From the Economist Print EditionFrom the Economist Print EditionThe secret of happinessIts in IcelandJan 17th 2008From The Economist print editionThe search for happiness is becoming more scientific. But does that make it any more accurate than it used to be? Two books explore a growth industryTHE World Database of Happiness, in Rotterdam, collects all the available information about what makes people happy and why. According to the research, married, extroverted(??) optimists are happier than single, pessimistic introverts(??), and Republicans are happier than Democrats. Nurses enjoy life more than bankers, and it helps to be religious, sexually active and a college graduate with a short commute to work. The wealthy experience more mirth (??) than the poor, but not much. Most people say they are happy, but perhaps that is because they are expected to be.
Having long ignored the subject, psychologists, economists and social scientists are now tackling happiness with zeal (??), particularly in America. Mostly this involves examining why people are not as happy as they should be, given the unprecedented access to freedom, opportunities and riches. Because happiness is now considered more an entitlement than a pursuit among citizens of prosperous countries, unhappiness has become a sign of failure, of weakness, and a prime source of dread. “Happy, you might say, is the new sad,” writes Eric Weiner in “The Geography of Bliss”, the latest contribution to the expanding field of positive psychology.
A reporter for National Public Radio and a self-proclaimed (??) unhappy person, Mr Weiner used the Rotterdam database to find out where the happiest people live. He then travelled to these places in search of the secrets of contentment. “Are you happy?” he asks the locals of Iceland, Thailand, India and the Netherlands. “Have you seen our public toilets?” replies a man in Switzerland, one of the happiest countries. “They are very clean.” (Also the landscape is gorgeous, the trains prompt, the government attentive and the unemployment rate low.) In Qatar, a land of cartoonish opulence (??) where happiness is seen as Gods will, Mr Weiners question is met with cringes (????) ; one of those asked suggests he “should become a Muslim” in order to know happiness. In mellow Thailand everyone is “too busy being happy to think about happiness.”
Mr Weiner offers colourful observations, even when he samples hakarl, or rotten shark, an Icelandic speciality. Yet he chronicles (??) his travels with a wearying feather-light jocularity (??), prizing one-liners over lucid (??) analysis. And he fails to provide footnotes to his sources, despite relying simply on his “journalists instincts”.
Still, there is insight amid the anecdotes(????). Mr Weiner learns that the worlds happiest places (such as Iceland and Switzerland) are often ethnically homogeneous even if they have high suicide rates. The least happy places (such as Moldova) are often former Soviet republics, where new political freedoms are undercut by general mistrust, nepotism(????), corruption and envy(??). For the British, happiness is a suspicious transatlantic import (“We dont do happiness,” quips (??) one chap). While Americans, who “work longer hours and commute greater distances than virtually any other people in the world”, struggle hardest to be happy, and are often blind to their own failure;
Yet, as Mr Weiner writes, if you are a ‘wrestler’ you are more likely to find success with happiness in the future (and thus a brighter and a happier life).
An important element of this article goes into more detail on how an unbalanced and selfish state of affairs should be avoided. Here are the points of view of those who think they know what matters:
1.) People’s well-being depends on a state of affairs that is not based on rational consideration of, and appreciation for, individual and collective well-being. The individual should have a say in determining what the state of the country is, which is the real and most effective way to achieve it, and which has, over and above all time, led to the triumph of individualism. If and when some state of affairs fail, and people fall in love with some other state of affairs, the state will not change, while the individual will become a more individualized and socialized, and thus more self-reliant, with more of an assertive self-interest in the happiness he/she has attained.
2.) Social justice is a subject of human endeavor, not of human law. There is no objective truth, no goal, no morality, and that which leads human endeavor and social equality is not right; it is wrong. However, social justice is best served only by pursuing a goal that aims to bring people closer to their happiness of equality and freedom; this and others. The objective and necessary goals of social justice ought to be set out by men with personal moral convictions (“Why do you hate me?”) and social responsibility (Does my parents get me to get a job on my own time, or do you find my parents very difficult for you and to give you a hard time for?).
3.) As social justice is not a matter of ‘social equality’, but a political and economic imperative, political and economic justice is not a matter of ‘social equality’ & not a matter of ‘economic equality’ but a moral obligation (social justice is not a moral principle and human behavior is not a moral requirement).
4.) A person who thinks a given social justice policy is ‘proper’ can hardly be said to agree with the other people in regard to its intended ends & what it will bring forward for everyone. This is not to say there are no ‘right’ moral objectives at work in social justice; it is simply that the ‘right’ moral objectives that can produce social justice policy are (some!) more complex and involve more complexities (and therefore have the same legal & moral weight with many different people & groups, as with the human rights framework which states a