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McMahon I'm a professor of history at
Dartmouth College and I'm going to be
speaking to you today about the emotion
happiness
so I'm going to talk about the history
of happiness and particular about three
major Revolutions in the history of
human beings experience and
understanding of Happiness from the
Paleolithic Age the Stone Age to the
present and I'll end by suggesting a few
issues to think about when considering
the subject of Happiness today
uh many years ago I wrote this book
happiness of History which focused
primarily on the happiness history of
happiness and understandings of
happiness in in a western context but
I've since become more interested in the
global history of happiness and my
lecture today will will reflect that
so let's begin at the beginning and ask
how happy were our earliest ancestors of
the genus homo and the species sapiens
and admittedly the data is a little a
little sketchy
um
and yet we do know a few things in the
first place we know that natural
selection
while not really concerned with human
happiness per se is interested in
fostering traits that lead to the
perpetuation of species
and it turns out that perpetuating
species is much more difficult when the
species involved are severely depressed
at the very minimum we can conclude that
our ancestors evolved in such a way as
to be happy enough to want to continue
to reproduce and this is something that
Charles Darwin already began to think
about both in his the Origin of Species
and in The Descent of Man
when we reflect he writes on this
struggle for life we may console
ourselves with the full belief that the
vigorous the healthy and the happy
survive and multiply and then in The
Descent of Man that a contented or a
happy tribe will flourish better than
one that is discontented and unhappy so
there's some relationship between human
happiness and and survival and selection
although that's not a hard and fast
connection
because we also know that to be too
happy for too long was probably not
ideal or optimal from an evolutionary
standpoint
evolutionary psychologists tell us that
negative emotions like anxiety or fear
anger all have their evolutionary
purposes
they can keep us out of trouble or prime
us for a fight and we also seem to be
wired in such a way as to adapt to
Pleasures rather quickly
psychologists call this the hedonic
treadmill or adaptation
and the thinking runs that if our
ancestors on the Savannah in Africa uh
say got too comfortable or too content
for too long
they risked letting their guard down and
getting eaten by lions it was better to
be a little anxious and fearful a little
hungry and wanting so that we were
looking out over our shoulder and then
got on with the business of pursuing and
satisfying your desires in other words
we evolved in order to be
to quickly overcome our Pleasures right
and to adapt to them quickly so that we
would then want to get on and and and
and and and move ahead
which leads me to my very scientific uh
conclusion conferred On Me by all my
training uh and expertise in 18th
century European history that early
human beings were somewhere between a
six and a seven on a happiness scale
they were not miserable but not ecstatic
either but on the whole pretty happy and
here you have the proof
now obviously this is largely
speculation and that's not even meant to
represent Homo sapiens that's uh
Neanderthal
and
a lot of this is is speculative
um
and yet I would argue that much of what
we do know about early human beings
early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals for
that matter
reaffirms uh the conclusion
that human beings were on the whole
pretty happy in their earliest state
for one thing we know that human beings
lived in small bands and conditions of
relative freedom and inequality
there wasn't a great deal of hierarchy
and coercion uh in in early human
society from the best that we can tell
we know too that they ate well right the
what we call an English the paleo diet
the Paleolithic diet uh was nutritious
abundant and varied
and as a consequence our early human
ancestors if they could survive uh
childbirth stood a decent chance of
living uh well into their 60s and did so
uh in a healthy and largely disease a
free way
they also had ample time uh ample free
time anthropologists
speculate that the tasks of gathering
and hunting and providing for themselves
only took something on the average of
about 35 hours a week or so which is you
know the the average
work week in the most uh generous social
welfare states
today and so there was a lot of occasion
for social interaction which
psychologists tell us is one of the
primary drivers of of human human
happiness
and so
um you know by and large uh the
conclusion that our ancestors uh were
fairly happy
um I think holds modern positive
psychologists like Martin Seligman uh
suggests that human flourishing uh is a
is a function of what he calls Perma
positive emotions engagement
relationships meaning and achievement
um and uh there was scope I think for
all these things in early human society
the Anthropologist Marshall Stallings uh
once famously concluded that uh our
earliest ancestors lived in the original
affluent society they had the basic
things that they needed in order to be
reasonably happy
now look I don't want to exaggerate this
obviously there were drawbacks early
human beings didn't have iPhones or air
conditioning or anesthesia they could
suffer from accidents or Violence by
other bands they could be eaten by those
lions
but still there's ample calls for
believing that they were on the whole
pretty happy and certainly happier than
the majority of those who succeeded them
in the settled and domesticated
societies ushered in by the Agricultural
Revolution roughly roughly uh 12 000
years ago
why well of course I'm simplifying a
much more complex story with a good deal
of variations but the short of it is
that while the Agricultural Revolution
was technically and technologically in
advance
was accompanied by and said in motion a
series of developments that tended to
work against human happiness
so what I'm going to call today the
first revolution in human happiness the
transition out of or away from our
hunter-gather existence was not I think
on the whole a happy one it was a
setback
why
well in the first place
