Ha, this is fun. But there's a kernel of truth to it. The problem with American culture specifically is that it treats "happiness" as a goal, rather than a fleeting feeling that is probably better described with a more specific word (joy, accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction, contentment). Our culture leans on this so hard that people start to think there's something wrong with them if they're not feeling generalized happiness most of the time.
A few years ago I read a claim that the word 'happy' is relatively young - ~500 years old - and that translations of others words into 'happy' are somewhat approximate.
My takeaway is that (presuming the argument is correct) that much of human striving is probably better described with specific words (as you suggested - joy, accomplishment, fulfillment, excitement, etc). For most of human history, most people probably didn't think "I want to be happy" but "I want to have a good partner", "I want a big family", "I want my crop to grow so I don't die."
I wonder how much unhappiness is caused by seeking a poorly-defined ideal of happiness.
The book was called "Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison".
"Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to f---ing work the next morning, THAT'S IT! End of f---ing list!"
Even if feelings are temporary you can still have them more or less often. When somebody says they are happy, of course it does not mean they are experiencing bliss all the time; it means that the relative frequency of positive emotions is high and the relative frequency of negative emotions is low.
I think a lot of people assume it's not possible to be happy because their life circumstances are incompatible with it and they can't or won't change those circumstances. I think in the US at least, the things we want most and the things we strive for are not things that make us happy.
"For truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself." -- Herman Melville.
He describing to enjoy the warmth of blankets on a freezing winter night, it is imperative the nose be exposed to the cold likely as a metaphor to enjoy "happiness" something is needed for contrast.
> Our culture leans on this so hard that people start to think there's something wrong with them if they're not feeling generalized happiness most of the time.
I don’t think this is true, unless you’re using ‘happiness’ to refer to euphoria or acute joy.
The happiness that is generally sought is more accurately described as a general lack of sadness or despair. Having a roof over your head, food on the table, a job to go to, decent health, and friends and family is what constitutes basic happiness. That is a good goal to work toward, in my opinion.
Trying to distinguish happiness from all those other feelings is like trying to separate depressed from all the negative things you feel during a day. Some words do not describe specific emotions, but instead indicate a general state which has all kinds of internal variation and magnitudes. A person who doesn't have much financial stress, their kid isn't having issues that require lots of problem solving from the parent, their job is fine, they are not arguing with their spouse regularly. They would say they are happy. Alternately one can have accomplishments , new PR at the gym, solved an issue at work, but still think of themselves as unhappy because they have things that they prioritize more highly that are not going well.
> The problem with American culture specifically is that it treats "happiness" as a goal, rather than a fleeting feeling that is probably better described with a more specific word (joy, accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction, contentment).
Does it really? The sentiment of your post is pretty widespread at this point. It's kind of like saying "our culture is so commercialized" but everyone will tell you they're sick of commercialism.
you can't experience Latino culture without thinking that they treat happiness as a goal, it's sort of like you're applying a Germanic/Protestant/Puritanical filter to Americans
also I don't think the more subtle distinctions between happiness and contentment is something people can be expected to maintain in their everyday speech at every moment. That's just not how language works.
Feels to me like this is good old "if a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure".
I.e. happiness is a good measure to identify other things in your life: If something makes you unhappy, address it, if something makes you happy, follow it. (Very simplified)
But if you make "maximizing happiness" the direct target without any context, you get drugs.
Interesting, I interpret happiness as that background feeling of overall satisfaction with my life, with ups and downs but the happiness is a constant.
The critique feels valid to me. There’s a tendency in modern psychology/media to pathologize the average human baseline: if you’re not consistently optimistic and thriving, something must be wrong with you, or at least you need to be in a pursuit of this.
But constant happiness isn’t realistic, it’s like a desire to be permanently high. From my own experience I’ve landed somewhere near the Buddhist framing: the healthy default is just calm and neutral, with happiness and sadness coming and going away.
Trying to force happiness as a permanent state seems like its own problem, which is kind of what Bentall is pointing at from the other direction.
I'm assuming this is some kind of jab at the general propensity of psychiatry to classify most things as disorders, rather than a serious proposal. If anything, I think the problem has gotten worse since this was published. (Then again, maybe happiness has also gotten more rare since 1992?)
After ROTFL, and checking is not 1st april, seems in the same line of: "life is a disease, sexually transmitted, with 100% lethal exitus".
More seriously (very little indeed) maybe the 'problem' is all those activities that need to create more and more new problems/disorders to justify all the work uppon, so what if psychiatry is a psychiatric disorder? regressum ad infinitum, take the red pill.
About happiness, Buddha, asked about the way to happines, say: happiness is not the destination, is the way.
I find the word "happy" is unfortunately overloaded and confusing - and in its confusion makes it hard to know how to achieve the state.
I think other languages have more shades for this much like eskimos have many words for snow.
For example in the Jewish tradition the word "nahas" is something like the satisfaction of watching the children you raised become excellent parents of their own.
Another word "simha" could be translated as "happy occasion" but really is only used for positive lifecycle events (birth, marriage, etc)
In modern English we would probably use "happy" for all these but it's unfortunate that we'd also use the same word for triviality like "I am happy jerking off in my basement"
The beauty of "nahas" and "simha" is they point us towards a sustainable and deeply meaningful way to be "happy" - to achieve significance in our lives that makes us feel good because things are deeply good.
"Happiness" does not act as a guidepost in the same way. I believe it actually comes from the same root as "happen" - a sort of vagarity you hope to stumble into but aren't sure how to work towards.
Don't get me started on the English word "love" lol.
