How our search for happiness began – 02/13/2023 – Equilíbrio

There was a time in human history when it was frowned upon to show joy. In fact, the pursuit of happiness as we know it today is something relatively new in our history.

This is one of the observations of historian Peter N. Stearns, professor emeritus at George Mason University (USA), specializing in comparative social history and the history of emotions.

He is author of History of Happinessa book released in 2022 in Brazil by Contexto.

In conversation with BBC News Brasil, Stearns discussed some highlights of the history of the human relationship with happiness and what lessons it brings to modern times.

The pursuit of happiness

By the early 18th century, in places like the United Kingdom and its colonies in North America, historians noticed that people prided themselves on being a little melancholy.

This had to do, in part, with the Protestant logic of being aware of your sins and keeping yourself humble in the eyes of God.

Peter Stearns quotes in his research the diary written by a head of the family at the time, who defended that God, in quotes, “did not allow joy or pleasure, but a kind of melancholic and austere conduct”.

This is not to say that people were unhappy—we simply cannot judge that impartially by today’s standards. Because happiness, obviously, is something very subjective.

What it means is that there was a perception among people at the time that it was necessary to apologize for moments of happiness, considering them an affront to God, according to Stearns.

But that changed radically in the 18th century, to the point where, in the drafting of the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the pursuit of happiness was considered a human right. The 1793 Constitution of France also spelled out the idea that, in quotes, “the aim of society is common happiness”.

New roles for dentists

“The new idea was that not only should people be happy, but they had a responsibility to appear happy, producing something like a new imperative of joy,” says Stearns in his book.

“The result showed both in written advice and, even more impressively, in a new willingness to smile broadly and expect smiles in return. Manners began to be redefined to emphasize the positive.”

It was the end, according to the historian, “of the taciturn self-control and the restrained smile, replaced by greater spontaneity.”

“Novels—a new literary genre in their own right—began to depict women with ‘charming’ or ‘sweet’ smiles, a clear sign of newness,” he writes.

“In the mid-18th century, new types of dentists emerged in urban areas on both sides of the Atlantic, eager to care for teeth rather than pull them out. A range of innovative products, including toothpicks and toothbrushes, were introduced to preserve smiles, and artificial aids such as lipstick were designed to enhance the whiteness of teeth. The act of smiling demonstrated that one was keeping up with the latest consumer products, as well as displaying the right kind of emotion.”

The mystery surrounding this change

But what led to such a huge change in perspective, causing the exaltation of happiness and smile? There are explanations, but also mystery, according to Peter Stearns.

“We know part of the answer. There was, obviously, a huge change in the intellectual climate in Western societies, associated with the Enlightenment”, he says to the report.

“Intellectuals became more optimistic. They became more focused on this world rather than such a religious aspiration. So the change in cultural background was closely linked to the rise of a greater interest in an expectation of happiness.”

The increase in physical comfort and prosperity of the higher social classes, as well as periods of lull from epidemics and plagues, probably also aroused a greater sense of optimism.

“But frankly, there’s a bit of a mystery to it. (…) That was a big cultural shift, and I don’t think it’s entirely clear why it happened. So it’s a good question,” he says.

Obsession with happiness?

At the same time, the pursuit of happiness has become so entrenched in Western societies that, in Stearns’ view, it has created an obsession and a difficulty in dealing with sadness.

“Certainly there is an aspect of the modern interest in happiness that has probably made us intolerant of sadness. There are some studies, for example, (showing that) we don’t deal well with children who are sad, because we want children to be happy. So I think that , frankly, there is a problem with that”, says the historian.

“Most studies on happiness, from a psychological point of view, argue that happiness needs to be understood as something that, with some frequency, (will be interspersed) with bad things, with sadness. So a successful definition of happiness has to allow room for a little grief and sadness. But I think our cultures don’t handle that well. We’re impatient with grief.”

Happiness and romantic love

Similar patterns are observed in the link between happiness and romantic love.

As happiness became a social objective, cultural manifestations – from written novels to songs and, later on, films – began to exalt romantic love, based on marriage and relationships, as a way to be happy.

At the same time, however, there were unrealistic expectations about this, in Stearns’ view.

“In 19th-century England, for example, there began to be enormous pressure on fiction writers to write happy endings,” he says.