accumulation and with it private
property leads to inequality and
eventually to Stark human hierarchies
that severely curtail human Freedom uh
for uh for the vast majority
it's also the case that settled and
domesticated populations were far more
susceptible to epidemic disease than
those who lived in small hunter-gatherer
bands
livestock and epidemic disease the
disease of livestock and human beings
are function of concentration in in
settled populations and so plague
becomes a feature of life in a way that
it hadn't been for our ancestors
it's also true that agricultural
specialization although increasing uh
total caloric intake and hence allowing
for greater populations nonetheless
rendered human beings susceptible uh to
crop failures and so uh famine and
starvation and this is a periodic
feature of human life since the
Agricultural Revolution uh and this
could be devastating
so too was the Reliance on primarily
cereal crops uh
um and and rice that are high in
carbohydrates so Keep Us Alive but are
not particularly good for us made the
human diet less varied
and so as late as 1800 average human
stature was smaller than it was during
the Stone Age we know this from fossil
evidence
it's also the case of this latest 1800
average human life expectancy was no
greater than it had been in the Stone
Age and in many places it was less
I could go on but the simple point is
that while the Agricultural Revolution
made meant greater abundance for some
it was a setback for the majority of men
and women on earth
as the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
put it famously in his discourse on the
origins of inequality in the middle of
the 18th century the movement out of the
state of nature was fatal to human
happiness
and that is a view of that more recent
historians and social scientists and
anthropologists tended to confirm
as the noted Observer Jared Diamond put
it perhaps excessively the Agricultural
Revolution was the worst mistake in the
history of the human race
I don't think you have to share that
view entirely to see the point that the
uh quote unquote progress to
civilization and not only agriculture
but the formation of states and the
accumulation of resources and the Stark
Stadium hierarchies that developed
um were were detrimental uh in many ways
for a human happiness
that passage from a time of relative
freedom and abundance in uh our
hunter-gatherer past to one of relative
scarcity and constraint suggests I think
why myths of awareness vanished Golden
Age a Paradise Lost are almost Universal
in agricultural societies
James Scott by the way is another a
person who puts this uh view I think
very nicely and is Against the Grain and
deep history of the earliest States
so myths of a vanished golden age of
Paradise Lost are almost in a universal
and agricultural societies
it's also interesting to note that the
word for happiness
in so many languages indeed in every
Indo-European language is cognate with
fortune or luck
for the fact of the matter is that for
most human beings at this stage it was
really difficult to imagine
exercising total control or agency over
their lives
happiness was something that happened to
you it was in the hands of the gods or
the powerful it was controlled by
fortune or fate
and so the chorus of Greek tragedies
insisted that we should call Nomad happy
until he is dead if you live in a world
in which
famine or plague can uh strike you down
if you live in a world in which the
great majority of resources are
controlled by Pharaoh or Lord average
human beings don't think of a happiness
as something they can pursue willfully
in their own agency
foreign
the point of the Greek refrain we should
call no man happy until he is dead
um is that we can't really be sure
what's going to happen to us until we
die until we bring our uh perilous uh
human existence uh to a conclusion
I don't know if any of you have read
Herodotus the so-called father of
history in the western tradition
um he writes in the 5th Century BCE uh a
book simply entitled the history uh the
Historia the inquiry which is thought of
as the first work of history in the
western tradition it's really a book of
stories and one of the opening stories
concerns crisis the fabulously wealthy
king of Lydia in Asia Minor what is now
turkey who has summoned before him the
wandering Sage Solon a lawgiver of
Athens and a man who's traveled over
much of the world in search of wisdom
and crisis believed
that he was excuse me the happiest man
in the world
and he wants so long the traveling wise
man to confirm the fact uh but so long
will do no such thing observing
cautiously that the Divine is altogether
jealous and prone to trouble us and that
in the span of a human lifetime there's
much to see that one would rather not
see and much to suffer
so long goes on to add that much of the
unpredictability of human Affairs
um
because of the unpredictability of human
Affairs he cannot yet say if crisis is
or will ever be happy for man is
entirely what befalls him
entirely what happens to him
and no one can predict what will happen
to another
now crisis remembers the richest man in
the world he has absolutely everything
and he can't understand why so long can
acknowledge his own happiness and good
fortune and so crisis eventually
dismisses him thinking him assuredly a
stupid man and yet no sooner has he done
so than cruises receives a great
visitation of evil
his son is killed in a freak hunting
accident creases himself misinterprets
an oracle at Delphi and is lured into a
disastrous War and his kingdom is
destroyed by invading Persian armies
only as a captive facing imminent death
atop a funeral pyre whose Flames look at
it look at his feet does crisis realize
the wisdom of solon's words and the
Folly of his own presumption
no one who lives as happy he exclaims
call no man happy until he is dead
okay well that may sound a little
depressing but really it's the default
position for most of humanity at the
stage and I think it explains this
almost Universal Connection in the
etymology of the word happiness between
luck or fortune and happiness itself
because most people in early human
societies early civilizations can't
conceive of happiness in this world as
something that we make for ourselves
the world is uncertain and unpredictable
nature is violent the gods are jealous
something
