Pursuits of Happiness
In a class I taught at Duke a couple of semesters ago, I asked my students the big "What is the meaning of life?" question. I can't remember what we were reading at the time, but what I can remember is their unanimous confidence that the purpose of life was the achievement of personal happiness.
What is happiness? I asked.
It can only be defined by the individual, they said.
Does that mean that there are no external standards for happiness?
Yes.
What about if people say they're happy, but they don't seem happy?
Blank stares.
Well, you know, say someone with an eating disorder, or a drug addict claims to be happy, but you have your suspicions otherwise?
Here there was a divergence of opinion. Some resolutely stated that happiness was entirely subjective. Others said that if a person was being self-destructive, s/he could not be happy. But either way, these extremely privileged students believed they owed nothing to anyone or anything except their own pleasure. I didn't expect them to give me the Westminister Catechism's "To glorify God and exalt Him forever," but I'd have settled for, oh, I don't know-- good works or social justice or even being nice to other people?
The first thing that struck me was the obvious selfishness, but that actually troubles me a little less when I think about it at greater length, because I don't think they actually live their lives as selfishly as their verbalized moral code might permit. (I do think it is a problem that we haven't found a language for civic obligation and generosity that is as ready and persuasive as the language of hedonism. But that's a separate issue.)
The less-obvious problem, it seems to me, is that happiness is not something that one can pursue in the absence of other objectives. My mother has a vision problem in one eye where the center of her field of vision is blurred, and the periphery is clear. If she looks at something directly with just that one eye, she can't see it--she can see it best when she's looking at something else. I think happiness is like that--it can only be seen in one's peripheral vision.
So while they (young, upper-middle-class Americans, healthy, with top-flight educations) have been raised to be more consciously focused on their own happiness than perhaps any other group of people in the history of the world, they have also been raised without any hope of actually finding it. This seems both scary and sad to me.
(Of course, I've also had phenomenal students, at Duke and everywhere else I've been, whose concern for social justice and all those old-fashionied virtues like righteousness, humility, and courage were intact and even inspiring. I hope that they will lead their peers--and I pray that they will not be lonely.)
What is happiness? I asked.
It can only be defined by the individual, they said.
Does that mean that there are no external standards for happiness?
Yes.
What about if people say they're happy, but they don't seem happy?
Blank stares.
Well, you know, say someone with an eating disorder, or a drug addict claims to be happy, but you have your suspicions otherwise?
Here there was a divergence of opinion. Some resolutely stated that happiness was entirely subjective. Others said that if a person was being self-destructive, s/he could not be happy. But either way, these extremely privileged students believed they owed nothing to anyone or anything except their own pleasure. I didn't expect them to give me the Westminister Catechism's "To glorify God and exalt Him forever," but I'd have settled for, oh, I don't know-- good works or social justice or even being nice to other people?
The first thing that struck me was the obvious selfishness, but that actually troubles me a little less when I think about it at greater length, because I don't think they actually live their lives as selfishly as their verbalized moral code might permit. (I do think it is a problem that we haven't found a language for civic obligation and generosity that is as ready and persuasive as the language of hedonism. But that's a separate issue.)
The less-obvious problem, it seems to me, is that happiness is not something that one can pursue in the absence of other objectives. My mother has a vision problem in one eye where the center of her field of vision is blurred, and the periphery is clear. If she looks at something directly with just that one eye, she can't see it--she can see it best when she's looking at something else. I think happiness is like that--it can only be seen in one's peripheral vision.
So while they (young, upper-middle-class Americans, healthy, with top-flight educations) have been raised to be more consciously focused on their own happiness than perhaps any other group of people in the history of the world, they have also been raised without any hope of actually finding it. This seems both scary and sad to me.
(Of course, I've also had phenomenal students, at Duke and everywhere else I've been, whose concern for social justice and all those old-fashionied virtues like righteousness, humility, and courage were intact and even inspiring. I hope that they will lead their peers--and I pray that they will not be lonely.)
posted by Tara | 2:40 PM
4 Comments:
It's true that the people who seem most obssessed about achieving this elusive state of being are the ones who are virtually guaranteed will find misery.
Interesting column on happiness, from the New Yorker, found via Arts and Letters daily:
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/060227crbo_books
Very interesting, Erin! Thanks!
I'm reminded of the many, many stories one hears about the poorest people with the simplest lifestyles being the happiest. Though it helps to have one's BASIC needs (food, shelter, clothing, health) taken care of.
Very sad. And very typical.
But perhaps even sadder: I know in my head that happiness comes from helping others, and putting them first. (not that that's, perhaps, why one should strive to do so...) But how often do I do it? At least these so-called bright students are pursuing what they believe to be true.
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