"Happy" societies discourage the pleasures of melancholy. They judge people who enjoy sad songs and rainy days, or who prefer to stay single rather than go through the motions of dating people they don't really feel strongly for. It's not that the society is happier, it's that it is more determined to keep up the image of happiness. Really, it's just another status game, and just underneath the surface of those games lies true misery. There is no satisfying outlet.
I'm not sure that people whose life is a struggle to stay alive have much time to indulge in sad songs or wait for the perfect partner to come along: this kind of indulgence in misery and laser focus on small problems is exactly the kind of thing that's possible only in a society that's "happy" overall by virtue of good health, education and financial stability.
I'd agree with you that the "status game" is more prevalent in "well-off" societies though, except I feel that there's parallel competition to have the biggest problems and the most cynical take on the positive things in life - good for melancholic and angst-ridden cultural output but not so good for the suicide rate.
So melancholy is a shameful indulgence, and happiness is discipline and duty? Is it somehow better to those who struggle tragically if I keep a smile on my face at all times? My natural reaction upon thinking of them is to do the opposite.
I think there is something sinister about recommending material indulgence as a means of overcoming the sin of "emotional" indulgence, especially if those who suffer from want are used as justification.
Is all trauma in rich society non-existent? Does death no longer exist, or loneliness, or guilt, or regret, or uncertainty, or evil, or unrequited love, or feeling trapped, or inadequacy, or betrayal, or aging, or health issues, or any other existential problem? Why is art throughout history rife with these issues if they are abnormal elements of the human experience?
I agree that some can overly prioritize negativity or cynicism, but I think this phenomenon is just a contrarian response to the dominant emotional valuation. I am tempted into it whenever someone insists that I must be happy, or talks down about angst as if they were not themselves human. It's offensive to the spirit and sense of honesty, integrity, and self. Better to let feelings flow naturally. I too like feeling happy, if it's genuine.
As for the "perfect partner", I either feel a romantic pull towards someone, or I don't. Every time I see people fake it for the sake of looking normal, it ends in disaster.
I think you're overanalysing my comments; I certainly never said anything about duty to be happy or the absence of trauma in wealthy society.
My point was simply that the less-well-off have considerably more pressure not to react emotionally to [relatively minor] adverse circumstances and considerably less time for introspection and musing over what could have been, if only. Possibly their everyday crises also better-calibrate their sense of perspective (or if you prefer, densensitize them).
I'm not convinced that rich society is dominated by the relentless pressure to be happy so much as a focus on emotional state, whether that's trying outdo each other in terms of success or agonising over failings many would consider trivial, because the meeting of our material needs can be taken for granted and none of our social relationships are based on need.
(The problem with the search "perfect partner" is not so much the romantic pull at the beginning as the worry that the level of romantic bliss is not what it once was, or could be, or the grass might be greener on the other side.)
This sort of correlates with the theory that poor countries are happier because of their "less developed" lifestyle that encourages friendship and camaraderie over accomplishment and material gains.
Not sure if it's the "less developed lifestyle" or the adversity. When you have to fight corruption at each step, when there are problems with basic amenities like water, electricity, land shortage, class divides, language divides, then you do find a lot of friends who have the same issues as you.
The above sounds a bit silly or ironic, but one hears of the miners who were trapped for months who built great friendships during those hard times. I am also reminded of that movie "Plenty".
I come from a country (3rd world) where life is tough. That results in a lot of bonding and friendships. So despite adversities and misery there is a lot of happiness, too.
From what i see, Western society seems pretty lonely -- I often wonder if that's because there is nothing (no problems, no adversity) to bond people together.
I would agree. I am from Denmark (which I think might have sparked this research because we are frequently reported the happiest nation on Earth - and also the one with the highest suicide rate).
It's fun to see when something happens. For instance, the credit card system broke down everywhere for about an hour this Saturday, during the prime shopping hours. This almost caused a panic but there was also a lot of friendly conversation among strangers becuase they suddendly had something to talk about!
Interestingly a depressed person is most at risk of suicide when their depression starts to life. Because it is then that they have the energy to go through with it.
This is a well-known problem when treating severely depressed people with anti-depressants.
It makes sense, though. I had a very depressive roommate years ago, and it seemed like the defining characteristic of her depression was sometimes having an insurmountably high activation energy for seemingly mundane tasks, and being painfully conscious of it. Somebody who was full of frustration / anger from fighting that all the time, but suddenly able to follow through could really take it out on themselves. (She eventually transcended her problems, and was still a cool to know in her worst moments.)
It is something my wife learned in medical school. And then told me when her cousin committed suicide, just a few weeks after he was put on anti-depressants.
Are you happy? It's the only
way to be, kid.
Yes, be happy, it's a good nice
way to be.
But not happy-happy, kid, don't
be too doubled-up doggone happy.
It's the doubled-up doggone happy-
happy people ... bust hard ... they
do bust hard ... when they bust.
Be happy, kid, go to it, but not too
doggone happy
One of the common findings in that field is that you don't do stuff based on absolute measurement, but always relative. One of the good examples studied are revolutions: you don't do revolutions because what you have is intolerable, but because you can see, either near you or in a theoretical model a better solution.
To come back to suicide, one of the reason he provided as a lesser suicide rate among the catholics and jews is the social pressure: you just don't do that. With a weaker social link (that isn't incompatible with more happy society), committing suicide is even more accepted.
Ie. I'm surrounded by happy people that don't care about me,
that's quite an incentive to look for a final solution.
Beside, might be that these countries as a all are more happy because the less happy persons are no more because they committed suicide ?
Quickly skimmed figures in the paper. It seems that if you remove Catholic European countries from the data set, correlation could disappear.
However, I personally think that the paper is still on to something. A few weeks ago after reading some article I was skimming through murder and suicide rates by country and it looked like there could be an inverse correlation there, but I haven't had time to study it yet.
If life is hard, than you're too busy to think about life.
Everything you're doing is meaningful, because it keeps you
alive.
In our society we pretend to do important work. But a lot of
stuff is just too keep us busy. If you're able to look
through this, than it can be quite depressing.
It's not the misery or happiness that we should focus on. It's the comparisons. If you're in a content or happy state of mind, you don't really make those comparisons (or they don't really effect you), however you do when you're down. By making those mental comparisons when you're down, you make things worse for yourself. So instead finding strategies for when you're down where you don't compare yourself to others might be the best solution?
A) Distract yourself.
B) Find enjoyable things in your immediate-present circumstances. This seat I'm sitting in is pretty comfy.
C) Don't go on facebook to see all the apparently happy people.
"Every unhappy person that commits suicide raises the average happiness."
I doubt it.
"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 28,322 American deaths as suicides in the year 2000. Conservative estimates are that 6-10 people are intimately affected by each death. However, a study by the Baton Rouge, LA Crisis Intervention Center (Bland, 1994), the combination of possibly affected individuals reached over 28 people per suicide. In some families, the estimated numbers exceed 50 people (Coleman, 2003). Since, on average, 1,200 New Yorkers die by suicide each year, the latter estimate means approximately 60,000 people qualify as suicide survivors each and every year. This is equivalent to the population of the city of Utica (pop. 59,947, July 1, 2002)."
I personally knew two persons who committed suicide. I don't think in either case it had anything to do with premise of the post. Also, not sure where this whole meme of highest rate in developed countries comes from. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra...
If you live happy life -- it's more likely to experience significant drop in happiness (simply because there is plenty of room to fall).
When such drop happens quickly -- there is higher risk for suicide.
