A book by Jonathan Haidt, reviewed by me.

The author sets out the historical and current theories on happiness. It is an interesting mix of science, psychology, divinity, ethics and at times humour. He makes a strong case for the total hypocrisy of humans (even when we are not aware of it) and how we always seem to be driven by short term goals. His argument is based on scientific studies and religious teaching. Remember the famous line:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Matthew 7:3

The metaphor that is references throughout the book is a persons mind is like a rider and elephant. The rider represents the rational conscious mind and the elephant is our animalistic self, full of urges and short time goals. Interestingly, this is similar to the allegorical novel “The Life of Pi”. The rider has some control of the direction but if the elephant wants something (cake, drugs, prestige, love, etc) then the rider can loose control for a short while. This is not necessarily a bad thing or course but it explains why it is so hard to give up an addiction (see the film Requiem for a Dream).

A good insight was ancient philosophers where good intuitive psychologists while the recent batch have been very rational based. Any system that denies the existence of “the elephant” is doomed to fail – such as the corruption of communism (people are self interested) and the flaws in market based social solutions (people don’t work for their long term self interests) (those where my examples and are not in the book). The book has the example of dieting I think. One route to happiness is to accept and train the elephant so it can be directed to more sustainable goals.

For the main modern routes to improving your happiness you have a choice of:

  • Cognative behaviour therapy
  • Prozac and related drugs
  • Meditition

All these work directly on the elephant and can bring an long term improvement in happiness and are mentioned several times! There is an amusing description of the author taking prozac but it is told best in the book.

From a Neitzchean perspective, he does describe Buddhism as an “over-reaction” to the unpredictable world. Nietzsche would also call this world denying. The book quotes “what does not kill me makes me stronger” and the author qualifies this by saying we don’t want to induce post traumatic stress in people!

“When Harry Harlow took his students to the zoo, they were surprised to find that apes and monkeys would solve problems just for the fun of it”… “Psychologists would refer to this basic need as a need for competence, industry or mastery.”… “The effectance motive helps explain the progress principle: We get more pleasure from making progress towards our goals than we do from achieving them because, as Shakespeare said, ‘Joy’s soul lies in the doing.’” Jonathan Haidt

I find this is a personal driving force, and very Will to Power sounding! Why do you think I am writing this article? Because I CAN :)

Also note that happiness in this book is simply a psychological measure and the book seems silent on if they are either a means or an end.

Mankind does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that. TotI, Nietzsche

A final area I found particularly interesting was the happiness formula (which is an idea in positive phychology):
H=S+C+V
H is happiness
S is a biological set point (is constant and at least partly genetic as it seems to be inheritable)
C is conditions of your life (most of these get normalized in the long term)
V is voluntary activities (Prozac, meditation, therapy and others)

A good read in all.

I just finished “Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction” by A C Grayling and am on “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” by some bloke called Lugwig Wittgenstein. I need to consult with you (El Sordo) about discussion without straw-manning Wittgenstein.

Anti Citizen One