suffering is common and unavoidable and
in such a world you have to take
happiness where you can you can't count
on it and you can't go out and pursue it
because it's simply too elusive
well fortunately this tragic worldview
is challenged in what I want to call the
second revolution in human happiness
that coincides roughly with the period
uh that the German philosopher Carl
Jasper's famously called the axanzite
the axial age
roughly the first millennium BCE the
first a thousand years or so before the
Common Era
which witnesses as Jaspers points out
the formation of the great majority of
the world's religious and wisdom
traditions
so it's coming into being really at the
at the very time that Herodotus is is
writing
and although Jasper's himself doesn't
address this explicitly
it's really a central feature of every
one of the major uh world uh world's
major wisdom traditions and religious
Traditions that take shape in this
period
um that they're bound up with the
question of human suffering right
all these Traditions from the teachings
of Confucius to those of Aristotle from
Moses to Jesus and later to um uh that
of Muhammad uh from Buddha uh and and
and many others all these teachings are
an explicit attempt to wrestle with the
question of human suffering and they ask
why do human beings suffer and how uh
might we avoid it
or to put another way put it another way
how can human beings achieve full
flourishing lives
Socrates asked in one of Plato's early
dialogues since all of us desire
happiness how can we be happy
that is the question
it would really become the question of
classical Greek philosophy which
explicitly attacks the older teachings
uh uh the tragic teachings represented
by people like parotidus but really so
many of the Greek uh tragic playwrights
and it's really the question of all the
major wisdom traditions of the axial age
from classical Judaism to Confucianism
to taoism to Hinduism and Buddhism later
to the axial heirs Christianity and
Islam as well as as I say the
philosophies of Greece and Rome
now obviously there's all kinds of
differences between these traditions and
they have uh very different outlooks on
the world but I would argue
um that they share certain convictions
about human happiness
and one of them is that happiness
well-being is not a matter of chance
we're not simply to play things of the
Gods human beings have a role in shaping
their own fate or Fortune
and that rule depends upon human virtue
and character along with the blessings
of God in other words how we act in the
world has some bearing on how we will be
and those who act well tend to draw the
the benevolence of the Gods
it follows from this that happiness is
something of an extraordinary
achievement
Aristotle says that the happier the
happy few but this is really shared
widely in in many of these wisdom
traditions in other words
um those who successfully run life's
Gauntlet who develop Supreme character
and supreme virtue are the happy but
that's a hard thing to do right the
Buddha puts this well when he says in
the first of the Four Noble Truths that
all life is suffering
and yet all of us have the potential for
happiness but most of us don't realize
that potential we live lives of
ignorance right we don't develop our our
capacities and this is a view that I
think most of the axial Traditions chair
share they present uh the happy
individual as a kind of
um uh moral athlete somebody who uh has
has finally tuned their character
follows too uh from this that happiness
is not primarily an emotion but the
characterization of a life well lived
and this is one of the things that makes
the study of of Happiness as an emotion
a little bit tricky because it's not
simply an emotion happiness is a
description of the way human feel but in
many Traditions uh and I I would argue
that in in some ways still today it's
also a description of a life well lived
so psychologists talk about the
distinction between subjective
well-being a description of our feelings
and
um life satisfaction how we evaluate our
overall lives and so there's some
slippage uh in in the word and the
concept
the other thing that's so striking about
these wisdom Traditions is they tend to
assert that happiness entails among
other virtues things like giving and
gratitude things like meaning and Hope
Fellowship and forgiveness time and
again the wisdom Traditions insist that
if you want to be happy yourself you
need to work for the happiness of others
you need to cultivate meaning an
understanding of the universe you need
to be hopeful
you need to have faith in the future you
need to be grateful
Thanksgiving Thanksgiving prayer is so
common to So Many religious uh and
wisdom traditions in part because I
think they've worked out that
um it's good for us
Fellowship
love
forgiveness for others these are virtues
that appear time and again in the wisdom
traditions and I want to see that
thought because at the very end I'll
suggest that contemporary positive
psychologists have hit upon some of
these uh enduring and perennial truths
in the wisdom traditions
okay well um
this then is the second revolution in
the history of human happiness uh and
let me just then recap for a second
we have on the one hand this perennial
notion that happiness is something we we
can't expect in a tragic and
unpredictable world
as well as the view common to the wisdom
traditions of the axial age that
happiness is a supreme achievement
for those who are virtuous and
Enlightenment those who have God's
blessing God's favor those who live
supremely virtuous lives
happiness then in this axial
understanding is for the happy few uh
for the Godlike few for the supremely
virtuous
for the Olympian athletes as it were of
life
but common to all these ways of thinking
both this older tragic View and the
axial view is the assumption that human
suffering is in many ways the norm right
and happiness the exception
life was hard all these Traditions agree
and for the most uh apart for most
people it was uh trial and tribulation a
kind of pilgrimage of Sorrow
so with some exceptions I would argue
that is the view that is not really
challenged explicitly until the late
17th and 18th centuries when human
beings beginning in Europe and its
possessions begin to undergo a third
revolution in understandings of human
happiness what I call a revolution in
human expectations
