In the first part of this post, we talked about what are, for Bertrand Russell (The Conquest of Happiness, 1930) among the causes individuals are sad: modern pessimism, competitors, boredom, and fatigue that comes from anxiousness. On this second half, we are going to study 4 extra components that contribute to unhappiness: envy, the sense of sin, persecution mania and the worry of public opinion.
Bertrand Russell’s e-book ‘The Conquest of Happiness’ (1930) makes an attempt to analyse the situations for happiness in our fashionable world, specializing in the mindsets of the sad and the glad particular person and the way they differ. For Russell, glad folks have interaction with life and with mental pursuits that aren’t associated on to themselves, displaying a high quality of character he calls “zest” for all times.
Unhappiness from envy
“Of all of the traits of odd human nature,” Russell writes, “envy is probably the most unlucky; not solely does the envious particular person want to inflict misfortune and accomplish that each time he can with impunity, however he’s additionally himself rendered sad by envy. As an alternative of deriving pleasure from what he has, he derives ache from what others have. If he can, he deprives others of their benefits, which to him is as fascinating as it might be to safe the identical benefits himself.”
That is an irrational behaviour that causes the envious particular person to speculate effort not into bettering their very own situation however into making others worse off. If nothing is finished to manage and restrict envy, Russel believes, envy would possibly have an effect on the entire of society and convey it right into a downward spiral the place, in the long run, everyone seems to be equally depressing.
How then, can we do away with envy?
Russell proposes happiness as an antidote to envy. Somebody who’s glad will probably be content material with what they’ve and won’t be trying to examine themselves with others.
“With the sensible man, what he has doesn’t stop to be gratifying as a result of another person has one thing else. Envy, in reality, is one type of a vice, partly ethical, partly mental, which consists in seeing issues by no means in themselves, however solely of their relations.”
So when we’ve a wage that’s enough for us, we should always not look to check it with the wage of others. Doing so wouldn’t enhance our personal wage, however merely take away the happiness that we are able to acquire from it and substitute it with disappointment.
For Russell, the supply of envy goes again to childhood. If the dad and mom appear to want one baby over one other, this, he believes, will trigger the much less advantaged one to develop a disposition to envy. Pointless modesty additionally results in envy, he believes, and so the way in which to greatest elevate youngsters can be to show them that they’re one of the best simply as they’re. We see echoes of that in a lot of in the present day’s pedagogical strategies:
“Individually, I believe there may be a lot to be stated for mentioning a boy to suppose himself a superb fellow. I don’t imagine that any peacock envies one other peacock his tail, as a result of each peacock is persuaded that his personal tail is the best on the planet. The consequence of that is that peacocks are peaceful birds.”
I’m no baby psychologist, nevertheless it appears at the least questionable to me whether or not we ought to be elevating youngsters who don’t have any sense of their very own limitations and who suppose that they’re excellent, with out feeling the necessity for any self-improvement. Isn’t the want to enhance oneself, to struggle one’s shortcomings and to develop one’s good sides, a great factor?
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The sense of sin
“Sin,” for Russell, is an idea that applies not solely to the deeply non secular. Via the way in which most human societies have been constructed upon non secular foundations, the idea of sin seeps into the consciousness of even those that in the present day wouldn’t name themselves non secular.
“However the sense of sin in its most necessary types is one thing which matches deeper. It’s one thing which has its roots within the unconscious, and doesn’t seem in consciousness as worry of different folks’s disapproval. In consciousness, sure sorts of acts are labelled ‘Sin’ for no cause seen to introspection. When a person commits these acts he feels uncomfortable with out fairly understanding why.”
A way of sin, Russell believes, shouldn’t be a great ethical information. Not solely is it irrational, nevertheless it additionally makes the particular person really feel inferior to others, which then causes signs just like envy: the need to harm these he considers morally superior and to see them fall into sin themselves. Such an individual will turn into unpleasant to others and more and more socially remoted. In distinction,
“An expansive and beneficiant angle in direction of different folks not solely offers happiness to others, however is an immense supply of happiness to its possessor, because it causes him to be typically preferred. However such an angle is scarcely potential to the person haunted by a way of sin.”
