What's It All About?: Philosophy And The Meaning Of Life by Julian Baggini

Author:Julian Baggini
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781847089205
Publisher: Granta Publications
Published: 2013-07-10T23:00:00+00:00

Seek and you shall not find

So far we have found much to say in praise of happiness, but we have also cast doubt on the idea that it is the supreme good which alone gives meaning to life. Happiness has different qualities as well as quantities and we have to think about what kinds of happiness we want as well as how much. We have also seen how there may be reasons for valuing things other than happiness, even if happiness is good in itself.

Nevertheless, that still leaves happiness with an important role to play. Just as long as we achieve it without sacrificing the other things in life we value, such as autonomy and truth, and just as long as we get the kind of happiness we want, it does seem worth pursuing.

But this again is too swift. Something may be worth having but that doesn’t necessarily mean we should try and pursue it. At the start of this chapter C. P. Snow is quoted as saying, ‘if you pursue happiness you’ll never find it’. If he is right, and happiness is a good worth having, we would be advised not to pursue it, since that would be the only sure way of making sure we did not possess it.

There is certainly some truth in what Snow says. It is commonly remarked about our own time, for example, that never before in history has the promise of happiness been so great and the reality so disappointing. Fuelled by consumerism and the power of advertising and the media, we are encouraged to think that happiness is within our grasp. Men’s magazines promise happiness in the form of a six-pack stomach, great gadgets and fantastic sex, all within one month. Women’s magazines promise happiness in the form of a cellulite-free body, great clothes and fantastic sex, all within one month. The images we are bombarded with are of confident, sexy people, looking smart, surrounded by equally gorgeous friends, drinking Chablis, eating exotic food – having it all.

And yet, of course, these images are aspirational. If they reflected reality they would have no appeal. Who would buy these magazines if they already had great bodies, great sex and all the consumer goods they wanted? It is obvious that the lives of real people fall short of these ideals set before us. This disparity between reality and what we aspire to cannot help us feel happier, since it only serves to emphasize what is not perfect about our lives, what we don’t have as opposed to what we do. This is why the psychologist Oliver James has suggested in all seriousness that we need to severely curb the power and extent of advertising. These images are literally damaging our mental health.

The paradox is that as a society we are committed to the pursuit of happiness as never before, but we’re not getting any more of it. As James details in his Britain on the Couch, research shows that although wealth has increased in the developed world enormously since the 1950s, we are no happier now than we were then.

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