Why are secular liberals so unhappy? This question is provocatively discussed in Arthur Brooks' new book Gross National Happiness. Brooks is a sociologist and statistician at Syracuse University. I am reading his book while vacationing with my lovely wife on the beautiful island of Santorini. So it's natural for me, watching the most beautiful sunsets in the world, martini in hand, to think about the question of happiness.
Brooks' book is full of interesting data. We learn, for instance, that money does buy happiness, but only upto a point. Poor people and poor countries are unhappy, and by the self-description of the people involved. So the movement from grinding poverty to the comfortable middle-class brings a huge gain in happiness. But interestingly economic improvement at this point brings diminishing marginal returns. This is not to say that rich people aren't happier: they are. But not by very much.
Brooks also shows that, in his own words, "people who say they are conservative or very conservative are nearly twice as likely to say they are very happy than are people who call themselves liberal or very liberal. Conservatives are much less likely to say they are dissatisfied with themselves, that they are inclined to feel like a failure, or to be pessimistic about their future." Conservatives' mental health is far better than that of liberals.
Equally fascinating, Brooks notes that "faith is an incredible predictor, and cause, of happiness. Religious people of all faiths are much, much happier on average than secularists." Specifically, 43 percent of those who attend church weekly or more call themselves "very happy," versus 23 percent who attend seldom or never. Observant Jews and Christians are by Brooks' measure the happiest people in America.
So why are secular liberals in general so miserable? I offer two reasons. The first is that liberals are political utopians. They consider human nature to be wonderful, and they expect freedom to be used wonderfully well. So they are always bitterly disappointed when they discover that this is not the case. Conservatives, by contrast, have a dimmer view of human nature. So their expectations are more modest. When things don't turn out half-badly, conservatives are pleasantly surprised. They are happier because it takes less to make them happier.
It's not too hard to figure out why religious people are happier. Belief in God gives people a powerful sense of higher purpose in life. It assures people that the universe is in the benign hands of a omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate higher power. It offers people a code for how to live. It gives us a reason to hope in cosmic justice, which is better than the imperfect justice of our terrestrial world.
By contrast, secular people have little to hope for. They are sure that they came from nowhere--the chance product of random mutation and natural selection--and are going nowhere. They know that terrible things happen, and they don't believe there is any purpose in this. No wonder that secular people have so few children: they have much less reason than religious people to believe in the future.
So why is an atheist like Richard Dawkins so frequently wearing a conspitated scowl? And why am I usually smiling? Some may attribute these differences to our genetic temperaments. Others may put it down to the fact that I live in sunny California, eating healthy nouvelle cuisine and going on walking tours in Santorini. Dawkins, by contrast, lives in dank, rainy England and eats abominable English food. ("May I offer you some more kidney pie, Professor Dawkins? It's somewhat bland, I know, but perhaps it will work as a laxative.")
But Arthur Brooks would probably say that our temperaments are also the consequences of two very different worldviews, one producing the wholesome optimism of What's So Great About Christianity, the other the angry bitterness of The God Delusion. Read Brooks' new book yourself to see if he's right.
Reader Comments ( Page 5 of 42)
61.
What a relief!
Now that I've been told that my feelings of happiness must be a delusion, I can now rest assured that my meds are working.
FL Chick at 3:21PM on May 23rd 2008
62. Some people have left comments about how they would be happy if only they could go on vacation with Dinesh's wife. This is immoral thinking and it proves two things:
1) The Godless dissenters who resent the findings of the GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS book, (saying why conservatives are happier than liberals), just don't get anything straight in their anti-God thinking. The point is that you should be happy to spend time with YOUR spouse, not somebody else's spouse.
2) This shows the immoral mindset of the anti-God crowd (who stalk Dinesh's site), they really CANNOT be moral without believing in God. They prove that here, pining for an adulterous vacation to make them happy, instead of getting the point of being content with THEIR OWN spouse. But the Godless cannot seem to be happy unless they are breaking one of the Ten Commandments, or committing any sin, for that matter.
