history of happiness

The idea of happiness shifted throughout history, along with its perceived relevance and McMahon shows the different Starting out in Ancient Greece, where only a few godlike men were believed to be chosen to achieve happiness in this world and a happy life could only be judged in hindsight after a person's death, up until today, where science promises to discover the genetic secret to a happy life. "A valuable aid to the flourishing literature on happiness and its history." There was some complexity here: Horatio Alger stories of the beauties of work also pointed to higher earnings and social mobility—not just intrinsic happiness—as rewards. A British journalist in 1792 was surprised at “the good humor of Americans,” and 40 years later another noted that Americans seemed unwilling to complain, for the sympathy they might gain would be outweighed by their friends’ disapproval. Some experts argue that happiness is an inborn trait, so urging a person to become happier is like insisting she become taller. The Greek philosophers introduced another idea that's had a long history in the West: Happiness isn't a matter of indulging desires and feeling good. Neuroscientist and Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard teaches that durable happiness as a way of life requires training the mind and developing qualities like inner peace, mindfulness, and altruistic love. In I. Boniwell & S. Davis (Eds.). happiness (n.) 1520s, "good fortune," from happy + -ness. Aristotle tells us that the most important factor in the effort to achieve happiness is to have a good moral character — what he calls "complete virtue." Addresses key questions such as what happiness is and whether or not happiness should play such a dominant role in our lives. By the time of the Romans, its cherished symbol, the phallus, was synonymous with pleasure and success. Bentham, J. In the 18th century, the Enlightenment ushered in the notion that happiness was the attainment of a worthy life. In this last quote we can see another important feature of Aristotle's theory: the link between the concepts of happiness and virtue. Aristotle used the word eudaimonia to describe happiness as an experience of the good life through virtuous action. The comparative angle is intriguing, especially as elements of the West’s happiness culture have been widely shared. (1978). Happiness for Black Women Only, The Ladder Up: Secret Steps to Jewish Happiness, Gay Happiness. Some researchers believe that hedonism and even life satisfaction are not great standards for happiness. Helliwell, J. F., Weijers, D., Powdthavee, N., & Jarden, A. This has been liberating, in some respects, because it asks us to strive to improve our lots in life, individually and collectively. Components include, certainly, the intellectual shift toward a higher valuation of matters in this world and a reduced commitment to traditional Christian staples such as original sin—all part of the cultural environment created by the Enlightenment. Exploring the nature of such change not only illuminates our own context for happiness but also allows us to assess its advantages and downsides. Here are the two clearest downsides. One historian has also noted the 18th century as a time of improved dentistry, when people became more willing to lift their lips in a smile; he argues that the ambivalent smile of a Mona Lisa probably reflected embarrassment at tooth decay. Hedonism, though, is prone to adaptation; over time, we need more and more stimulus to feel the same amount of pleasure. We know that at least a quarter of depression diagnoses are mistakes, confusions of normal sadness with a pathological state. The happiness imperative certainly hinders exploration of the gray areas of modern experience, and its compulsory quality can misfire. McMahon, D. M. "The pursuit of happiness in history." This phenomenon is called the "hedonic treadmill". Indeed, there seems to have been a bit of an American twist on all this even early on. Over the years, happiness has meant many other things, some of which are surprising when compared with our current sense of the word. It inspired new workplace standards that instructed white-collar employees and salespeople in the centrality of cheerfulness. 14,000 Things to Be Happy About, Happiness Is a Choice. Those risks suggest the need to cut through the pervasive happiness rhetoric at certain points. Thus, philosophers usually explicate on happiness as either a state of mind, or a life that goes well for the person leading it. People prior to the late 17th century thought happiness was a matter of luck or virtue or divine favor. The New York State Elks Club and the Women's Club of Geneva raised the money necessary to open the first childcare program in a house on North Street, serving five children with disabilities. First, happiness is subjective to time, culture, and personality. Sinful humanity had best display a somewhat sorrowful humility. All rights reserved. Instead of advocating the latest guide or formula to achieve happiness, A Private History of Happiness offers a fresh look at everyday moments of joy as they were experienced by real people—across many centuries and from around the world—and invites us to discover the happiness … The debate over theories of happiness falls along a couple of lines.The most interesting questions concern the choice between lifesatisfaction and affect-based views like hedonism and the emotionalstate theory. A vast literature began to emerge that stressed simultaneously the importance of being happy, the personal responsibility to gain happiness, and the methods available. Paradoxically, the idea of happiness is often associated with its absence or its pursuit and hence happiness is often experienced as a problem in modern times. He termed this eudaimonia – “ activity expressing virtue ”. Understanding the happiness imperative as an artifact of modern history, not as an inherent feature of the human condition, opens new opportunities to understand central facets of our social and personal experience. Floral Scents Can Make You