NEW ISSUE: Living Dangerously

(Illustration: National Review)

"Compared with historical norms, Americans live much longer than they did in decades past," Charles Fain Lehman writes in the new cover story of NATIONAL REVIEW magazine. "The average child born in the year 1900 could expect to live to about age 47, according to CDC statistics. Nowadays that figure is 77."

Such a fact is an impressive testament to advances in medical sciences, disease prevention and treatment, and the amazingly wealthy country that we call home. But not everything is running smoothly: Americans' life spans are getting shorter.

"A child born in 2021 can expect, on average," Lehman writes, "to live to the age of 76.1. That's a decline of nearly a year from 2020, according to the CDC, and a nearly three-year decline from 2019. The last time life expectancy was this low was 1996."

Of course, the pandemic was part of this decline. But while the rest of the developed world largely recovered, as Covid receded in the rearview mirror, average life expectancy has continued to fall in the United States.

What's going on? Unfortunately, the answer lies in areas that are only tangential to national policy and have more to do with the way Americans are living their lives. Drug overdoses, traffic fatalities, obesity, and violence are the dark side of American exceptionalism. We, as a people, are indeed different from our developed-world cousins. We live dangerously, and on average, we are more accepting of risk.

Of course the upside of those risky behaviors gives us advantages: a greater degree of entrepreneurialism, battlefield brilliance, and a rough-and-tumble sports culture. But the cultural downsides should be grappled with if we are to mitigate them. Indeed, as Lehman writes, "Americans live fast and die young; there is not much that policy can do to change that."

Yet perhaps better policy design "can rein in the worst excesses of that tendency while still respecting Americans' freedoms."

You can read Lehman's cover story in the May 15, 2023, issue of NATIONAL REVIEW magazine. And, of course, there's much more:

Dan McLaughlin writes about life in the second tier of GOP candidates in "Don't Expect a Dark-Horse Republican Nominee."
In "Shooting Adam," Graham Hillard gives a Christian perspective on the massacre at Nashville's Covenant School.
Charlie Cooke, in "Ron DeSantis's Conservatism," analyzes the politics and ethics of the Florida governor's duel with the Walt Disney Company.
In "Israel at 75," Phil Klein reports from Tel Aviv on the momentous milestone for the Jewish State.
And in "Call the Plumbers," Ross Douthat reviews The Super Mario Bros. Movie, whose box-office success he chalks up to desperate parents happy to entertain their kids with the innocent shenanigans of Mario and Luigi.

You'll find all this — book and film reviews, gonzo satire, literary criticism, and the best political journalism in America — in each issue of NATIONAL REVIEW magazine. If you're already a subscriber, thank you. If you're still thinking about joining up, today you can get a print-magazine-only subscription for just $24. That's less than $1 per issue and 60 percent off the cover price.

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Very sincerely yours,

Mark Antonio Wright

Executive Editor