Conservatism says: "here is how to be happy, by being responsible and independent you can achieve some level of success to be content with."
Liberalism says: "everybody should be as unhappy as I am, and the world owes me whatever other people have earned for themselves. I should not have to be responsible for myself, for my own actions, because I just need to be dependent upon the government to take care of me."
It is easy to see why conservatives are realistic and content, while liberals are naturally out of control and unhappy. It only gets worse for liberals after they die, too, so there is the biggest reason not to reject Jesus, if you want to avoid the pit of fire in the afterlife. Believe it, it is true.
Rev 3:16 at 3:20PM on May 23rd 2008
63. Brooks also shows that, in his own words, "people who say they are conservative or very conservative are nearly twice as likely to say they are very happy than are people who call themselves liberal or very liberal. Conservatives are much less likely to say they are dissatisfied with themselves, that they are inclined to feel like a failure, or to be pessimistic about their future." Conservatives' mental health is far better than that of liberals.
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This may be true, only because liberals live in the real world - accepting that reality isn't always a bed of roses. Conservatives live in a fantasy world - all they have to do is pray... and they think all the problems of the world aren't their fault - it is always the "sinners" the "non-believers" who have created this world of woe.
I am a liberal, I am happy. My "life" is wonderful and it has nothing to do with money or the economy or my non-belief of a supernatural god.
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"It's not too hard to figure out why religious people are happier. Belief in God gives people a powerful sense of higher purpose in life. It assures people that the universe is in the benign hands of a omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate higher power.
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Compassionate higher power??? Have you read the bible???
Okay the, it gives people a sense that they are safe and that somebody loves them no matter how much they fuck up, they will always be forgiven, they never have to take any real responsibility for their actions because they have a get-out-of-hell-free card. Why shouldn't they be happy.
Also the premise that no matter how much this life sucks they have seen the light of god and they will meet him when then die.
It is a psychosis! They live in a fantasy world and they are indeed happy there.
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By contrast, secular people have little to hope for. They are sure that they came from nowhere--the chance product of random mutation and natural selection--and are going nowhere. They know that terrible things happen, and they don't believe there is any purpose in this. No wonder that secular people have so few children: they have much less reason than religious people to believe in the future.
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OF course we have hope! What a silly thing to say. Life might be a random chance, but we are still lucky enough to be alive, and the mere miracle of that is hope enough not to throw the future away with wishful thinking. ie: prayers.
There may be no purpose to those terrible things that happen, except to learn how tentative this life we have is and to make the most of it.
Any maybe we have fewer children because we are realists, and we have a grasp of what our responsibilities are to the environment and our economy and our place in this world. I think it is irresponsible to have children when you can't provide a nurturing, financially sound life for them while they are in our care.
Sometimes deciding not to have children is the most unselfish thing a person can do. To have a child because the bible tells us it is our duty, even though we can't afford them nor do we have the tools or where-with-all to raise them properly is just asinine.
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And why am I usually smiling?
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Because you are an idiot.
TJ at 3:20PM on May 23rd 2008
64. Jeff... I am woefully ignorant in tax law. My accountant is extremely well versed in it... and happens to be a devout christian. So who is the better person?
My point, and I just KNOW Hayes will disagree with me, is that christianity doesn't make you stupid. It requires you to believe in untestible, unverifable things, but a person is more than just what they believe. Christians are no more nor less intelligent than Atheists. Both simply have different ways of interacting with the world.
When one side tries to impose those views on the other, through harassment or mockery, or worse of all, force of law, then an injustice is being perpetrated.
Somber at 3:23PM on May 23rd 2008
65. jeff, I believe rev has intelligence even though he lacks in knowledge.
JefFlyingV at 3:24PM on May 23rd 2008
66. BTW... gotta love Dinesh plugging his own book as 'wholesome.'
Somber at 3:25PM on May 23rd 2008
67. Linda @ # 57.
Great post. Thanks for saving me some writing.
