Happiness & Public Policy

Last night, I discovered a wonderful passage from Thomas Mann’s short story “Little Herr Friedemann,” in which the title character, crippled from infancy, reconciles himself to the fact that he will never know sensual love, but instead learns to take value in the full range of human emotion. Indeed, he becomes a connoisseur of feeling, sensitive to the subtle notes of value even in unhappiness.

Is not life in and for itself a good, regardless of whether we may call its content “happiness”? Johannes Freidemann felt that it was so, and he loved life. He, who had renounced the greatest joy it can bring us, taught himself with infinite, increidble care to take pleasure in what it still had to offer. A walk in the springtime in the parks surrounding the town; the fragrance of a flower; the song of a bird–might not one feel grateful for such things as these?

And that we need to be taught to enjoy, yes, that our education is always and only equal to our capacity for enjoyment–he knew that too, and he trained himself. Music he loved, and attended all the concerts that were given in the town. He came to play the violin not so badly himseld, no matter what a figure of fun he made when he did it; and took delight in every beautiful soft tone he succeeded in producing. Also, by much reading he came to possess a literary taste the like of which did not exist in the place. He kept up with the new books, even the foreign ones; he knew how to savor the seductive rhythym of a lyric or the ultimate flavour of a subtly told tale–yes, one might even call him a connoisseur.

He learned to understand that to everything belongs its own enjoyment and that it is absurd to distinguish between an experience which is “happy” and one which is not. With a right good will he accepted each emotion as it came, each mood, whether sad or gay. Even he cherished the unfulfilled desires, the longings. He loved them for their own sakes and told himself that with fulfillment the best of them would be past. The vague, sweet, painful yearnings and hope of quiet spring evenings–are they not richer in joy than all the fruition the summer can bring? Yes, he was a connoisseur our little Herr Friedemann.

It’s the last paragraph here that demands our attention. But it requires the preceeding to make full sense. For the point is that the capacity to take full enjoyment in–as opposed to experiencing a superficial, stereotyped positive reaction to–such obviously pleasant things as flowers and birdsong implies the capacity to take pleasure also in frustration and pain. Once our sentimental education attunes us the finer grain of experience, there is no facile distinction between the happy and unhappy.

And so suppose you gave a happiness survey to little Herr Friedemann. What would he say? Let’s look at the next paragraph:

But of course they did not know that, the people whom he met on the street, who bowed to him with the kindly, compassionate air he knew so well. They could not know that this unhappy cripple, strutting comically along in his light overcoat and shiny top hat–strange to say, he was a little vain–they could not know how tenderly he loved the mild flow of his life, charged with no great emotion, it is true, but full of a quiet and tranquil happiness which was his own creation.

So, Herr Friedemann is happy. But his happiness is not the aggregate of happy feelings, but is constitituted even by unhappiness, pain, and frustrated longing. How is this possible? All the flow of life is tranformed–created–into tranquil happiness by his attitude of tender love toward his complete experience. Perhaps the most precious thing is the alchemical education of sensibility that can turn emotional lead to gold. And so shouldn’t we note the flaw in a measurement instrument indifferent between gold seen through shallow waters and gold mined from depths where there is no gold?