the reasons for this revolution uh are a
many and complex but I think we can put
our finger on a few
for one thing human beings come to the
uh
belief that we can control our world and
our lives
the great statement of this is uh is
Isaac Newton's idea that uh human beings
through their reason can understand how
the universe functions
and if we can understand how the
universe functions and express that
mathematically we can
um we can we can make certain
predictions about what will happen
the view of that Newton and others come
uh to uh of the universe and to of God
is that God is not this kind of
whimsical being that sits up on clouds
and casts down Thunderbolts and Strikes
down people unpredictably uh but God is
is is is is is a force a function a
being who operates according to known
laws that can be expressed through human
reason
and if human beings can understand the
world of God's creation certainly they
can understand the world of their own
creation they can form it uh and they
can
um make it our position in it better
in keeping with this view too is the
increasing realization uh uh by people
um in in in Europe and the new europes
in the 17th and 18th century associated
with the movement that we think of as
the enlightenment uh that God or the
Supreme Being or nature desires us to be
happy right we we're not in put on Earth
in order to suffer but really put here
uh to maximize uh our our pleasure uh
and minimize our pain this too uh is a
view that's commonly shared
indeed the very idea that pleasure is
good and pain is bad is a common view of
the Enlightenment uh you find it uh in
the thought of John Locke early on and
it becomes part and parcel of what
becomes known as utilitarianism in the
18th century this widely held belief
that human beings are designed in order
to experience pleasure and to flee pain
and that governments and Society should
be organized to encourage that
I love to cite the title of a 1767
pamphlet uh published in Philadelphia
entitled true pleasure cheerfulness and
happiness the immediate consequence of
religion
religion here is presented as something
contributing to human pleasure uh how
does the author of of this pamphlet know
this well he cites Jesus's first miracle
at the wedding at Cana what does Jesus
do there he turns water into wine Presto
the uh the author of The pamphlet
concludes Jesus wants us to to party
right to have a good time it's a new
conception a new way of thinking about
religion uh that we're put on Earth in
order to flourish to be happy
and indeed not only that but this world
should be the focus of our efforts uh
not the next World or Not A World Before
um Voltaire the great French poet puts
this really nicely in a poem he writes
in the 18th century called lumonda the
the worldly one in which he mocks the
effort still ongoing at the end of the
17th century to locate the biblical
Paradise
people had spent a lot of effort trying
to figure out from scripture and ancient
writings where Paradise was and Voltaire
says you know what
that's really kind of irrelevant let's
not spend our mental energy trying to
figure out where human beings once were
happy in in a in a lost golden age and
let's put less effort on the next life
let's think about this life here below
and Christians too
um although not dismissing the happiness
of the next life began to argue that God
wants us to be happy in this life too
and we should work to in uh and improve
our lot and fortune in this world
it follows from this then that happiness
is not an extraordinary achievement as
it's conceived by the axial faiths right
it's not a stroke of good fortune or or
Divine favor or Supreme virtue it's
really our Natural State we're supposed
to be happy
and it follows from that that if we're
not happy uh there's something wrong and
we should work to improve it
or or Rectify it right we should
overcome Injustice so we change our
attitudes in order to insist that we are
happy in this world
it's not a coincidence I think that this
revolution in human expectations what
human beings begin to expect out of life
happiness coincided with the beginnings
of a really dramatic economic takeoff
that radically transformed material
circumstances certain circumstances on
Earth
whereas in the early 18th century
average European living standards were
no better than those of the Stone Age
by the early 19th century they begin to
take off dramatically and with them
human hopes and expectations
and improved circumstances people could
begin to imagine life as something more
than just struggle as something to be
triumphed over or overcome
and really for the first time in human
history large numbers of men and women
came to expect happiness as a natural
dude
they could even begin to think of it as
a right
you find this extraordinary statement in
the French Encyclopedia of
uh under the article uh on happiness in
the encyclopedia does not everyone have
a right to happiness according uh to his
whims
it's really an extraordinary statement
in world history
um as is uh the claim put forth in the
American Declaration of Independence and
many of its
um the state uh Declarations of rights
that human beings have a right to pursue
happiness uh as the Declaration of
Independence puts it right
or even a right to obtain it Americans
but don't realize this as often as they
should but many of the state
constitutions speak not only as does the
preamble to the Virginia Bill of Rights
uh of 1776 not only do they speak of a
right to pursue happiness but to obtain
it
in this idea of a right to happiness is
is circulated in the 18th century on
both sides of the Atlantic I like to
point out to my students at Dartmouth in
New Hampshire that they have by virtue
of this state constitution a right a
right to happiness
and that idea is increasingly uh widely
perceived that human beings have a right
to happiness uh and uh therefore
governments have a duty uh or
responsibility to provide it and you
have uh 18th century Statesmen like John
John Adams or Joseph Priestly or like uh
the uh radicals of the uh of the French
Revolution stating this explicitly that
the goal of society is common happiness
or that happiness is really the only
object of legislation worthy uh worthy
of our attention
now to be sure this revolution in in
human expectations didn't occur
automatically or all at once it was a
