Considers the ways in which major thinkers from Plato and Aristotle through to Nietzsche and Freud have treated happiness. Only in the early 20th century were child-rearing manuals filled with chapters on the happiness of children. We can find remarkable similarities between the insights of these thinkers and the modern “Science of … These ethical theories about right and wrong present the philosophical underpinnings of psychological happiness. 14,000 Things to Be Happy About, Happiness Is a Choice. Traditionally, childhood and happiness were not generally associated. Here, too, it’s not easy to say. Since then the pursuit of happiness has spread to every aspect of behavior, from religion and politics to work and parenting. Second, and at least as important, a culture saturated with happiness makes it difficult for people to deal with sadness, in themselves and others. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. Aristotle used the word eudaimonia to describe happiness as an experience of the good life through virtuous action. Positive psychology, like all behavioral sciences, has roots in moral philosophy. Happiness is something that has been researched every which way, resulting in some incredibly interesting findings. 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. (1978). But being virtuous is not a passive state: one must act in accordance with virtue. When most people today use the word, they mean positive emotion or positive affect. Titles, over several decades, included monuments like 14,000 Things to Be Happy About, Happiness Is a Choice, and A Thousand Paths to Happiness (with claims that this was an “emerging science”). Meaning "pleasant and contented mental state" is from 1590s. 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. Now off you go to hopefully spread a little happiness … 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. The history of happiness Harv Bus Rev. In this article is recounted how the view of happiness has changed with time. The 18th century also saw some measurable advances in human comfort for the middle classes and above, ranging from better home heating to the availability of umbrellas to provide shelter from the rain. To explore the philosophy of happiness in life, first, the history of happiness will be examined. We could think of this as our conscience - though today most people don't associate conscientious action with happiness. In this particular case one can read the facts of this phenomenon on the article A History of Happiness. The Dalai Lama agrees, describing happiness as a skill requiring effort and time to develop an understanding of the true nature of reality. A modern Russian adage holds that “a person who smiles a lot is either a fool or an American.” It’s true that when McDonald’s arrived in Russia, in 1990, one of its first tasks was to train clerks to seem cheerful. This was also the context in which, in 1926, the song “Happy Birthday” was composed, becoming a family staple by the late 1930s—despite, or perhaps because of, the gloom of the Great Depression. Declaration of Independence declares that all men have a right to “the pursuit of happiness.” 1926 The song “Happy Birthday” is composed. Over the years, happiness has meant many other things, some of which are surprising when compared with our current sense of the word. More important, whether globally or nationally: What does the evolving culture have to do with actual happiness? Americans also took the lead in efforts to reconcile death with the demands for happiness. Some researchers believe that hedonism and even life satisfaction are not great standards for happiness. Moreover, attitudes toward happiness don’t just vary; they change. The new middle-class work ethic came close to arguing that work should be a source of happiness. The point is that cultural variations on happiness are considerable, contributing to the findings of international happiness polls that dot the contemporary public opinion landscape. 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. 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). Throughout history, happiness has been equated regularly with the highest human calling, the most perfect human state. It is also used in the context of life satisfaction, subjective well-being, eudaimonia, flourishing and well-being.. Meaning "pleasant and contented mental state" is from 1590s. In ancient Greek tragedy, happiness was considered a gift of the gods. Today we think of happiness as a right and a skill that can be developed. The comparative angle is intriguing, especially as elements of the West’s happiness culture have been widely shared. To Herodotus, the happiness known as eudaimonia implied possession of a guiding spirit, or "daimon". 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. "—Anna Alexandrova and Ramandeep Singh, Times Literary Supplement "Based on extensive longitudinal data in four countries, this book about the science of well-being over the life course is a significant contribution not only to psychology but also ultimately to policy-making in terms of what really matters to people." How the pursuit of contentment has shaped the West’s culture and economy, From the Magazine (January–February 2012). The cultural commitment to happiness promoted new efforts to associate work with happiness, through experiments in human relations techniques or just piped-in music. 