Happy. We can find remarkable similarities between the insights of these thinkers and the modern “Science of … We may not wish to alter the happiness culture that modern history has bequeathed us; its considerable problems may be outweighed by the pleasure of having cheerful artifacts and smiling faces around us. This will all be explained shortly. For instance, because reality is subjective, being satisfied with one's life can be a function of how high you set the bar. Phrase greatest happiness for the greatest number was in Francis Hutcheson (1725) but later was associated with Bentham. The obvious question is why, and while some causes are pretty clear, we probably still fall short of a fully satisfactory explanation. Stearns PN(1). It became a national preoccupation beginning in the 1920s when business leaders began worrying that Americans were satiated, that they had all the appliances and consumer goods they wanted. Happiness and the Moral Good Traditionally, happiness has been associated with the moral good (Haidt, 2006). The Principles of Morals and Legislation. (Eds.). Revealingly, by the 1940s the concept of boredom shifted from being an undesirable character trait, which good children should avoid, to presenting a challenge for parents. HAPPY Meaning: "lucky, favored by fortune, being in advantageous circumstances, prosperous;" of events, "turning out… See definitions of happy. Authentic Happiness and PERMA are happiness theories born out of positive psychology that incorporate elements such as: positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Without historical perspective, American expectations seem so normal and so natural that they’re difficult to evaluate. The smiling American was becoming a stereotype two centuries ago…. A conceptualization of contemporary positive psychology is discussed next, But there was no dissent from the belief that a key responsibility of parents was to solidify the link between childhood and happiness. The escalation of happiness built on the existing culture, but there were other contributing factors. Along with technological improvements in photography, it prompted new standards for public poses, with smiles all around, whether at family outings or in politicians’ mug shots. Will a happiness surge be part of globalization? But being virtuous is not a passive state: one must act in accordance with virtue. With the rise of monotheist religions, happiness was involved with a virtue feel. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. In East Asian religion and philosophy, Confucianism and Daoism concluded that the way to a life of fulfillment and joy was predicated on following the Dao, or "the way". Its logic, in the context of the ascending culture of happiness, helps explain its persistence in popular religious culture to this day—even to the point where, in a recent funeral service, deceased family pets were assumed to be part of the celestial scene. The cultural commitment to happiness promoted new efforts to associate work with happiness, through experiments in human relations techniques or just piped-in music. In ancient Greek tragedy, happiness was considered a gift of the gods. One type of "happiness" that battles this adaptation is engaged activity, often called flow. This construction of ‘happiness as a problem’ has a long history from Marx and Durkheim to contemporary writers such as Ahmed and Furedi. So we are creating what happiness is through the fruits of culture. Understanding the cultural commitment to good cheer as an artifact of modern history, not as an inherent feature of the human condition, opens new opportunities for understanding key facets of our social and personal experience. "Origins of Happiness is an important contribution to an important debate. It spawned new commercial empires such as the Walt Disney Company, whose corporate motto became “make people happy” and whose employees convinced customers that they were already happy simply because they were in a Disney setting. We’re still supposed to be smiling. The history of happiness Harv Bus Rev. Even the Enlightenment turn to happiness did not initially penetrate childhood, where work and obedience continued to hold pride of place. History of Happiness The psychological and philosophical pursuit of happiness began in China, India and Greece nearly 2,500 years ago with Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, and Aristotle. Today we think of happiness as a right and a skill that can be developed. The happiness imperative also spread to childhood, another area where cultural norms have become so powerful that it may be hard to imagine historical contrast. Addresses key questions such as what happiness is and whether or not happiness should play such a dominant role in our lives. We have seen that the translation of happiness norms into family and work expectations produces frustration and disappointment when experience contradicts cultural hyperbole. The fact is that the commitment to happiness in Western culture is relatively modern. Happiness comes to the well-ordered soul… As one dour Protestant put it, God would encourage a person who “allowed no joy or pleasure, but a kind of melancholic demeanor and austerity.” This does not mean people were actually unhappy—we simply cannot know that, because cultural standards and personal temperament interact in complicated ways. the history of happiness is presented for the sake of background into the field. Since then the pursuit of happiness has spread to every aspect of behavior, from religion and politics to work and parenting. The new middle-class work ethic came close to arguing that work should be a source of happiness. happiness (n.) 1520s, "good fortune," from happy + -ness. ©2020 Verizon Media. Happiness is something that has been researched every which way, resulting in some incredibly interesting findings. The term happiness is used in the context of mental or emotional states, including positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Some undeniable challenges emerge. Happiness is sometimes called well-being, which has many theories for its attainment. The history of happiness. Three major theories from moral philosophy emerged throughout history, each claiming the true path to righteousness. 