Like the Labour Party I have major problems with the government's pursuit of a 'happiness' agenda.
I have long felt 'happiness' a vacuous goal. That's because, like making money, happiness is an epiphenomena that is the consequence of the achievement of some other goal: it can never be the goal in itself.
So, in The Courageous State I define the goal of human endeavour as being the achievement of a person's potential. Potential in this sense simply means what a person is capable of doing. It sounds simple, but around the world billions of people are denied the chance to do just that every day. No wonder they're not happy.
What they do instead is adapt to a circumstance in which they're forced to accept a sub-standard opportunity for achievement.
It's my fear that the supposedly clinical methods used to assist the achievement of happiness, whether CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) or positive psychology, are not seen as ways of providing opprtunites to assist people achieve but are instead ways of conditioning people to accept the sub-optimal reality they're being presented with daily. The promoters of these methods may be honourable: the political use of these ideas may not be.
In that case these psychologies offer no cure for the anger people are quite reasonably feeling. That anger is rational, deep seated and justified. Answers will only come when its causes are addressed. Teaching people to be 'happy' will not do that. It's just a variant on pill popping. Treating the symptoms and not the casues of malaise in our society will not work.
It's time people had the opportunities they deserve, and which our current market system is denying them.
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Happiness, Happiness, the greatest gift that I possess. I thank the Lord (David Freud), that I possess, more than my share of happiness.
Not.
One of the best books I read last year was Crawford’s book about Why working with your hands makes you happy (referenced at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/working-hands-happiness-burkeman)
The point is that a society based around sitting in front of computers, or more generally, a “knowledge-based” economy, will leave a large number of people, especially men, in unsatisfying careers.
Last week I needed a new key for my modest family car. I was quoted £150 – £100 for the key, £50 for the coding. And because it is all electronic, only the dealer can do it, and even then it is just messing around at a computer. Whereas 10 years ago it would have cost £2 an been a job for a man making actual keys. Who benefits from this “improvement”?
What I would suggest as a practical solution is requiring anyone who makes an electronic or mechanical item for sale provide all the software it uses for free download. If manafacturers insist on embedding IT in their products so they become effectively impossible to be repaired they should be required to publish that IT.
Given the imperative to reduce and reuse, and the lack of jobs for people who are not academic but are skilled with their hands, it is vital that we do everything we can to encourage the repairability of products. That is the sort of change that empowers people and enables them to meet their potential.
“Last week I needed a new key for my modest family car. I was quoted £150 — £100 for the key, £50 for the coding. And because it is all electronic, only the dealer can do it, and even then it is just messing around at a computer. Whereas 10 years ago it would have cost £2 an been a job for a man making actual keys. Who benefits from this “improvement”?”
Whilst not disagreeing with the main thrust of your argument, electronic key coding and control of this by dealers is largely responsible for the massive decline in scumbags thieving cars, is it not? Or is that not a benefit?
It has suited the economic powers that be, to tell us happiness=having things. Advertising you say in your book “is deliberately designed to make a person feel their current position is inadequate” …and remedied by consuming more. Indeed!
Actually no one can give you happiness. They can help but happiness is a relationship with the self. That usually means that one is also open to, and empathetic with others. Selfish people, however, much wealth they have, largely miss out on that. So morality and justice helps to promote a sense of well being. Economics must have a moral purpose.
As a therapist, I see a number of people referred by their employers for counselling. I find a common theme is the effects of the supply economics style of management and economy. The high risk of being ‘downsized’ and the pressures of performance management create anxiety. They get told to be ‘innovative’ but when they are, are often reprimanded. This infantalizes people.
Today the State often withdraws from providing a service directly but outsources on a business model providing the services through charities or other organisations. They say this is to provide efficiency, economy, responsiveness to demand etc.And more ‘bloody vision statements’! ( excuse me) What gets lost is the person to person human contact. In the police, hospitals and schools we have excessive paperwork at the expense of contact with public, patients or pupils. Professor Hoggett of the Uni. of the West of England describes this process extremely well. But the system often fails because it is monitored by ‘performance indicators’ which are often derived from a perception remote from reality. In this way they don’t reflect the market place where feedback is more direct. We see many people retiring who are glad to get out, whereas teachers, nurses, policemen, local authority workers were, 30 years ago, often sad, or had mixed feelings, on leaving.
The economic system we have adopted in the last 30 years creates many of the symptoms that militate against happiness. I agree society need to treat the disease not the symptoms, although that alone is not the whole answer.
Accepted, entirely