slow and gradual process and it was an
imperfect one
if you were an African say brought to
the new rules a slave or a peasant uh
living at the threshold of subsistence
or an impoverished Jew in the ghetto
facing the threat of a pilgrim or a
factory worker brutalized by
industrialization the idea that you
ought just to be happy like that may
well have seemed a cruel joke
and yet however slowly and however
perfectly the promise once extended
proved difficult to contain or deny
and I like to point to the writings of
the kind of grumpy Scott Thomas Carlisle
um who in 1843 points out that this idea
that we ought to be happy is really
spreading slowly and gradually as I say
it happens not all at once uh but it's
it does filter uh out and down and
carmile mocks this idea that every
pitifulous whipster uh on Earth uh has
has come to the world now with the idea
that they they're supposed to be happy
that they're supposed to have uh
Pleasant things uh this revolution in
human expectations is something that
Carlisle is marking in the middle of the
19th century
Carlisle goes on to declare that
happiness our beings end in AIM which is
a line from a poem by Alexander Pope in
the 18th century uh that this idea is
not yet two centuries old in the world
and in fact I think his chronology is
spot on
for the assumption that human beings
ought to be happy
that happiness is a our Natural State
our default state in the absence of
Injustice or privation is assumption
it's really born in the minds of
philosophers and theologians in the late
17th and 18th centuries and that spreads
as I say gradually from there
we are all of us living in the early
21st centuries heirs to this process
heirs to this great revolution in human
expectations that occurs in the long
18th century
now obviously a lot has happened since
then uh and you'll have to allow for
some broad generalizations on my part
and yet still I think it's clear that
we've witnessed a steady expansion and
extension of that original 18th century
promise that all might dream of
Happiness by virtue of being human
beings
it was an appealing message and it still
is and so it's spread slowly and
haltingly at first beyond the privileged
circle of the West with its uh economic
and industrial expansion and the great
Divergence that separates it from the
rest of the world and of course from
European and Western imperialism That
Conquers it but that slowly uh comes to
include in its promise ever wider uh
segments of of the world's population
the message was delivered in different
forms and it left varying degrees of
wreckage in its wake and I like to point
out that this promise of Happiness
becomes part and parcel of the Socialist
tradition and its communist heirs uh
with uh both good and bad consequences
so here is a postcard with comrade
Stalin uh promising the happiness of the
people and you could find this in
socialist and communist
propaganda and many different features
uh but of course uh there's propaganda
in capitalism uh in whatever form it
takes uh as well right uh the idea that
by smoking a cigarette or drinking a
Coca-Cola you could uh be happy becomes
uh part of
um the rhetoric
so much so that the Contemporary
philosopher Pascal brutner has argued uh
that this process was really only
dramatically accelerated in the West in
the 20th century
and particularly
um since the 1960s by a number of
factors
including that not only capitalism self
but the shift in capitalism from a
culture of production to a culture of
consumption uh really puts forth
strongly this idea that we can uh be
happy by consuming
along with this you see the emergence of
a widespread uh credit to fuel this
consumption and to make it less and less
necessary to defer gratification
and finally the study a rise of
individualism and the erosion of
barriers that might stand in the way of
personal fulfillment
magnify this this process which you can
read about as well in the work of of my
colleague Peter Stearns who's written
about this at some length and I'll cite
him in in my bibliography of writings
who's very good I think on the way that
the 19th century builds upon this
revolution in human expectations and uh
and spreads it and globalize it
well happiness in Pascal brutner's view
becomes Slowly by the end of the 20th
century the soul Horizon of our modern
democracies and indeed I would say not
just democracies but modern regimes
and he concludes rather bleakly that
personal happiness is no longer
considered simply a possibility and a
right but even a kind of Duty
now I am for my own part always quick to
point out the liberating and Progressive
impact of the original Revolution human
expectations
it was a good thing that human beings
came to believe that they weren't the
minions of Fate that they could take
responsibility for their own happiness
it was a good thing I think to conceive
the fruits of one's labor as fruits to
be enjoyed
the new doctrine that emerges in the
18th century in other words was
liberating in in certain respects
it challenged the assumption that
suffering was our natural condition and
argued that we shouldn't have to
apologize for our Pleasures here on
Earth
on the contrary we should work to
increase them
it wasn't a sin to enjoy our bodies it
wasn't gluttony and greed to improve our
standard of living it wasn't a sign of
luxury and depravity to pursue pleasures
of the flesh
pleasure was good pain was bad we should
maximize the one and minimize the other
yielding in the famous phrase of Jeremy
Bentham and others the greatest
happiness for the greatest number
but I also like to point out that this
new view also had a shadow side
and think about it for a moment if you
can be happy and you should be happy
if happiness is not some extraordinary
condition but the way you're supposed to
be
then what if you're not happy
does that mean that there's something
wrong with you
that you're ill that you failed that
others have somehow failed you
preventing you from living as you should
in the older world where happiness was
considered unlikely or impossible for
the great majority
or or a supreme achievement for the
happy few in that older World in which
suffering was the norm and happiness a
kind of extraordinary achievement you
didn't have to worry about happiness in
the same way
and while that had problems of its own
it did provide a certain consolation
