April 13, 2004

The Good Life

Wow, this is a really interesting essay written by Martin Seligman, the president of the American Psychological Association. So much of interest in here; it'll take me a while to internalize much of it. Some good points:

- I'm pretty impressed by how open-minded he seems. If this guy is at the center of American psychology, the field must have some good stuff going on.

- I like the breakdown of the three types of satisfaction he talks about: the pleasant life -- pleasure, positive emotion, hedonistic joys, smiling and giggling, orgasm, etc.; eudaemonia -- the good life mentioned by Aristotle and Jefferson, the pleasures of contemplation and conversation, it leads to feeling "flow," "you're one with the music," centers around finding your strengths and jiggering your life to take advantage of them; the pursuit of meaning -- the attachment of yourself to something bigger than you are, finding your greatest strengths and using them for that is bigger than you are.

- Six universal clusters of strengths/virtues that apply for all of humanity and are centered around these qualities: wisdom and knowledge, courage, love and humanity, justice, temperance and moderation, and spirituality and transcendence. I see some potential problems with trying to universalize all human virtues, but it's an interesting idea.

- Objectively testing whether certain "interventions," or psychological/spiritual practices, lead to lasting happiness. This comes along with some of the potential problems of scientific hubris, but again quite interesting.

- A great story about a lizard, who is now my hero. As Jack says, "I wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every panda that wouldn't fuck to save its species."

- He talks about how psychology has been only aimed at making the miserable less miserable. Now he wants to use "positive psychology" to make happier the people who are generally okay already, potentially through therapy or drugs. Seems bold to me that such a prominent figure in the field would go in for this, because it is contrary to some of the liberal-Enlightenment ideas about society. I took an interesting class in college about virtue and liberalism. We explored some of the tension between the equality fostered by liberalism and the urge to achieve human greatness. If some people are especially virtuous (meaning exceptional, not goodhearted), does that chip away at equality? Liberalism tends to go in the direction of explaining the root causes of all that happens, de-mystifying and equalizing things. We define deviancy downwards and propagate grade inflation. Liberal societies tend to focus on drawing lines showing what is unacceptable rather than showing what is preferred. Liberalism tends to point toward fixing problems rather than revelling in greatness, which is why it romantics push back against it. And it is surprising to hear about psychologists going in this other direction, of increasing happiness rather than decreasing sadness.

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