One other drawback with inspecting one’s sins is, in Russell’s view, that it tends to make us look an excessive amount of at ourselves. However the specializing in one’s personal self is what, for Russell, is the principle reason for human unhappiness. Blissful folks, he thinks, are oriented outward of their pursuits. They act on the planet, as a substitute of regularly themselves and measuring themselves in opposition to others.
Persecution mania
We might consider this as maybe a really extreme sort of delusion. However Russell means it in a extra on a regular basis sense, an expertise that all of us, kind of, have had: the sensation that others discuss badly of us, that they mock us or gossip about us behind our backs. Or somebody all the time “doing good” to folks in opposition to their wills after which being “horrified that they show no gratitude.”
The premise of this drawback is an exaggerated sense of 1’s personal significance or one’s personal deserves, in accordance with Russell. If I imagine that my work is one of the best, then why does nobody else rave about it, market it, and bathe me with compliments? Clearly, they need to all someway be conspiring in opposition to me.
There appears to be an issue right here. In his dialogue of envy, Russell steered that we should always give youngsters a way of their perfection, a perception of their absolute superiority. And now he says that simply that perception is the supply of what he calls ‘persecution mania’. I don’t see how these two issues will be reconciled. If his evaluation is correct (which I personally doubt), then we’d have to decide on between adults who’re deluded about their skills and really feel ignored by others; or we may have adults who’re self-critical and practical about their very own skills, however stuffed with envy for others. Should you see how one may perceive Russell higher right here, please inform me within the feedback.
Personally, I believe that Russell, regardless of him being a superb logician and thinker, has simply arrived on the finish of his psychological skills on this evaluation. I don’t know that he had any formal coaching in psychology and it exhibits right here. By some means, one’s sense of vanity should be linked to each phenomena: envy and persecution mania, nevertheless it doesn’t appear to be fairly as easy and easy as Russell makes it seem.
Unhappiness and the worry of public opinion
Lastly, the final frequent cause of unhappiness that Russell discusses is the lack to suit into one’s social environment. Particularly distinctive younger folks discover it onerous to suit into the neighborhood of a college or village. In college, they might for just a few years discover others like them, and in large cities typically one can discover like-minded folks. However usually, we’ve to dwell amongst individuals who both don’t perceive us, don’t need to have interaction with us, or have completely totally different opinions and values than we do. In such instances, the unhealthy match between the person and the social atmosphere turns into a supply of loneliness, isolation and anxiousness.
One may be tempted to argue that this could have been extra of an issue in Russell’s time than in the present day. Within the Nineteen Thirties, when the e-book was written, England was nonetheless rural to a big extent, and villages are troublesome locations for inventive and mental younger folks to seek out pals with related pursuits. One can be tempted to say that in the present day, the Web has modified this panorama. Utilizing social media, each younger particular person can hook up with any variety of others who’ve precisely the identical pursuits, it doesn’t matter what these pursuits are. On-line, one can discover mannequin aeroplane golf equipment, societies for the safety of seals, Youtube movies on novel methods of instructing calculus, Mars colonisation advocates and poetry writing teams.
Russell’s e-book is an eye-opening treatise on happiness, as seen from the angle of a well-known thinker within the mid-Twentieth century. Get it right here!
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However, then again, this potential to seek out like-minded folks has additionally led to a lower in our willingness to tolerate others’ pursuits and opinions. In an age the place everybody can simply immerse themselves in a social bubble of their very own making, we’re dropping the power to have interaction with others who’re totally different from us. De-platforming, on-line shaming and the so-called cancel tradition are generally simply the brand new garments during which the age-old intolerance of others’ opinions current themselves. And since younger folks in the present day are way more depending on the Web for his or her social lives, these new types of intolerance can maybe turn into as threatening to their well-being because it might need been in outdated occasions to be a younger artist in a backward rural neighborhood.
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