suffering was to be expected
we moderns by contrast worry when we're
not happy and this is given rise to what
I think is a particularly modern
affliction
I call it the unhappiness of not being
happy
the guilt the anger the resentment we
feel when we believe that we've been
deprived of our natural do
or worse that we've failed that we
failed ourselves to obtain the happiness
that all human beings are supposed to
know
what is wrong with me we wonder why am I
not happy
and in effect we blame ourselves or we
blame others for not feeling the way we
should
I see a lot of this in the Contemporary
United States and I suspect that many of
you do too in your work in your lives
for we live in a moment in human history
when all are asked to smile before the
camera when discontent is treated as a
disease
I you know like to point students to
this famous painting of the 19th century
by Grant Wood which shows you know two
American farmers not smiling for the
camera
why weren't they smiling well
um you know for various reasons uh one
of them is that people in this time had
by and large bad teeth that they didn't
like to display
it's also the case that a painting like
this mimics the
um the the the the the the the
photograph and exposure times in Old
photographs are very slow and so people
held still and didn't move their mouths
or their bodies while the pictures were
being developed but it was also the case
that
human beings even in the 19th century
didn't by default present themselves as
happy as the only form of being
successful thriving human beings
they live for other things for Honor for
integrity for virtue for
um
um for faith and so these people don't
present themselves in the way that my
great-grandparents and maybe your great
great grandparents uh uh didn't present
themselves either they they didn't
present themselves as necessarily happy
we by contrast in the modern world
always smile for the camera we always
upload uh to Instagram pictures of
ourselves being happy rarely being sad
um and yet there's something I think
slightly sad about that this kind of
need this impulsion to present ourselves
uh in a happy light
um and that's captured I think perfectly
by this New Yorker cartoon uh that shows
you know smiley faces uh hiding
um negative and negative emotion
what that cartoon gets at so nicely is
that the world today is often very
confusing when it comes to trying to
figure out what
happiness actually is or how we might
best find it
and late capitalism is particularly
attuned to this right
have a Coke and a smile
open happiness you just pop the can
who knew it was so easy
a number of years ago the perfume maker
had a campaign Clinique uh that you know
happiness you just spray it on
yourselves
now obviously no one really believes
that you can be happy simply by opening
a can or a soda or dousing yourself in
Cologne and yet many uh in many parts of
the world today it's easy to get the
impression that happiness is simply
straightforward or even simple you just
reach out and grab it
and yet then we discover when we live
lives necessarily full of difficulty and
setback that it doesn't really work that
way
so how does it work
well if I really had the answer to that
question chances are I wouldn't be
recording this video right now I'd be
running a cult or advising you know
president and heads of state around the
world and in fact I like to tell people
that if uh you ever come across anyone
who says that I have the secret to
happiness you should run away because
they're probably
um you know trying to sell you something
or trick you
because the secret is there is no secret
to happiness no magic formula no simple
solution
and anyone claiming uh to have it for a
price is probably as I say trying to
cheat you
and yet before you head for the doors or
or turn off this recording let me add
that although there's no secret to
happiness we have learned a thing or two
about a happiness since the 18th century
and particularly in the last several
decades
and by we here I mean those of us who
make it uh our business to study
happiness
and not just historians by any means but
psychologists and economists and social
scientists and philosophers and a whole
range of people taking part uh in what
is now being called the new science of
of happiness
what are the features of this new
happiness well
take the example of psychology
psychology and psychology Psychiatry
were founded in the 19th century on the
model of Medicine
on the model that is of human pathology
psychologists in other words studied
what made people ill right they studied
what was wrong with people uh and they
studied how to cure it
they studied pathologies mental illness
addiction neurosis
and if you weren't suffering from these
things they left you alone
Sigmund Freud put this well when he says
at the end of the 19th century the goal
of what uh he would come to call
psychoanalysis was to restore gaminas
ungluk ordinary unhappiness right he
wanted to take away neurosis and the
things that caused gratuitous or
unnecessary suffering
but in Freud's view he couldn't really
go much farther than that
and in fact he believed that a good deal
of unhappiness was just part of life
the program of becoming happy he writes
in his essay civilization in its
discontents cannot be fulfilled
now not all psychologists were freudians
by any means but most until relatively
recently tended to share this bias
this belief that the business of the
profession was not to make people happy
as such but to cure maladies
and yet in the last several decades in
building on an older form of humanistic
psychology we've seen the emergence of
what is now the thriving movement known
as positive psychology
that tries to figure out not what makes
human beings sick but what makes human
beings well what what contributes to
positive motion a sense of well-being a
state of satisfaction with oneself and
the world a sense of flourishing
positive psychologists in other words
look not for pathology but for strengths
for the sources of emotional vitality
and health and they ask how we might go
about encouraging
what are the characteristics of happy
people they asked and how might these be
fostered and cultivated and instilled
now I'm not going to summarize the
findings of the whole of positive
psychology data is complicated and
sometimes conflicting as you might
imagine but let me just touch on a few
