Then your face will surely show it
This probably says something about me, but something about this article on happiness (via ALDaily) and how we're all so unable to achieve it really disturbs me. Maybe it's the bit where the scientists say that we're really not that unique and that they know what will make us happy, which seems to set the stage for some kind of enforced utopian future -- it all seems very much at odds with the powerful sentiments Malcolm Gladwell expresses here). Or maybe it just makes me sad to see science extending its analytical tendrils into every last human discourse.
(And by the way, I don't particularly think the insights these scientists have are anything new -- although maybe it's my concern about novelty that's keeping me from being happy?)
Two songs about happiness come to mind. The first is one I heard in a preschool classroom this morning (I'm in Florida this week observing some preschool classrooms for work) and of course you've probably sung it: If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! What's so amazing about that lyric is that it forces you to confront (and at such an early age!) not only the nature of happiness, but also the possibility that knowing whether you're happy or not is a separate issue, and what that might mean for where you're supposed to come down on the whole happiness issue. A friend told me recently that I didn't realize how happy I was, and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what that meant, and whether it could possibly not be paradoxical.
The other song is, of course, by John Lennon: Happiness is a warm gun. Bang, bang! Shoot, shoot!
hey Paul.
You are put off by the article, suggesting that certain nooks n' crannies of human experience don't need to be poked around in. I also question the relevance of the subject matter.
I can't help but think that, just as the prof talks about how the brain is a comparison-evaluating mechanism(or something like that), I think that on one hand Harvard as an institution is considered an august one, but the psychology department, at least the last I heard, is not so highly regarded, when compared to various public powerhouses like Arizona and Michigan and Minnesota....but:
If you're a psychologist at Harvard you work at Harvard, for Pete's sake, and the school is v. heavily endowed, so it's probably pretty easy to get funding for projects with even the most insubstantial of research angles.
Interesting -- you're backing me against a wall here because I guess I don't see anything wrong with studying happiness per se, I just don't like the idea of doing it with science. The problem with this is that I don't think it's a particularly rational objection...
I will agree though that the academic system (tenure, publish or perish, etc) does produce some real horse manure -- not limited to the study of happiness, of course!
I'm not trying to back you into a wall-- the article you cite just suggests that this study looks at happiness in a too general sense, whereas to be more meaningful as social science, I'd think(?) it should look at specific applications. Maybe I should've made my meaning clearer.
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