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. But it was convenient for a rising class to believe that working people had no reason not to be happy and that laziness and bad habits disrupted not only performance but also contentment. Happiness for Black Women Only, The Ladder Up: Secret Steps to Jewish Happiness, Gay Happiness. Central to the development of Christianity, happiness held out the promise of an end … The obvious question is why, and while some causes are pretty clear, we probably still fall short of a fully satisfactory explanation. Whereas happiness had once been seen as a rare and special achievement in a world of suffering and pain, now there was a growing consensus that … Bentham, J. To top it off, Authentic Happiness further allows for the "Full Life," a life that satisfies all three criteria of happiness. Sinful humanity had best display a somewhat sorrowful humility. [8]Proponents of life satisfaction see two major advantages to theiraccount. It inspired new workplace standards that instructed white-collar employees and salespeople in the centrality of cheerfulness. More often, we associate happiness with pleasure. We could think of this as our conscience - though today most people don't associate conscientious action with happiness. But what was a revolutionary pronouncement in the age of Enlightenment—a right, à la Jefferson, to the pursuit of happiness, or a right à la St. The article suggests that feminist histories might offer an alternative history of happiness. We have seen that the translation of happiness norms into family and work expectations produces frustration and disappointment when experience contradicts cultural hyperbole. Three major theories from moral philosophy emerged throughout history, each claiming the true path to righteousness. In this brief history of happiness, philosopher Nicholas White reviews 2,500 years of attempts to answer such questions. Happiness comes to the well-ordered soul… Some Latin American cultures tend in the other direction. Confucius' notion of joy was not an emotion or attainment of material objects, but an "ethical response to features of the world". Nor is it enough to have a few virtues; rather one must strive to … "Felicitators". Today the happiness imperative creates pressures that, paradoxically, can make us miserable. One's overall emotional well-being creates a more complex version of happiness that he calls "psychic flourishing". Consumption has not always been king in the United States. Moralists told husbands and wives alike to keep anger away from family life. What are their acceptable outlets? The happiness imperative certainly hinders exploration of the gray areas of modern experience, and its compulsory quality can misfire. Thus, philosophers usually explicate on happiness as either a state of mind, or a life that goes well for the person leading it. Wives and mothers were urged to maintain a cheerful atmosphere in order to reward their hardworking husbands and produce successful children. With these various developments, the claim of happiness on the culture was established. Until the 18th century, Western standards encouraged, if anything, a slightly saddened approach to life, with facial expressions to match. Over the years, happiness has meant many other things, some of which are surprising when compared with our current sense of the word. 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 … Addresses key questions such as what happiness is and whether or not happiness should play such a dominant role in our lives. It might … 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. 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. On the other, not being happy, or at least not seeming to be, was a problem to be avoided. He termed this eudaimonia – “ activity expressing virtue ”. Targeted programs ultimately included Happiness for Black Women Only, The Ladder Up: Secret Steps to Jewish Happiness, Gay Happiness, and, for the emotional omnivore, Find Happiness in Everything You Do. Considers the ways in which major thinkers from Plato and Aristotle through to Nietzsche and Freud have treated happiness. But there is no question that many people felt obliged to apologize for the moments of happiness they did encounter. One type of "happiness" that battles this adaptation is engaged activity, often called flow. Seeing a culture as the product of historical change is an invitation to step back, assess, and then consider further change. This spontaneous way of living accorded the practitioner liberation from daily stresses, and a sense of belonging to greater concerns. Aristotle used the word eudaimonia to describe happiness as an experience of the good life through virtuous action. 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. Jan-Feb 2012;90(1-2):104-9, 153. During the 19th century, although the commitment to happiness in general did not escalate, there were important applications to facets of daily life. It's also a shorthand for satisfaction with life, or general well-being. Smiley face is invented; annual licensing fees exceed $50 million by the decade’s end. On the one hand, it was now perfectly legitimate to seek happiness. Since then the pursuit of happiness has spread to every aspect of behavior, from religion and politics to work and parenting. (1978). This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. 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. This changed dramatically with the 18th century and the values of the Enlightenment. A conceptualization of contemporary positive psychology is discussed next, Among the exhortations: “Happiness is as essential as food if a child is to develop into normal manhood or womanhood”; “the purpose of bringing-up in all its phases should be to make the child as happy as possible.” There was some tension in the new common wisdom between a belief that children were naturally happy (all an adult had to do was not spoil things) and a nagging worry that childhood was actually more complicated (parents had to produce the necessary joy). With the rise of monotheist religions, happiness was involved with a virtue feel. This change manifested itself in many realms, even government. But the history was still not complete, for there was yet another surge, particularly in the United States, from the 1920s onward. 