points that pertain to what I've been
speaking about today and what might be
helpful to all of you
the first has to do with genes and
genetic predisposition
there isn't of course a happiness Gene
at least not a single one but it's now
very clear that there's a strong genetic
component to mood
probably uh close to something like 50
of the variation between individuals on
scales of affect or emotion is
determined but by what researchers like
to call the genetic set point
the analogy here is to a thermostat
right the idea that we're born into the
world with a natural default setting
like a a thermostat a a setting on a on
a thermostat we fluctuate around that a
bit burning a little hotter when
something good happens a little colder
when something bad happens but soon
enough our internal thermostat kicks in
and we return to our natural setting
wherever that may be
and of course the set point varies from
person to person
some are just cheerier than others some
a little more low-key
now you can look at this in a number of
ways you might say that well the
fatalists were right after all those
people that says that happiness is what
happens to you and what happens is that
you're dealt a certain Hand by the
genetic Lottery at Birth and that's just
the way it is
that there's a certain
truth to that
there is a certain truth to that and it
doesn't have to be a pessimistic one for
it turns out that although we are dealt
a certain genetic hand uh at Birth
that even if our set point uh is
determined to some extent
we do have considerable degree of power
to affect our own happiness as common
sense would suggest
so the psychologist
places that at roughly uh 40 percent in
her model about 50 percent of our
overall happiness is determined by our
genes uh only about 10 by what actually
happens to us by chance or uh uh kind of
wrong random allotment allotment in the
course of Our Lives
um the rest is really up to us
function of how we Face the world
now you can dispute those numbers uh in
in in in in ways they're not meant to be
precise breakdowns but really rough
estimates but the broad point I think is
well taken and I think absolutely On
Target
a large part of our happiness is in our
control right notwithstanding our genes
and notwithstanding our circumstances uh
we do have it in our power as adults uh
to to shape it
what kind of things can we do to make
ourselves happier
well one of them is simply to believe
that it's possible to have a
I believe that it's possible to have a
bit of the optimism and sense of hope
that men and women in the 18th century
themselves first cultivated in a
significant way and as I pointed out
earlier it's really a common feature of
many of these older wisdom traditions
it turns out that they were right to do
so because study after study reveals a
strong correlation between optimism and
happiness
Apple happy people see the glass half
full and those who see the glass glass
half full tend to be happier
it's perhaps not so surprising but it
becomes more so when we consider that
optimism can be learned in other words
we can train ourselves to be more
optimistic less reflexively negative and
pessimistic through fairly simple Tech
techniques of Mind awareness and
cognitive behavioral therapy
that's something in fact that many of
the wisdom Traditions that I talked
about in the second revolution human at
happiness also knew
hope they believed was a virtue
and hope in the future turns out to be
better for us in the Here and Now
it turns out that wisdom Traditions were
on to other things as well
virtually everyone without exception
devotes some attention to cultivating
not just hope in the future but a sense
as I've said of gratitude and
forgiveness for what's happened in the
past
gratitude for what's been done to you or
given to you forgiveness what has been
done for what has been done uh to you
and from the perspective of human
happiness and modern happiness
researchers it turns out that this too
is Sound Advice
because the active expression of
gratitude uh can work to make you
happier and forgiving others frees you
from
unnecessary suffering or pain
to Harbor resentment for what your
parents may have done to you or what a
boyfriend or girlfriend said or
did to you such resentment and
recrimination
only further detracts from your own
happiness
and there's good data to back up that
claim
so forgive Let Go free yourself from
what has happened in the past for the
sake of Happiness today and tomorrow
you'll notice that I've made mention of
religion several times now but you know
rest assured that I'm not trying to
proselytize uh but rather to make the
point that one of the things that the
new happiness researchers are
discovering is that there was actually a
good deal of wisdom embedded in the
older wisdom traditions
more wisdom at least than those who
carried out the third Revolution uh in
human happiness were often willing to
admit those partisans of the 18th
century and the enlightenment in
particular were often uh quick to reject
these older wisdom Traditions it's not
molded outmoded as superstitious as
promoting fanaticism or things that they
were unhealthy for us and while that was
certainly the case and uh in some cases
uh many of the wisdom Traditions
nonetheless
garnered truths that were turned out to
be good for us my colleague the social
psychologist John height has argued this
at length uh in his book The Happiness
hypothesis finding modern truth and
ancient wisdom uh which uses modern
science to sort of confirm uh teachings
and and many of the the wisdom
traditions
similarly there's a great deal of
research to show that those engaged in
service to others who actively work for
the happiness of other human beings Aid
and so doing their own happiness
volunteering doing philanthropy giving
to others teaching mentoring call it
what you will work intended to benefit
others actually benefits those who carry
it out
it may not always seem that way but if
you've done charitable work uh of any
kind you'll know that it oh isn't always
easy
but it might help to bear in mind that
to live in such a way is to earn the
Gratitude of others is not only to
reaffirm the self-evidence of that Noble
Truth that all are endowed with the
right to the pursuit of happiness it's
also at the same time to set foot on the
road to happiness itself
