About 15 years ago, well into my student life as a philosophy and religious studies scholar, Harvard and Yale began offering classes on “Happiness.” Without fail, both classes became the university’s most popular class.
Of course, philosophers have been debating the nature of happiness for 2500 years or more. For Socrates, it is tied up in self-knowledge. For Aristotle, it is a life of virtue. The English philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill both worked on Utilitarianism, a view that happiness and goodness could be quantified and measured. The curmudgeonly Friedrich Nietzsche responded to their idea, “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that.”
Have philosophers found the answer to happiness? Is there any one answer? What about psychologists, or hippies, or diet and exercise gurus? Are they any happier than the rest of us?
Probably not. At least that is the answer from Yale’s current professor of happiness, the cognitive scientist Laurie Santos. Why? Because it’s hard. And life’s demands can outdo even the most educated and erudite teachers of happiness. In fact, Santos herself will be taking the next school year off due to avoid the onset of burn-out.
Cultural Drivers of Unhappiness
Much of what makes us unhappy today can be found in popular culture. A hyper-individualistic gig culture, social media that feed on antagonism, consumerism telling us to buy our way to joy, and TV news cycles focusing on the most dramatic events of the day, all drive anxiety, unhappiness, and burnout. As with so many problems, we first have to see it. Then we can identify it. Then we can examine our own place in it.
These, oddly enough, can be philosophical tasks. Seeing the madness around us requires that we step out of it, even if only for a few hours at a time. From this imaginary outsider position, we can ask what about the contemporary world is making life so hard for so many? Clearly, it’s not the amount of resources. 80-90% or more of Americans today have more stuff and raw money than their ancestors ever did. Storage rental facilities proliferate the American cityscape like nowhere else on earth.
Why Are we Unhappy?
Two plausible answers for our current malaise present themselves. First, we can look at the gradual break-down of historical traditions and institutions. Traditions and communities gave our ancestors a place to be in life, a sense of belonging and purpose. These are things many unhappy people today point to as lacking in their lives.
Another perspective says that the breakdown of many of these institutions is actually good. Many past institutions such as hierarchical churches and monarchies, clubs that excluded women and people of color, and careers that, while stable, sapped the life out of workers should be gone. Philosophers that suggest this then have to figure out how to replace the goods mentioned above that these institutions provided. For these thinkers, new, more democratic and egalitarian institutions must replace past ones.
These philosophical ideas have filtered down into political debates that rage on today. In many Nordic countries, past institutions such as the Church have eroded. But in their place, strong social democratic safety nets have ensured that everyone is financially supported even in difficult times. However, these countries also have smaller populations, meaning that old community bonds are still maintained today.
My Philosophy studies
The last time I studied happiness I had the positive psychologist Martin Seligman’s book Authentic Happiness as my guide, along with the great University of Montana philosopher Albert Borgmann. Borgmann is (he is still alive and perhaps even teaching occasionally) a Heideggerian. In fact, he studied under Heidegger in the 1950s and devoted his career to understanding contemporary life in light of Heidegger’s insights.
Borgmann taught that a key to happiness was a deep understanding of the way society makes us miserable. In particular, technology has a devious way of pulling us out of periods when we could be living fully and deeply.
An example of this would be getting mildly lost on one of the many trail systems just outside of Missoula, Montana.
There are numerous and most run up against fenced areas, rivers, or mountains. Without technology, a couple of hikers would need to discuss the situation, consider going on to a look-out point, or retracing recent steps to find the trail. They would think deeply about past trips and what looks familiar. Their every sense would heighten as they worked back to eventually re-connect with a known trail.
Today, people immediately pull out their smart-phone and load up a map and GPS. Everyone stairs at the screen as it indicates their position with a blue dot and the trails and roads with black lines. They then walk, carefully observing the screen, back to the trail.
While Borgmann is by no means anti-technology, and would praise having a smart-phone as a last resort, he laments the degree to which people have become dependent on them for every last thing and the fact that they have cut us off of potential learning and character-building experiences.
For Borgmann, sometimes our struggles to do things in old fashioned ways are precisely what make them worth doing. Our sense of accomplishment in solitary tasks, like developing a running practice, can bring a sense of calm and mastery that stay with us all day and beyond. And the joy and community of working through something difficult with others, such as a difficult patch on a hike or backpacking trip, can build deep bonds between friends and a sense of place and security for individuals.
For Borgmann, like Santos at Yale, happiness takes work. It’s not the same work that gets us fame or money—both thinkers agree that we spend too much time and energy on these. It’s the work that builds strength in oneself and one’s communities.
Justin Whitaker, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in Buddhist ethics from the University of London. He has given lectures, and taught Buddhist studies and Philosophy at Oxford University, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Montana, and at Antioch University’s intensive study-abroad program in India. A certified meditation teacher, he is a regular contributor to Patheos.com, and Senior Correspondent for Buddhistdoor Global. He lives in Missoula with his family.