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. 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. Happiness and its opposites." First, although the most obvious drawback of the emphasis on happiness involves the gaps with re­ality that can, paradoxically, create their own discontents, there’s also the risk that people will fail to explore reasons for dissatisfaction because of pressure to exhibit good cheer. We could liken the emotion of happiness to joy, but joy is sometimes thought of as more spiritual than happiness, which can feel more simple and cheerful in nature. The happiness surge applied even more clearly to family life. In I. Boniwell & S. Davis (Eds.). The happiness of an individual was seen as secondary and the only path to it was through morality. In I. Boniwell & S. Davis (Eds.). Exploring the nature of such change not only illuminates our own context for happiness but also allows us to assess its advantages and downsides. 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. 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 historical evolution of our happiness culture also suggests limitations. 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. 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. The smiling American was becoming a stereotype two centuries ago…. 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 … Indeed, there seems to have been a bit of an American twist on all this even early on. The list of historians working on happiness is not long, but those who’ve tackled some aspect of the subject generally agree: At the level of rhetoric, at least, a significant shift occurred in Western culture around 250 years ago. First, life satisfactio… All sorts of advertisers (a newly distinct profession) discovered that associating products with happiness spurred sales. "Happiness" is a word with a thousand definitions. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. Happiness is sometimes called well-being, which has many theories for its attainment. It was in the 1830s that Harriet Martineau, often described as the first female sociologist, professed amazement at how often Americans tried to make her laugh: One stranger “dropped some drolleries so new to me, and so intense, that I was perplexed what to do with my laughter.” The smiling American was becoming a stereotype two centuries ago, as a new nation sought to justify its existence by projecting superior claims to happiness. Author Peter N Stearns 1 Affiliation 1 George Mason University, USA. The fact is that the commitment to happiness in Western culture is relatively modern. U.S. our being’s end and aim!” while one John Byrom urged that “it was the best thing one could do to be always cheerful…and not suffer any sullenness.” The charge here was double-edged and has remained so. 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. It was no accident that this same new nation, at this same point, quietly revolutionized the approach to death by introducing the garden cemetery, where people could gain a sense of contentment, if not happiness, as they contemplated the end of life. 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". Some experts argue that happiness is an inborn trait, so urging a person to become happier is like insisting she become taller. Democritus, a philosopher from Ancient Greece, was the first philosopher in the western world to examine the nature of happiness (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). Ordinary people began writing about their interest “in enjoying happiness and independence.” Disasters, such as the brutal yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793, produced recommendations to the survivors to keep up their spirits and avoid excessive grief. A short history of American-style happiness. Hedonism, though, is prone to adaptation; over time, we need more and more stimulus to feel the same amount of pleasure. No matter how much you have, you want more in order to sustain the same level of satisfaction. We don’t yet know—remember the less-smiling Russians—but it’s a theme worth watching. To Herodotus, the happiness known as eudaimonia implied possession of a guiding spirit, or "daimon". 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. Most East Asian cultures also have lower happiness expectations than Americans are accustomed to. For Further Reading. happiness (n.) 1520s, "good fortune," from happy + -ness. 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 … This has been liberating, in some respects, because it asks us to strive to improve our lots in life, individually and collectively. 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 proceeds by suspending belief that happiness is a good thing, or that happiness is what we want, as beliefs that are central to the intellectual history of happiness. Philosopher James Pawelski reminds us that happiness is a both a goal of, and a construct of culture. The push went beyond popular books and articles. I’ve spent time since with Russian friends, discussing cultural rules on showing happiness, agreeing that differences remain. This is what most clearly explains why the intensified happiness culture of the mid-20th century has, in the main, persisted to the present day. So we are creating what happiness is through the fruits of culture. The term happiness is used in the context of mental or emotional states, including positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. happiness (n.) 1520s, "good fortune," from happy + -ness. This construction of ‘happiness as a problem’ has a long history from Marx and Durkheim to contemporary writers such as Ahmed and Furedi. Just was perfectly right to announce, as he did in the National Convention in 1794, that “happiness is a new idea in Europe.” In some real ways it was. 