A.) Saying that other people are personally responsible for their own happiness makes it sound like every individual lives in his/her own vacuum and enables a person to evade accountability for the impact his/her actions have on others and avoid the "burden" of having compassion and empathy for others. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Technology gives us power and power entails responsibility, and responsibility...leads to guilt: You and I see a picture of a starving child in Sudan and we know inwardly that we’re not doing enough.
“Whatever donation I make to a charitable organization, it can never be as much as I could have given. I can never diminish my carbon footprint enough, or give to the poor enough. … Colonialism, slavery, structural poverty, water pollution, deforestation — there’s an endless list of items for which you and I can take the rap.”
McClay is describing a world in which we’re still driven by an inextinguishable need to feel morally justified. Our thinking is still vestigially shaped by religious categories.
And yet we have no clear framework or set of rituals to guide us in our quest for goodness. Worse, people have a sense of guilt and sin, but no longer a sense that they live in a loving universe marked by divine mercy, grace and forgiveness. There is sin but no formula for redemption.
The only reliable way to feel morally justified in that culture is to assume the role of victim. As McClay puts it, “Claiming victim status is the sole sure means left of absolving oneself and securing one’s sense of fundamental moral innocence.”
Absolutely, we have a right to be unhappy. That's one right that is probably secure into the distant future... — Bitter Crank
But, unhappy people are a drag to be around,... — Bitter Crank
so if you are too miserable, please get lost, and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out the door. This entrance for happy people only. The wretched of the earth need not apply... — Bitter Crank
Another source of this "you are the root of your problem"... — Bitter Crank
goes back decades to psychologists like Fritz Perls who emphasized that we are not in the world to live up to each others expectations... — Bitter Crank
"I am not responsible for what you do. Your actions are always entirely your responsibility." Do your own thing; if it turns other people on, great. But suffer in silence, please. We really don't want to hear about your shit... — Bitter Crank
Then too, people don't want to take on any highly inconvenient responsibilities, like the possibility that their actions may actually hurt other people. "My sticks and stones can wound you deep but vicious words can't make you weep" supposedly. "I can't control how you feel." Off the hook.
In fact, we are responsible for each other in a web of consequences. No, we are not responsible for EVERYONE'S feelings, but we are responsible for the things we do to other people with whom we interact.
Being swept under the rug is a disgusting experience. It's dark, all the dirt is under there, the skin mites are huge, it stinks, and after all that, people are always walking all over you. — Bitter Crank
It's a very deep question. It's worth recalling that 'the pursuit of happiness' is written into the US constitution... — Wayfarer
Some years back, my wife bought a book on 'positive psychology' by Martin Seligman. This was all about, well, what it says - positive psychology, techniques and attitudes for overcoming inner conflict and so on. I thought it was OK, if a bit anodyne. I was surprised to see a backlash against it - opinion pieces on 'the myth of happiness' and how unhappiness was somehow more insightful, more human, than the superficial smiley-face of 'positive psychology'... — Wayfarer
Another item from the media that I have noticed is the so-called 'happiness surveys' of different nationalities. India always seems to come out on top, which is surprising to a lot of people, considering the poverty of much of India... — Wayfarer
The Poles and Russians always seem to rank very low. That doesn't surprise me, East Europeans often strike me as lugubrious, and the Russian climate and language hardly communicates joyfulness... — Wayfarer
There was a long essay published recently by Wilfred McClay, mentioned by David Brooks in a NY Times piece called The Strange Persistence of Guilt. It notes that in modern culture,
Technology gives us power and power entails responsibility, and responsibility...leads to guilt: You and I see a picture of a starving child in Sudan and we know inwardly that we’re not doing enough.
“Whatever donation I make to a charitable organization, it can never be as much as I could have given. I can never diminish my carbon footprint enough, or give to the poor enough. … Colonialism, slavery, structural poverty, water pollution, deforestation — there’s an endless list of items for which you and I can take the rap.”
McClay is describing a world in which we’re still driven by an inextinguishable need to feel morally justified. Our thinking is still vestigially shaped by religious categories.
And yet we have no clear framework or set of rituals to guide us in our quest for goodness. Worse, people have a sense of guilt and sin, but no longer a sense that they live in a loving universe marked by divine mercy, grace and forgiveness. There is sin but no formula for redemption.
