Rome: Italy's malaise: not so Dolce Vita.

• Author: Wike, Richard
• Position: KIOSQUE: Global highlights and local sidelights culled from the media - Brief article

Taken aback by critical depictions of their country's "collective funk," Italians are currently engaged in considerable hand-wringing over the condition of their national psyche. It started with a broadside from across the Atlantic by Ian Fisher in the New York Times on December 13, 2007. "Italy seems not to love itself," wrote Fisher. Analyzing the country's malaise, he detailed a litany of woes: an anemic economy, a low birth rate, corrupt politicians, mobsters.

Italy's malaise shows in public opinion polls. In spring 2007, the Pew Global Attitudes Project surveyed 47 countries, and on a variety of issues--life satisfaction, national conditions, immigration--Italians had a distinctively negative outlook.

Despite its reputation for la dolce vita, when it comes to rating their current lives and looking to the future, Italians are generally gloomier than their fellow Europeans as well as Americans and Canadians. When asked to place themselves on a "ladder of life," (where zero represents the worst possible life and ten the best possible life)...