Via Arts and Letters Daily and Prospect Magazine:
the spread of depression is partly a side-effect of our addiction to happiness. Conversely, understanding why we are so miserable should liberate us from being too miserable about it. We can feel good about feeling bad. In other words, we need a decent philosophy of failure to save everyone from thinking what failures they are.
Against happiness: Why we need a philosophy of failure | Prospect Magazine
Points:
- “The notion that happiness is actually attainable belongs to the second half of the 18th century, as Freud pointed out. Previously there had been a general consensus that no one can be called happy until he carries his happiness down to the grave in peace.”
- “And then Captain James Cook, and his French counterpart, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, embarked upon their great voyages. Bougainville’s Voyage autour du monde (1771) seems to suggest that this journey had less to do with discovery or French imperialism, than the pursuit of happiness. What’s more, Bougainville suggests that happiness was actually found—in Tahiti.”
- “From Voltaire to Wittgenstein, the point of philosophy has been to pop the balloon of excessive optimism.”
What’s missing is a discussion of hope. Does happiness pertains to the here and now while hope pertains to certainty about the future?
