And yet: "this makes me happy", "that makes me unhappy".Joy is something one undergoes: it happens to us. — StreetlightX
Without some formalized distinction, "joy" and "happiness" are interchangeable in many contexts. — baker
Anyway, a small thread with small stakes, curious to see what others might think. — StreetlightX
This has been my view for years, which I think of in a Spinozist sense as 'active & passive affects' corresponding, IIRC, somewhat to Nietzsche's 'active & passive nihilisms'. (I'll dig up some quotes if you like for you interpretation but they're probably easy enough to find yourself.) Ecstasy vs contentment. Joy vs happiness. Eudaimonia vs hedonia. Dionysus vs the Crucified. Playing guitar vs playing "Guitar Hero".... — 180 Proof
Orson Welles put it like this and I am paraphrasing, "A warthog can be happy. Joy is a great big electrical experience." — Tom Storm
For that kind of criticism, some metaphysical/transcendental edifice is necessary, or a big enough ego./.../ You can find it too in the almost alimentary effects visible in say, the rhythm of marching of the SS, in uniform, bursting with pride. How to be critical about that kind of joy? — StreetlightX
Does an 'expression of joy' lead to (or come from) emancipatory / transgressive conduct or servile / debased conduct? Is it used for medicine or to poison? Maybe something along those lines ...How to be critical about that kind of joy? — StreetlightX
So: I think what bothers me about 'happiness' is - as least, as it strikes me intuitively - is that it tends to function as a psychological category, which is to say it is individual and 'hedonic'. — StreetlightX
Joy, on the other hand, is not a state. Rather it is an event, or it has event-like characteristics. Joy is something one undergoes: it happens to us. — StreetlightX
The political part of me wants to call it 'bourgeois happiness', a happiness that allows one to turn a blind eye to injustice and even active maliciousness. — StreetlightX
I'd be satisfied with being "interested" in something, that is, being taken in by a subject, or person or event or place. It need not reach the "burden" of being in a positive emotional state necessarily. — Manuel
I had a similar intuïtion... interestingly enough if you look at the etymological roots of the words it seems to have been the other way around historically.
Happiness comes from luck (happ), being fortunate, which points more to the material state of a person in relation to the world, rather than a psychological state... something that 'happ'ens to someone.
Joy then seems to have been associated throughout history with an inner feeling, a pleasurable sensation... which would be more in line with 'hedonic'.
Don't know if this necessarily has any bearing on how we use the terms now, maybe it has, but I thought it interesting at least, if only because of the shifts in meaning. — ChatteringMonkey
If one is happy in the historical meaning of the word (lucky, fortunate) one would probably be more inclined to turn a blind eye to the injustices of a system that has benefited you more than most. — ChatteringMonkey
But nonetheless - I am specifically interested in the 'downsides' of positive emotional states. Something like a 'toxic happiness' or happiness which stifles rather than expands the possibility of action. Or happiness which mocks, degrades, and incites violence. I'm trying to conceptualize joy as something that cannot be taken along these lines - a positive positivity. — StreetlightX
Part of what motivated the OP was discussion I had elsewhere, in which I articulated the thought that in an environment that overwhelmingly deadens human flourishing, a sense of joy can almost function as an ethical imperative. Joy as a militant practice. Inspired in part by Audrey Lorde: "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." So this is a kind of motivated joy, one diametrically opposite to happiness as contentment. A joy that specifically cuts against the given, rather than tries to settle amongst it (as with one that would turn a blind eye). I'm mostly trying to think about how to articulate or conceptualize these two notions of happiness and joy. — StreetlightX
I speak several languages and so I can compare. Something that can be a problem in one language isn't necessarily so in another (such as expressing one concept with one word -- e.g. Schadenfreude). Words often don't have 1 to 1 translations. I'm fluent in German and I can find my way around Latin. My native language is a Slavic one, not English.I've only read them in English, not in Latin & German, respectively. Both probably use "joy" & "happiness". Why that matters to you I can't fathom. — 180 Proof
Joy here is impersonal: it doesn't belong to me, but I partake in it. — StreetlightX
Does an 'expression of joy' lead to (or come from) emancipatory / transgressive conduct or servile / debased conduct? Is it used for medicine or to poison? Maybe something along those lines ... — 180 Proof
Enough! Enough! Enough!
Some how I have been stunn'd. Stand back!
Give me a little time beyond my cuff'd head, slumbers, dreams
gaping,
I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.
That I could forget the mockers and insults!
That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the
bludgeons and hammers!
That i could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and
bloody crowing!
I remember now — Whitman
we all shared in the joy of the moment. — StreetlightX
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