Happiness Quote of the Day
“Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.”
– Robertson Davies
Discussion:
Brad DeLong’s head may explode, but you know what Davies means. An unhappy life is not a life without value. Indeed, there may be treasures in unhappiness. There is evidence that happier people are more self-deceiving, for instance. So it may be that unhappiness enables self-knowledge, or outward knowledge unclouded by the mists of optimism. Of course, one is not made happier by dwelling on unhappiness, so refusing to dwell on it may mitigate it. But refusing to dwell on it also allows one to reorient to other values–knowledge, virtue, spiritual communion–one may, unhappily, achieve. This reorientation may, in the end, bring some measure of happiness. Yet even if it doesn’t, life will be better for it.
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Happiness Quote of the Day
“Happiness is a hard master–particularly other people’s happiness.”
- Mustapha Mond in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
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Bill Korner August 1st, 2005 3:49 pm
Great quote indeed. Spoken by the World Controller (or whatever) as he explains why he envies the non-conformist intellectual sent off to an island full of similarly (too) strong-minded scholars. Mustapha gave up his passion scientifically studying what actually makes people happy choosing instead to manage the world by controlling what makes them happy.
Now, of course, he’s come to consider this decision a sacrifice of his own personel happiness for the benefit of others. So he is actually (contrary to the quote) no longer unsure about what makes his subjects “happy”. (No less sure than the contemporary corporate manager.) Nor does he really envy the intellectually insatiable Bernard Marx. (John Savage may be another matter.)
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“There is evidence that happier people are more self-deceiving, for instance. So it may be that unhappiness enables self-knowledge, or outward knowledge unclouded by the mists of optimism.”
I’m quite certain you have the causality reversed here.
If I remember correctly, people who were temporarily depressed were more accurate in self-assessments during that time.
Economics’ ability to deal in terms other than individual happiness is way underappreciated.
Consider Sen’s famous “Paretian Liberal” paper: The impossibility result is established based on a supposition that each individual has rank ordered every possible social state (social state = “a complete description of society including everyone’s position in it”). Now, in any such complete description (I submit) only a relatively small number of features could have to do with the particular individual’s well-being or happiness. Surely that’s right unless one defines everything that one has a preference about as relevant to happiness. (And in Sen’s scenario individuals don’t even decide what to have preferences about. It’s an existential nightmare!)
Will’s post focus’s very much on the experiences, knowledge, virtues, etc. of the unhappy individual. But this is not the only way to go. One can also evaluate an individual life in terms of how “preferences” are realized independently of the question: “Which preference satisfactions promote his happiness?”
Thinking about Brad DeLong’s head exploding makes me happier.
I guess the chronically depressed delude themselves into believing their exceptionally clear and undeluded judgment is the inherent characteristic that makes them depressed, rather than the quite depressing alternative.
good point there Dylan.
Great site