I think the DSM 5 says a disorder must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
I really liked this paper. I think it's less of an outright joke that it's possible to squint your eyes and laugh that happiness could be a disorder, and more of shining a light on the psychopathological system that tends towards over-diagnosis and hyperfixation on those diagnoses.
"If our so-called scientific system were really objective and honest, it would include happiness as a disorder." I think this is the goal the paper is trying to expose, more than just making a joke about mapping a good feeling to a description of a bad feeling. Indeed, I think the last line of the paper gives it away - our current system is very incomplete and needs to be extended:
> Indeed, only a psychopathology that openly declares
the relevance of values to classification could persist in
excluding happiness from the psychiatric disorders.
> It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder and be included in future editions of the major diagnostic manuals under the new name: major affective disorder, pleasant type. In a review of the relevant literature it is shown that happiness is statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system. One possible objection to this proposal remains--that happiness is not negatively valued. However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically irrelevant.
Reading this I can't help but feel that the person who wrote it is a POS.
Happiness is a derivative of purpose. If someone optimizes their life strictly for happiness while deprioritizing purpose, they likely won't achieve either.
Pursuing a meaningful goal almost always requires enduring unpleasant phases and friction along the way.
103 comments
That's just not how life works.
My takeaway is that (presuming the argument is correct) that much of human striving is probably better described with specific words (as you suggested - joy, accomplishment, fulfillment, excitement, etc). For most of human history, most people probably didn't think "I want to be happy" but "I want to have a good partner", "I want a big family", "I want my crop to grow so I don't die."
I wonder how much unhappiness is caused by seeking a poorly-defined ideal of happiness.
The book was called "Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison".
-Dennis Leary
Even if feelings are temporary you can still have them more or less often. When somebody says they are happy, of course it does not mean they are experiencing bliss all the time; it means that the relative frequency of positive emotions is high and the relative frequency of negative emotions is low.
I think a lot of people assume it's not possible to be happy because their life circumstances are incompatible with it and they can't or won't change those circumstances. I think in the US at least, the things we want most and the things we strive for are not things that make us happy.
He describing to enjoy the warmth of blankets on a freezing winter night, it is imperative the nose be exposed to the cold likely as a metaphor to enjoy "happiness" something is needed for contrast.
> Our culture leans on this so hard that people start to think there's something wrong with them if they're not feeling generalized happiness most of the time.
I don’t think this is true, unless you’re using ‘happiness’ to refer to euphoria or acute joy.
The happiness that is generally sought is more accurately described as a general lack of sadness or despair. Having a roof over your head, food on the table, a job to go to, decent health, and friends and family is what constitutes basic happiness. That is a good goal to work toward, in my opinion.
> The problem with American culture specifically is that it treats "happiness" as a goal, rather than a fleeting feeling that is probably better described with a more specific word (joy, accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction, contentment).
Does it really? The sentiment of your post is pretty widespread at this point. It's kind of like saying "our culture is so commercialized" but everyone will tell you they're sick of commercialism.
also I don't think the more subtle distinctions between happiness and contentment is something people can be expected to maintain in their everyday speech at every moment. That's just not how language works.
I.e. happiness is a good measure to identify other things in your life: If something makes you unhappy, address it, if something makes you happy, follow it. (Very simplified)
But if you make "maximizing happiness" the direct target without any context, you get drugs.
But constant happiness isn’t realistic, it’s like a desire to be permanently high. From my own experience I’ve landed somewhere near the Buddhist framing: the healthy default is just calm and neutral, with happiness and sadness coming and going away.
Trying to force happiness as a permanent state seems like its own problem, which is kind of what Bentall is pointing at from the other direction.
FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful [video/NSFW/2:06] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd4tugPM83c
More seriously (very little indeed) maybe the 'problem' is all those activities that need to create more and more new problems/disorders to justify all the work uppon, so what if psychiatry is a psychiatric disorder? regressum ad infinitum, take the red pill.
About happiness, Buddha, asked about the way to happines, say: happiness is not the destination, is the way.
I think other languages have more shades for this much like eskimos have many words for snow.
For example in the Jewish tradition the word "nahas" is something like the satisfaction of watching the children you raised become excellent parents of their own.
Another word "simha" could be translated as "happy occasion" but really is only used for positive lifecycle events (birth, marriage, etc)
In modern English we would probably use "happy" for all these but it's unfortunate that we'd also use the same word for triviality like "I am happy jerking off in my basement"
The beauty of "nahas" and "simha" is they point us towards a sustainable and deeply meaningful way to be "happy" - to achieve significance in our lives that makes us feel good because things are deeply good.
"Happiness" does not act as a guidepost in the same way. I believe it actually comes from the same root as "happen" - a sort of vagarity you hope to stumble into but aren't sure how to work towards.
Don't get me started on the English word "love" lol.
I wonder are there any ways I can contract this without breaking marital vows
"If our so-called scientific system were really objective and honest, it would include happiness as a disorder." I think this is the goal the paper is trying to expose, more than just making a joke about mapping a good feeling to a description of a bad feeling. Indeed, I think the last line of the paper gives it away - our current system is very incomplete and needs to be extended:
> Indeed, only a psychopathology that openly declares the relevance of values to classification could persist in excluding happiness from the psychiatric disorders.
Reading this I can't help but feel that the person who wrote it is a POS.
Never mind all the ads ... It isn't 'out there somewhere'.
Pursuing a meaningful goal almost always requires enduring unpleasant phases and friction along the way.
Most business owner people have it. That's why they are often out of touch with random Joe.
They belive in success even if math is saying that's bias.
Form of pychosis