1776 U.S. In I. Boniwell & S. Davis (Eds.). It is also used in the context of life satisfaction, subjective well-being, eudaimonia, flourishing and well-being.. Yet it’s only within the past two hundred years that human beings have begun to think of happiness as not just an earthly possibility but also as an earthly entitlement, even an obligation. The transition from a largely manufacturing to a white-collar economy played a role, providing more settings in which managers could see happiness as a business advantage. Regardless of one's own view of what happiness means, it's difficult to argue with Aristotle: "Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and the end of human existence." These ethical theories about right and wrong present the philosophical underpinnings of psychological happiness. Yet it’s only within the past two hundred years that human beings have begun to think of happiness as not just an earthly possibility but also as an earthly entitlement, even an obligation. Some philosophers believe happiness can be understood as the moral goal of life or as an aspect of chance; indeed, in most European languages the term happiness is synonymous with luck. Sadness is often mistaken for a pathology. In our happiness culture there might yet be, after a couple of centuries of acceleration, room for improvement. A brief history of happiness. A brief history of happiness, reviewing 2,500 years of philosophical thought about the concept. But there is no question that many people felt obliged to apologize for the moments of happiness they did encounter. I’ve spent time since with Russian friends, discussing cultural rules on showing happiness, agreeing that differences remain. This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. The History of a Cultural Movement That Aspired to Transform America When a cultural movement that began to take shape in the mid-twentieth century erupted into … Bentham, J. This probably goes too far. Philosophers have been inquiring about happiness since ancient times. It goes through the Western history of the concept of happiness, focusing mostly between the medieval and renaissance time-frames giving a more limited focus on 18th century and classical Greek lines of thought. Author information: (1)George Mason University, USA. Throughout history, happiness has been equated regularly with the highest human calling, the most perfect human state. Second, and at least as important, a culture saturated with happiness makes it difficult for people to deal with sadness, in themselves and others. We may miss opportunities to improve situations, for example in work settings, because we assume that problems result from personality and not from more-objective conditions. It might … All rights reserved. Here, too, it’s not easy to say. Again, this does not mean that past children were less happy, but it does mean that their happiness was not obligatory, often not vividly remembered in adulthood, and certainly not any parent’s responsibility. Over the years, happiness has meant many other things, some of which are surprising when compared with our current sense of the word. It doesn't, however, cover any thinking from other traditions, which is … Unlike Western notions of eudaimonia, these ways to happiness were grounded in intimate connections with nature and the larger human family. The historical evolution of our happiness culture also suggests limitations. Declaration of Independence declares that all men have a right to “the pursuit of happiness.” 1926 The song “Happy Birthday” is composed. Philosopher James Pawelski reminds us that happiness is a both a goal of, and a construct of culture. Most East Asian cultures also have lower happiness expectations than Americans are accustomed to. Jan-Feb 2012;90(1-2):104-9, 153. THIS IS HAPPINESS By Niall Williams “One of the unwritten tenets of the local poetics was that a story must never arrive at a point, or risk conclusion,” says … (1978). Flow is a deep, skillful engagement in one's activities, during which time can feel distorted and a sense of self can even be temporarily lost. It's also a shorthand for satisfaction with life, or general well-being. The "happy" life is sometimes called the good life, or the "choice-worthy life", which incorporates all of those goods we would choose for ourselves, including virtues and ethics. Until the 18th century, Western standards encouraged, if anything, a slightly saddened approach to life, with facial expressions to match. To Herodotus, the happiness known as eudaimonia implied possession of a guiding spirit, or "daimon". The Dalai Lama agrees, describing happiness as a skill requiring effort and time to develop an understanding of the true nature of reality. Positive psychology, like all behavioral sciences, has roots in moral philosophy. People prior to the late 17th century thought happiness was a matter of luck or virtue or divine favor. In olden times, happiness was a rare condition given to the few who had the ability to ‘Getting closer to the Divine’, (similarly to Budha). Author Peter N Stearns 1 Affiliation 1 George Mason University, USA. Cultures that stress happiness likely do produce more happy people, but the link is complex and fragile. A brief history of happiness, reviewing 2,500 years of philosophical thought about the concept. We don’t yet know—remember the less-smiling Russians—but it’s a theme worth watching. Consumerism was central. Alexander Pope declaimed, “Oh happiness! On the one hand, it was now perfectly legitimate to seek happiness. Now of course it is certainly true that one has the tradition of classical philosophy initiated by Socrates towards the end of the 5thcentury BCE—a tradition that presented happiness or human flourishing (eudaimonia) as a function of human virtue. What are their acceptable outlets? The point here is not to disparage Russians. 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