The only reliable way to feel morally justified in that culture is to assume the role of victim. As McClay puts it, “Claiming victim status is the sole sure means left of absolving oneself and securing one’s sense of fundamental moral innocence.”
I think this explains a helluva lot about modern cultural dynamics. — Wayfarer
↪WISDOMfromPO-MO I think really what your post is about, is more about 'the politics of identity' than happiness, per se. — Wayfarer
the source of the problem will be found at the system/group level. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
The Origins of Unhappiness: A New Understanding of Personal Distress
by David Smail
Link: http://a.co/1GQHEYr
Looks a reasonable approach. — Wayfarer
The Buddhist term 'dukkha' is used to describe the general state of humans. It is usually translated as 'distress', or 'stress' or 'unhappiness'. — Wayfarer
↪WISDOMfromPO-MO People have a right to be who they are. Some people are resilient, happy (or at least cheerful), calm, at peace, whether the details of their lives justify such happiness or not. For a lot of happy people, little personal credit is due: they were born with a lucky potential for happy emotions.
Many other people receive a strong tendency for agitation, fear, anger, jealousy, and so on. Their lives may not justify wretchedness, but that is what they feel, none the less--and they are no more responsible for this than the lucky happy people. I wouldn't call them depressed; they are just plain unhappy.
That said, we could go out of our way once in a while to lend a hand to the unhappy, or at least not tell them to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
the source of the problem will be found at the system/group level. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
We all do things that affect the happiness of other people. Maybe we didn't intend to ruin someone's life by firing them for incompetence, but maybe that was the upshot. Maybe they needed more help to succeed -- and had they succeeded, would have been a great asset.
Maybe parents' pushing their child to constantly excel above all other students set the stage for that child's success, or perhaps set the child up for a lifetime of unhappiness - or disappointment, or some sort of distress. — Bitter Crank
It's not like that around here and what you write seems really weird to me. What's the non-existent disease... — Πετροκότσυφας
which are the social sanctions that force people to homelessness, incarceration or suicide?... — Πετροκότσυφας
That's really weird. I've never come across this view. Are you sure you're not projecting unto others your own interpretation of what it means that people generally want to have a happy life?... — Πετροκότσυφας
Yes, that's usually the case. That's why people who don't respect the pain of others are usually seen as jerks.
But this takes as a given that the view you present is a universal and accurate one. But it is not. It might be an accurate description of your social circle.
Yes, that's why most people are not the way you describe. They're not that irrational, illogical and inconsistent when it comes to the pain and sadness of others. — Πετροκότσυφας
B.) At the group level, unhappy people are being scapegoated or swept under the rug because, no matter what is the cause of or reason for their unhappiness, their presence is a reminder of the failures and shortcomings of particular societies and social systems and of humanity in general. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
"life is meant to be enjoyed" — WISDOMfromPO-MO
My own opinion is, as I have said several times, that life has no inherent meaning and there is no grand intention. It's up to us to decide, whatever the question is about our human/social reality. One of the minimal things life is meant to be is "endured". — Bitter Crank
the presence of the outwardly unhappy is an unwelcome reminder of the presence of the inwardly unhappy state of the outwardly happy. — Noble Dust
I guess my question is, why would being unhappy be a desirable state?... — Brian
And if isn't one, why would you bother worrying about having this kind of unenforceable requirement for happiness. — Brian
Sort of like, "grace in reverse". — Bitter Crank
How so? — Noble Dust
...an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us; ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof. — (1928 Book of Common Prayer, p. 581)
The Grand Taboo is, to me, that thing that we can't talk about. It comes up all the time in conversations in everyday life, though. — Noble Dust
No, that doesn't seem right. Even if happiness can, in part, be the result of ignorance and/or denial, it is not happiness that's the problem, it's ignorance and/or denial. Happiness might be said to be a problem, if it's impossible without ignorance and/or denial (assuming that ignorance and/or denial is always a problem)... — Πετροκότσυφας
Of course, even if that's the case, it still does not answer the original question which was "why would being unhappy be a desirable state?". — Πετροκότσυφας
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