March 02, 2008
Sadness may be good philosophy -- and better for you
From The Washington Post:
If only we'd listened to John Locke. In his Second Treatise of Government, he declared that human beings were entitled only to "life, liberty and" -- get ready -- "estate." As in property. Leave it to Mr. Jefferson of Virginia to change that last item in the trinity to "pursuit of happiness." What he neglected to tell us was that, 230 years later, we would still be pursuing it.
Make even a passing scan of today's bestseller lists, and you'll find a veritable happiness racket: titles urging us to start "Living Well" and "Become a Better You" and master "The Secret" and (my personal favorite) be "Happy for No Reason." Between all the Tony Robbinses and Rick Warrens and Deepak Chopras of the world, happiness is perhaps our last growth industry, and it even has a volunteer sales force. "Smile!" a stranger recently exhorted me on the street. "It can't be that bad." To which my only response was: "How do you know?"
Maybe it's all paying off, though. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, nearly 85 percent of us believe ourselves to be happy or very happy. All power, then, to Eric G. Wilson for writing a book with the refreshing title Against Happiness. Wilson, an English professor at Wake Forest University, is seriously bummed by the cultural landscape. "Everywhere I see advertisements offering even more happiness, happiness on land or by sea, in a car or under the stars. . . . It seems truly, perhaps more than ever before, an age of almost perfect contentment, a brave new world of persistent good fortune, joy without trouble, felicity with no penalty." This "overemphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness," he writes, produces only blandness, conformity, "a dystopia of flaccid grins" fueled by Lexapro and Paxil.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 10:38 AM | Permalink
Comments
"I see nothing here to distinguish melancholics from Martha Stewart."
Brilliant review.
Posted by: Dale | Mar 2, 2008 11:51:42 AM
Is this an antidote to the previous post?
Someone might tell Mahadevanji to cheer the heck down.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 4:23:26 PM
"Everywhere I see advertisements offering even more happiness, happiness on land or by sea, in a car or under the stars. . . . It seems truly, perhaps more than ever before, an age of almost perfect contentment, a brave new world of persistent good fortune, joy without trouble, felicity with no penalty." Eric Wilson
Yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before: The pharmaceutical industry is turning us into blissed-out zombies. But have the folks behind this argument ever met the zombies in question? In my experience, people on antidepressants don't walk around in a cloud of Disney birds; they have simply hoisted themselves from a prone to a sitting position. And they are wise enough to know that no drug could possibly "eradicate depression forever." It's hard-wired into life, largely by virtue of death's inevitability. : Louis Bayard
The truth probably is somewhere in between. Whatever the cultural forces at work, pursuit of happiness is nothing new. When Life, Liberty and Estate don't pass the muster, organized religion is at our service promising happiness, if not exactly "here and now" then "beyond and hereafter" for sure.
An interesting issue to consider is modern medicine's propensity for constantly redefining healthy normals. Take cholesterol levels, symptoms associated with aging, ideal body weights, caloric intakes etc. - the benchmarks are being drastically redefined, dictated by a "one size fits all" philosophy. The new criteria therefore make more and more of us clinically "sick or at risk" according to popular culture and the latest medical wisdom. That in itself is enough to make a large number of people "unhappy" with the state of their lives.
As a middle aged person, I have met many people (some much younger than I am) who truly need medications for their mental conditions to remain functional. I also have several friends my own age and older who gulp down pills for their weight, depression, menopausal symptoms and cholesterol which I find wholly unnecessary in many cases and somewhat excessive in others. And there is no doubt that some doctors, including psychiatrists, are pill pushers and cheerleaders for the pharmaceutical companies.
The fact that big pharma now plays a major role in combating sadness is a good thing for the most part. If they are in the business of alleviating physical pain, why not that of the mind? But just as there is a certain amount of hucksterism and fear mongering associated with cholesterol numbers and statin drugs, I don't doubt for a moment that there is some profit motive associated with defining "down" depression.
For another point of view of Wilson's book, see Sharon Begley's article in Newsweek.
Posted by: Ruchira | Mar 2, 2008 4:49:32 PM
I'm seeing some subtle distinctions to be made here. From the Begley review:
"They [Scots] like being dour, and didn't appreciate being told [by an American] they should be happier."
Might this be about behaviour rather than inner feelings? Scots presumably like to act dour, it's how they express themselves, and acting cheerful in the American manner would be quite uncomfortable for them, and they would be, privately, annoyed and thus less happy.
That single sentence aside, clearly everyone ultimately wants... something. Didn't that something used to be called "happiness"?
Posted by: Sagredo | Mar 2, 2008 7:18:00 PM
I enjoyed the 60 Minutes piece a few weeks ago about Denmark and how comfortable it is to live there without the overdose of happiness-hype and be-the-best nagging. A modicum of depression seems to go a long way.
If Big Pharma ever hears of Denmark they'll have a whole team of psychiatrists in there on a national-crisis mission flooding their water with liquid Zoloft.
Posted by: beajerry | Mar 3, 2008 8:53:29 AM
Beajerry:
The Danes may not be in a state of perpetual bliss but they are "happy" - at least, as compared to other Europeans.
Perhaps they are just grateful that they don't live in Texas!
Posted by: Ruchira | Mar 3, 2008 11:58:11 AM
Professor Wilson is of course entitled to his views and his book -- he's apparently scored a open niche, as few people, even sad and unhappy ones, can be really against happiness and be thought sincere. Happiness is not the silly, drug supported fake utopia he wants to make it out to be. Moreover, he and other curmudgeons had better get used to more expressions of it. For way too long people have agreed to displace their interest and proclivity for happiness in this world for that which they hope to have for an eternity in an afterlife. It's a bad trade-off. Now that for so many people that displacement is no longer available, many of us can hold out happiness as a legitimate rebound of love, reasonableness, energy put into the good things of this life and world and a sense of peace with the way things appear to be.
Posted by: curious sampler | Mar 3, 2008 6:45:29 PM
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