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HAPPY_SCIENCE

                                                      March    8, 2010
                                                      October 29, 2013
                                                             

      "I therefore plead for a science of happiness
      to cure us of the miserable delusion that we
      can achieve it by becoming richer than our
      neighbors."

                    -- George Bernard Shaw,
                       "Too True to Be Good" (1931)

                                             ENOUGH_IS_ENOUGH

       Behavioral economics has                              JUSTICE_HAPPY
       supposedly come up with:
                                             Allison's take on Nietzsche's
       " ... the finding that                notion of "The Gay Science":
       societies experiencing
       higher incomes are not                The search for knowledge as
       necessarily happier..."               the purpose to life.

       Or so says the review by              (As opposed to resting secure
       Alan Wolfe (Boston College,           in the knowledge that we are
       PoliSci) or Derek Bok's               god's children, or some such
       "The Politics of Happiness"           thing.)

       http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/books/review/Wolfe-t.html

   I had the impression that this must be
   a really weak book, but I realized that
   this was due to a New York Times book
   review, which has become singularly
   unreliable in recent years, since the
   lords of the Times planted Tanenhaus            TANENHAUS
   there, formerly of the National Review.

   And indeed Wolfe appears to have a
   libertarian disgust at the thought
   that the state might consider doing
   more than stepping out of the way to
   allow "the pursuit of happiness"
                                           Back in the late-70s, a
   On the other hand, Derek Bok is a       friend of mine had to deal
   former president of Harvard, so         with a philosophy TA with a
   I wouldn't expect to much of him.       new-age vibe who asked the
                                           class to "think about what
   Dueling prejudices.                     makes you happy".

                                           My friend-- a basic Long
                                           Island dude-- responded:

                                    "I was really happy when I bought my car.
                                     I was really happy getting my hands down
                                     my girlfriend's pants."

                                     (If only government would work
                                      on the *important* problems.)





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