great theory in psychology called self-determination theory.

What these researchers have documented is that it doesn't matter if you're in a collective society like East Asia or an individualistic society like in the United States, people want to feel like they're in charge of their lives, that they're self-determined. 

Now, in collectivist societies, that might manifest differently because they might have a higher value on cultural harmony. But even then…they don't want to be coerced into cultural harmony. They want to say, "I've decided that I share this value." That is one example of humans wanting to feel autonomous.

It starts from an early age, when kids start exploring the world. This goes back to why childhood independence is so important. People will say, "Humans are sheep or conformist," and there's a certain level of social comparison where that's true, but that's only part of the story. 

Yes, we look to others and we copy others and we're influenced by others. We also have a longing to explore, to expand the self, to learn new things, to grow, to develop our individual interests. I think that's an increasingly neglected, but a universal feature of the human experience.

Federal Newswire:

Is this the issue of natural rights, we’re born with them?

Clay Routledge:

Yeah, and one thing I think people misunderstand is when they hear that, they assume that somehow that's in conflict with our social nature, but it really isn't. 

Looking at self-determination theory, another thing that's universal is our desire for relatedness, to connect with others. These two things aren't in opposition. 

You can have a sense of, "I want to be an individual with individual rights and opportunities, while at the same time being part of a social fabric that gives my life purpose." Those things are not in conflict at all.

Federal Newswire:

Is this the point of humans having self-determination and rights that come into conflict with each other?

Clay Routledge:

Yes. I do a lot of research on what I refer to as existential agency, which is people's perception that they have the power within them to live meaningful lives. 

This work was very much influenced by Viktor Frankl's writing about his experience in a concentration camp. He made this point about psychological freedoms. No matter what conditions you live in, no one can control your thoughts. You can decide how to be, even in the worst circumstances. 

He gave examples of people giving away their last piece of bread, even though they were clearly dying. He was talking about the moral fabric of a human being is ultimately, at the end of the day, you still have some freedom, regardless of the circumstances you're in. 

One of the things that I've observed is when people understand their own agency they start to see, "Oh, other people have that too. If I can be responsible for myself, then other people can be responsible for themselves." 

I think it increases our capacity to respect human dignity when we feel that sense of autonomy and self-determination.

Federal Newswire:

Is it important for people to have examples in their lives around them of people who have made entrepreneurial choices?

Clay Routledge:

Yeah, I think that's one of the key features of these cultural worldviews, that they're highly negative and anxious. There's research, for instance, that the more anxious people feel, the less likely they are to engage in entrepreneurial activities. 

So where does anxiety come from? Well, it comes from what we just talked about, which is if people feel like the world's going to end or everything's horrible, that's not a culture in which you feel like it's a good idea to put yourself out there, take big financial risks and start a business, or engage in other types of entrepreneurial activities. 

It doesn't mean people don't. It just means it creates a climate that's hostile to entrepreneurship. 

A lot of times we think about economic and policy things that are hostile to entrepreneurship, which we focus on at Archbridge too, like occupational licensing. The government can certainly put up major barriers to people realizing their entrepreneurial ambitions.

There can be cultural, social and psychological barriers too. Even in a perfect economic and regulatory climate for entrepreneurship, people still need to feel inspired. They still need to feel driven to go out there and want to make a positive difference in their community, and to bring something to the market that they feel is important.

Federal Newswire:

How do people find out more about the Archbridge Institute?

Clay Routledge:

Just Google Archbridge Institute or the Human Flourishing Lab. On the Human Flourishing Lab website, we've got a nice little video series that introduces what we're doing and it's just a minute long for each video and some of the specific topics we're focused on. 

We also publish reports, and we do surveys on what Americans think about different things. There's a lot of good content on those. We're working to develop resources so people can find more positive, aspirational stories, and narratives to improve their lives and improve the world around them.