Edition: U.S. / Global

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: 6-20-04; Against Happiness

By Jim Holt
Published: June 20, 2004



The news that a little evil lurks inside happiness is disquieting. After all, we live in a nation whose founding document holds the pursuit of happiness to be a God-given right. True to that principle, the United States consistently ranks near the top in international surveys of happiness. In a 1994 survey of 41 countries, only the supposedly dour Swedes surpassed us in ''positive affect.'' (Elaborate scales have been invented to measure individual happiness, but researchers admit that difficulties remain; for example, a person is more likely to express satisfaction with his life on a sunny day than on a cloudy one.) Of course, happiness has always had its skeptics. Thinkers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn have criticized it as a shallow and selfish goal. But the discovery that happiness is linked to prejudice suggests a different kind of case against it. Does happiness, whether desirable or not in itself, lead to undesirable consequences? In other words, could it be bad for you, and for society?

The burgeoning new science of happiness hasn't paid a lot of attention to this question. Its practitioners are more concerned with the causes of happiness than with its effects. Defining happiness as ''well-feeling'' -- being satisfied with life, having episodes of joy -- they have discovered some interesting things: a large part of happiness seems to be genetic; marriage fosters it, but having children doesn't; men become happier with age, women less happy; money does little to boost happiness; religious people are happier, possibly because of the social support they get from church; and so forth.

As to the consequences of being happy, they are widely presumed to be positive. Happiness is held to lengthen life, buffer stress and make people more productive on the job. Some of these notions appear to be justified. A Dutch study in the 1980's, for example, found that a happy 70-year-old man can expect to live 20 months longer than his less happy counterpart. But an earlier American study found that children who are cheerful and optimistic end up having shorter life spans (perhaps because they take more risky chances).

Some have worried that happy people tend to be apathetic and easily manipulated by political leaders -- contented cows, so to speak. In Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, ''Brave New World,'' the working classes are kept in docile submission by a diet of drugs that render them universally happy. In the real world, however, there is little evidence that happiness creates complacent citizens; in fact, studies show that happy people are more likely than alienated people to get politically involved, not less.


That may be going a bit far. But the evidence he cites, along with the newfound link between ''well-feeling'' and prejudice, might at least shake our belief in happiness as the summum bonum. Over the last few decades, it is precisely the groups that have made the most social progress in the United States -- women and educated African-Americans -- that have reported declines in their level of happiness. On reflection, this is not surprising. As education and freedom increase, desires -- and unmet desires -- inevitably multiply; our well-feeling may decrease, even as life becomes fuller and more meaningful. In Eastern nations like China, where happiness as a goal is less highly rated, people report lower levels of life satisfaction, but they also have lower suicide rates.

The very idea that happiness could harm a person's character -- that it could be associated with prejudice, for example -- would have been unthinkable to ancient philosophers. They believed in an indissoluble bond between happiness and virtue. The virtuous man, they held, was bound to be happy, since he knew himself to be in possession of the highest good, a good that could not be taken away from him even when he was being tortured on the rack. With modern times, however, came the subjective ''well-feeling'' definition of happiness: when the fellow in the white coat asks you if you're happy, just check your mood, compare your circumstances with those of the people around you, then tell him how contented you feel.

Ambrose Bierce, in ''The Devil's Dictionary,'' offered the following definition: ''Happiness, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.'' Well, there's no need to be that cynical. But, given some of the things we've learned about happiness, let's be grateful that we merely have a right to pursue it, not a duty.

Photos (Photographs by Phillip Toledano) Chart: ''WHAT WE WISH FOR'' ''In China, the ideal level of life satisfaction is considered to be neutrality -- neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. In contrast, in Spain, Colombia and Australia, respondents view the ideal as strong satisfaction with life. . . . In some cultures there appears to be more encouragement of pleasant affect. Children may be encouraged to smile and laugh, and to seek out fun situations.'' Source: ''National Differences in Subjective Well-Being,'' Ed Diener and Eunkook Mark Suh, 1999.