but don't misunderstand me you can
cultivate all of these things optimism
and hope forgiveness and gratitude a
sense of meaning and purpose fellowship
and belonging and social belonging is so
crucial uh to human happiness the
researchers uh agree philanthropy and
giving you can cultivate these things in
many different kinds of ways you don't
have to go to Temple or mosque or church
to do so even though those turn out to
be a fairly good places to practice
happiness
the point I'm making is that a good many
of these prescriptions have the
imprimature of science
and if you want to learn more I'd
recommend that you check out uh places
like this one the greater good
um website at the University of
California at Berkeley which provides
science-based articles on a whole number
and range of uh of the subjects that
I've been discussing on forgiveness on
gratitude on social belonging in its
correlation uh to happiness uh on
philanthropy in its relation to
happiness on cultivating a sense of
meaning and purpose in its sen in its
relation to happiness
yeah
there's even a podcast now on the
science of happiness and you might want
to check that out as well there are as
we speak ambitious people around the
world at work trying to synthesize this
new information not simply at the
personal level but at the macro level
attempting to um this is here more the
the science of Happiness on the greater
good magazine
people attempting
um to ascertain the traits not just of
happy people but of happier flourishing
societies and I'm sure you've seen or
heard about lists and ranking like this
one
this is the most recent World happiness
report issued by the United Nations and
there many other groups around the world
are doing similar work
okay
if we can begin to understand the causes
of correlate and correlates of happy
societies then perhaps they conclude it
will prove possible in the end to use
the new science of Happiness to inform a
new political science and a new
economics which work to promote not just
gross national product but gross
national happiness
G and H right various indices already
exist to try to measure right uh gross
national happiness or flourishing and
they operate on the assumption that
money
which is by no means unimportant is not
the soul or even the largest determinant
of social happiness
we know for example that Western Society
since the second world war have gotten
vastly richer
but time series data for the same period
reveals that the percentage of those
describing themselves as happy or very
happy
has hardly changed at all or only
changed uh a little
have we gotten happier in this period
well perhaps
we certainly live a lot longer on
average and that's not to be sniffed at
but the point that these researchers
make is that steady increases in gross
national product don't bring with them
necessarily steadil steady increases in
gross national happiness and if that's
the case then maybe we should begin to
rethink what we're pursuing and why and
how
well if it's one day possible to
leverage the new science of Happiness to
not only better inform but to empower
public policy to enable happier lives
then we we may well be able to speak of
human beings entering into a fourth
revolution in the history of human
happiness
but that's on the horizon
and for now I would preach a certain
caution not only because as Jean-Jacques
Rousseau whom I mentioned earlier once
wisely said
there is no government that can force
the citizens to live happily the best is
one that puts them in a condition to be
happy if they are reasonable
but it's also the case because as I've
tried to suggest briefly here progress
can easily come at the cost of increased
human suffering
and that it seems to me is the lesson of
the first revolution in human happiness
this transition out of our
hunter-gatherer past to civilization
and it probably Bears uh keeping in mind
as we prepare ourselves forward in
progress at an astounding speed today
it's not clear that our technological
process progress is propelling US
towards a happier world
it's also worth keeping in mind that
human beings can forget the values and
lessons the wisdoms and insight that the
that serve their well-being
and finally the very technologies that
may serve their happiness can also do
them harm
I take heart as I've said in the work
currently being done by a great number
of psychologists and social scientists
policy planners and economists on the
Dynamics of human happiness
we've learned a great deal about the
subject in the last several decades
amassing a growing body of knowledge
that Rivals that what was generated in
previous revolutions
knowledge about the causes and
correlates of happy people in happy
places
about happiness that is fleeting and
happiness that endures knowledge
about what happiness can do to our minds
and our bodies and what our minds and
bodies can do to it
but while that can be potentially very
useful information for governments and
policy planners it's also the case that
the microanalysis of human feelings
can also be used to control us right
influencing what we buy what we like and
what we don't like and why
that information can be used to how
to influence how we respond to our
environments how productive we can be at
work how we think about and how we Act
and that's the message of a number of
recent books which remind us at the very
least to exercise caution books like
this one
um
the dystopia of Aldous oxley's Brave New
World recall was a place where everyone
was happy
and so I think it's worth keeping that
in mind as we contemplate the future
as a cautionary tale as a warning and
yet um lectures on the history of
Happiness are simply not allowed to end
their remarks on a bleak or a
pessimistic note and so let me instead
thank you for your attention and most
importantly to wish every uh one of you
um the very best in your own Pursuits in
the years ahead I hope I've given you
some material uh to think about
happiness and how it's changed uh over
the uh over the ages and I hope you'll
think about that and think about how
some of the uh collected wisdom of the
ages May pertain to you and your own
lives and check out some of this
information I'm including in my
bibliography more Works to
um to explore this at greater length and
I thank you for your attention
[Music]
thank you
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