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 History of Happiness House In the late '60s, parents of children with Cerebral Palsy in Geneva banded together to start Happiness House. The same applies to adults. "Origins of Happiness is an important contribution to an important debate. Ever hear someone say, “Stop and smell the roses”? For instance, because reality is subjective, being satisfied with one's life can be a function of how high you set the bar. Part of HuffPost Wellness. Bentham, J. New norms might also make it harder to confront experiences, such as death, where happiness is hard to find—another vulnerability of contemporary culture. Christian philosophy often turned to blessedness to describe happiness, which might have even entailed suffering while awaiting one's greatest good in Heaven. Pawelski, J. " McMahon, D. M. "The pursuit of happiness in history." When too much is expected, less actual satisfaction may result. The several shifts driving the happiness surge were powerful enough to propel happiness into politics by century’s end, with the American revolutionary commitment to the pursuit of same. The Principles of Morals and Legislation. 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. Stearns PN(1). In our happiness culture there might yet be, after a couple of centuries of acceleration, room for improvement. Cultures that stress happiness likely do produce more happy people, but the link is complex and fragile. Danes, the current polls suggest, are no longer so melancholy. The escalation of happiness built on the existing culture, but there were other contributing factors. Those risks suggest the need to cut through the pervasive happiness rhetoric at certain points. Without historical perspective, American expectations seem so normal and so natural that they’re difficult to evaluate. It’s important to stress that the happiness surge was not antireligious; a key component was the new idea that being cheerful was pleasing to God. In this last quote we can see another important feature of Aristotle's theory: the link between the concepts of happiness and virtue. Some undeniable challenges emerge. This probably goes too far. It helps explain another American invention, the laugh track, to assure people they were happy even when comedy fell short. 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. To top it off, Authentic Happiness further allows for the "Full Life," a life that satisfies all three criteria of happiness. A brief history of happiness, reviewing 2,500 years of philosophical thought about the concept. 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." 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. In the 18th century, the Enlightenment ushered in the notion that happiness was the attainment of a worthy life. 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. For Further Reading. PMID: 22299510 Abstract In the 18th century, the Enlightenment ushered in the notion that happiness was the attainment of a worthy life. The Good Life is about happiness in Desire's sense, and the Meaningful Life is about happiness in Objective List's sense. Now that the family began to play a decreasing economic role, as jobs moved out of the home, it took on new emotional responsibilities. But there was no dissent from the belief that a key responsibility of parents was to solidify the link between childhood and happiness. We’re still supposed to be smiling. Philosophers have been inquiring about happiness since ancient times. 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. This will all be explained shortly. First, happiness is subjective to time, culture, and personality. (Consider the Declaration of Independence's "pursuit of happiness" clause.). Floral Scents Can Make You Happy. It doesn't, however, cover any thinking from other traditions, which is … The idea gained ground that heaven was a happy place marked by, among other things, blissful reunions with departed family members. The history of happiness. Indeed, some depression may result from the difficulty of manifesting a more modest dose of sadness, making it “easier” to drift into outright illness.Every cultural system has drawbacks to go with the advantages that facilitated its adoption in the first place. But we can at least consider the possibility of modification. Review of Metaphysics All of this constituted the first stage in the emergence of modern Western happiness, but there were further stages, building even greater potency into the culture that still claims us. "A valuable aid to the flourishing literature on happiness and its history." 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. In the 18th century, the Enlightenment ushered in the notion that happiness was the attainment of a worthy life. Aspect of behavior, from religion and politics to work and posted to! There seems to have been widely shared to cut through the fruits of culture N Stearns 1 1., they mean positive emotion or positive affect have even entailed suffering while awaiting one 's good... 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