D'Souza simply confirms that life is simpler for simnpletons. (A.K.A. conservatives and fundies)
Captain Negative at 3:29PM on May 23rd 2008
68. flyingV: you don't believe that the human brain has advanced and grown in the last 8000 years, and all we've done in that time is simply accumulated information? we don't just "know more", we ARE more intelligent.
jeff at 3:32PM on May 23rd 2008
69. Is DoubleD's book the 2 ply, cardboard center tube edition?
JefFlyingV at 3:29PM on May 23rd 2008
70. "There are only two types of people in the world. Those who say there are two or more types of people in the world and those who don't."
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LMAO, ROFL, hiccuping. Whew. That was a good one.
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It looks like the Rev has gone off his meds.
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I know what pisses all these conservative christians off: it's that we agnostics and atheists think that they are SILLY (not ignorant, as someone said), and CHILDISH and OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE REAL WORLD. I know when someone starts "witnessing" to me, I get this really pained look on my face and roll my eyes.
I can't imagine believing in that nonsense.
Just my opinion.
Linda at 3:29PM on May 23rd 2008
71. "By contrast, secular people have little to hope for. They are sure that they came from nowhere--the chance product of random mutation and natural selection--and are going nowhere."
First of all, secularism is a completely separate concept from atheism. Second of all, what is a "conspitated scowl"? Third of all, there are so many fallacious follies in this article, it's pointless that I even began. Fine, keep preaching to your choir of idiots. You are now a parody of yourself.
Don't you have a daughter? If you and your wife are out getting drunk, where is your daughter, and whay is she not in your list of things that make you happy?
Mokele Mbembe at 3:29PM on May 23rd 2008
72. somber, we're not talking about who is a better person in regards to ignorance. we're talking about who is happier. if you knew everything there was to know about tax laws, odds are you would be a bit less "happy" knowing that A: you've been paying too much in taxes all these years, or B: you haven't been paying enough, and the IRS will be calling you soon. NOT knowing, therefore living in ignorance, you're a bit more carefree of the tax ramifications in your life, and "happier"! no?
jeff at 3:32PM on May 23rd 2008
73. "Personally I love heaven and hell...as literally writing tools. 'What dreams may come' is top on my list of good movies about heaven and hell. But as a literal place...no. I'd much rather try to fix this world than spend what little time I have left preparing for a fantasy." Somber
Actually Somber, the Christian hope is not about going to heaven when we die. Heaven is God's space, the place where God resides most fully. It is that Parallel dimension all around us where God's love and justice rules supreme. There are times when a bit of heaven breaks through to our own dimension. We get intimations of it in the laughter of children, in the beauty of nature, in caring and loving relationships when the love of our fellow human beings approaches the love that we have for ourselves.
The Christian hope is that one day heaven will come to earth most fully. It is the hope that one day things will be done on earth just like they are in heaven - that God's love and justice will be established throughout the ends of the earth.
The Christian hope is anchored in our faith that God in Christ is the true Lord of this world. Therefore, we are called not to wait for some disembodied spiritual fantasy after we die, but to get to work now living out and working towards God's love and justice which will one day be all in all.
randy at 3:33PM on May 23rd 2008
74.
Why, sure, DD says he is a happy guy: he thinks he's been winning all those debates he's been having. He is so dense, he can't see or won't admit that he has lost every single one.
Thanks to TJ for your post. Having empathy and concern for those less fortunate motivates me to action; if I was a happy camper, why bother?
I'll take "unhappiness" over rose-colored glasses anyday of the week.
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Nice to see you again, Richelle. How did you do this semester? Are you doing summer school?
I'm taking Spanish at the local community college.
I love going to school.
Linda at 3:37PM on May 23rd 2008
75. jeff, the so called ice mummy from Switzerland is no different than you or me (height, diet, tatoos are different). So no, I don't see much of a change in intelligence.
JefFlyingV at 3:41PM on May 23rd 2008