“Why do we want happy endings in what we read? I think it’s probably true that we’re dissatisfied with stories that don’t have happy endings. I don’t think that’s entirely healthy. So trying to find a balance between expectations and reality is another complex part of this kind of writing. analysis.”

Were nomads happier?

One point that has sparked debate among historians is that human beings may have lost happiness during a crucial phase of their evolution: when they stopped being nomadic hunter-gatherers and started to create sedentary and agricultural societies.

That is, right when humans began to earn a life of more predictability and comfort.

Of course, we cannot ask a hunter-gatherer of that time if he was happier than we are today, but historians cite some objective points of this transition from nomadism to sedentarism.

After leaving hunting and gathering, many people began to have a less varied diet. Workdays got longer. Living in societies, people became more susceptible to epidemics and wars. Inequality between different social classes began to take shape.

For Peter Stearns, one of the main issues to be discussed in the current context is the collective spirit of hunter-gatherers.

“They had a great deal of group solidarity,” Stearns tells BBC News Brasil.

“Which isn’t to say there weren’t tensions, but they were really dependent on each other. And I think there’s a lot of evidence that community structures improve happiness. And one of the challenges of happiness today is that, for a lot of people, community structures are weakened”, points out Stearns.

“On the other hand, we can’t go back to that level. They (hunter-gatherers) didn’t have our comforts, nor the same levels of health that we have. There’s no point in pretending we could go back (in time). So we need to find our own balance that works in a modern context”.

Cultural Differences in Happiness

And is there an objective definition of happiness?

Peter Stearns describes it in the book as a kind of emotional reinforcement for actions that bring well-being. And with physical and social effects too: happiness helps lower blood pressure and generally helps people get along better with each other.

So much so that smiling, in the modern context, is a way of making contact with unknown people.

Philosophy has also made many contributions to understanding happiness. Some examples: the most immediate idea, of simply increasing pleasure and avoiding suffering, is called hedonic happiness.

Eudaimonic happiness, on the other hand, is that which comes from positive personal relationships or from pride and a sense of accomplishment after an important job, for example. Many psychologists end up seeing happiness as a combination of these two views.

But the ways in which this manifests itself change from culture to culture and from time to time.

Peter Stearns finds it fascinating how this view is quite different in eastern countries and in Latin America, for example.

“Russians don’t seem to have the same expectation of happiness as Westerners. (…) The Japanese don’t do very well in international happiness rankings, considering how prosperous and healthy they are. But this reflects a different culture. The way we think about happiness in the West tends to be highly individualistic”, explains the historian to BBC News Brasil.

“The Japanese have a greater sense of the importance of community cohesion. So it’s hard to say: Are the Japanese less happy than Westerners? Or do they just see life a little differently? Probably a little bit of both. (. ..) The situation in Latin America is fascinating because Latin Americans tend to do very well in (rankings of) happiness compared to their general levels of economics and health. So there seems to be something in Latin American culture that triggers an expectation fairly high levels of happiness and a high level of achievement. And the cultural variations are fascinating and don’t quite match the level of economic performance.”

That is, it is good to relativize the conclusions of global happiness rankings. But even so, they bring interesting lessons, continues the historian.

“There are obvious attributes of societies that are often listed as the happiest: they have relatively high levels of economic development. They have a well-developed social network. So I think there’s something (to be learned) from these studies,” he says. “Obviously, there are also debates. The case of Bhutan, for example, is widely discussed. The country does not score highly in these international rankings, but they (Bhutanese officials) argue that they have a different, more religious and holistic approach (to happiness). . And under those standards, local leaders claim to be doing well.”

‘Modest aspirations to happiness’

This whole discussion reinforces the idea that understanding the history of happiness can bring important lessons to how we see ourselves in the world.

“Too much emphasis on pleasure is probably not very sensible, particularly as you move through various stages of life,” opines Stearns.

“What you want is an emphasis on achievement, and I don’t mean from a status perspective, but from a contribution to society, to have a sense that your life has amounted to something. That’s probably the most important goal.”

Another lesson, in his view, is the delicate balance between seeking meaning in life, without making it obsessive.

“The pressure to be happy risks being counterproductive. I don’t think people should ever ask themselves, ‘Am I happy?’ But they shouldn’t do that too often. It’s unrealistic. Let’s keep our aspirations more modest.”