Title basically says it all. Why should people be happy as opposed to unhappy? Why is happiness important?
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CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
Why should people be happy?
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juvenissun
... and God saw that it was good.
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You are free to strive for unhappiness if you desire so. Just let me know if I can contribute something to help you reach this goal.
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If happiness is important enough to be the predominant mood in Heaven, then why shouldn't people be happy, at least from a Christian perspective?
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GrowingSmaller
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happiness is intentional. It is happiness that x is the case. Depending on the ontology of x happiness is appropriate or not. I think people are seduced by happiness in western utilitarianised cultures. Even in a tragedy of global propprtions people just want to laugh smile and consume. Asif is arabic for sorrow and one of my names. I find it hard to encapsulate but believe it to be a virtue in certain contexts. Sometimes the greatesy tragedies are a lack of sorrow and remorse. The spirit which is happy that (insert random event) is pethaps bound to repeat its own mistakes and giggle at its own graveside. There is a tale i remember about the bodisattva Avalokiteshvara who looked down on eartly suffering and was so moved his gead split into iirc 7 individual faces each intent on curing mans ills.
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Eudaimonist
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Happiness is a feeling associated with successfulness at achieving one's deepest values, a lack of internal conflict, and peace of mind. It is a sign that one is successful at flourishing as a human being.
Genes and chemical factors can influence one's baseline happiness, but even then unhappiness is undesirable because it can impede smooth personal functioning. We function best when unhappiness isn't holding us back.
So, yes, happiness is important.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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juvenissun
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GrowingSmaller
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I see emotion as modulatory in the sense that it regulates systems for instance by attracting repetitive behaviour like copulation, or causing avoidance as in pain signals. In music modulation is change of key, and sometimes this is important emotionally. But all emotions to me are of a "key" or "note" and an unchanged emotion modulates as much as a changed one. This is pretty much to say it has causal power like any other real thing.
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Eudaimonist
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Are you asking this as a proposed opposite? IMV, the opposite of happiness is ambivalence towards one's life, not sadness. It involves inner conflict and a troubled mind, and in advanced stages of this dysfunction, apathy.
A good thing about sadness is that it is a sign that happiness is possible. Perhaps one is sad that one has lost a value that was deeply important to oneself. Good news! You can value!
Considering that life inevitably involves change, and therefore the loss of cherished values, a happy life inevitably involves sadness. The wise person knows how to feel sad as much as necessary, and then to move on.
At the moment, I don't see any good to sadness except as a healthy and needed grieving process, but there might be other good uses.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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GrowingSmaller
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Sadness has instrumental value as part of the Dawkinsian evolutionary vehicle or replication machine, which we call dasein. It would not have been selected if it did not have survival value. It is right that it is grieving but not only about death but all forms of decay and degeneration. The symbolic deaths we have to endure. Think of it as a form of behaviourist reinforcer. Joy is a metaphiorical fertiliser and enzyme and sadness is a inhibitor and reverse enzyme. All good gardeners need both if they are to steward over the world in a positively productive (and negatively inhibitive) fashion. In math a positive times a positive leads to a positive, and a negative times a negative leads to a positive. Simple axiological equations bear the same results. If we're not sad to the bad it will grow, but sadness about badness leads to goodness.
Sorry for overtaking thread by the way, good to discuss these things!
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Received
True love waits in haunted attics
I think happiness is intrinsic to our very idea of goodness. And we all strive, inexorably, for the good in all we do. Many times we screw it up because of misconceptions and/or impulsiveness. But asking why we should be happy is like asking why we should like good things.
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jayem
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There is a "pleasure center" (or network) in the brain. Whatever behaviors stimulate that circuitry will be reinforced. Sure, the system does go awry. The behaviors selected are sometimes detrimental to self and others. But seeking pleasure--which is happiness at its most basic level--is biological. It's hard-wired into our brains.
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juvenissun
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Eudaimonist
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If anything, it's the same thing as the opposite to happiness.
Sadness and happiness are closely related in that they involve seeing values as important and generally accomplishable, although of course sadness involves the loss of a particular value. Neither one is the result of deep inner-conflict or apathy.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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juvenissun
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So, if I hold on a value, but I don't know if I should be happy or should be sad about of the value. Is that what you called ambivalence?
For example, "should" we feel happy if we robbed someone and got some money? Is that some sort of achievement?
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Eudaimonist
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That's close to what I mean.
Ambivalence refers to some sort of internal conflict where psychological forces tug one in different directions. For instance, one might have mixed feelings about some particular value, or even one's entire life. Also, I think that one's rational judgment can conflict with one's emotions, providing the strange feeling that one is either not doing what one should, or that one is not doing what one truly loves.
That is the royal road to ambivalence. One might want to rob someone, but this would be in conflict with one's judgment about the worth and appropriateness of the action. Chances are, the conflict would be "won" by refusing to be a self-reflective person. However, the conflict wouldn't really disappear. One could never be completely whole on that path.
Only of self-destruction, if you call that an achievement.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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GrowingSmaller
Muslm Humanist
I am ambivalent all over then. Somehow i manage to fell pretty blessed at times though. Actually the ice THE ICE it's slipped away lol. I feel its rational for me to be ambivalent. For example i might like to be at a kirtan but not agree 100% with the official theology of the situation go home and pray salat whilst being against islamism and sympathising with atgeism to some degree. Its a consequence of chaving to compromise. Not nice though. But tge ice was nice and crunchy whikst it lasted. Coctails are fun. Btw no i do not drink this is just fun!
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