Should our politicians be serious about happiness? pt. 1

There has been a quiet revolution building up in the developed world in the last decade. People from different academic disciplines, walks of life and parts of the world have started to come together and talk seriously about happiness. The fields are diverse and include economists, think-tankers, pyschologists, theologians and statisticians. Even Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has got in on the act. However, as with all good ideas, the serious political discourse has lagged behind, with political posturing, complacency and lazy media cynicism taking centre stage. But why? Why would a "serious" politician lose credibility if they unashamedly make happiness the cornerstone of their political beliefs? Isn't it self evident that our leaders should look out for our most obvious desire?

I will look at this in due course, but before continuing, we need to consider the definition of happiness. Much of the confusion arises from the use of the word, whether happiness is inherently difficult to define and whether it is different for every individual.

Researchers of happiness and individuals will agree that whilst there may be many causes of happiness, they are easily generalisable. In short we have two types of happiness:

(i) Moment-by-moment, instinctual, physical happiness, sometimes referred to as being hedonistic. This is the delight, joy, pleasure we might feel from a food treat, laughter, social interaction, sex, an exhilarating act, release of stress, cessation of pain / hunger or memory of any of the above. This is a well-documented scientific phenomenon, loosely linked to our balance of neurotransmitters.

(ii) Reflective, consciousness-driven, life-satisfaction based happiness, sometimes referred to as being eudaimonic. This comes from the moments in our lives when we reflect and think about our lives holistically. This type of happiness will be linked to meaning, purpose, freedom, achievement, respect, love and self-actualisation. This comes from the fact that we as humans have consciousness and are able to reflect our lives in the context of a wider, infinite world and our limited experience of it.

There is no magic formula to decide which of the two is more desirable. However, it is clear from self-examination that the absence of either is not desirable. A hedonistic lifestyle in search of all of life's pleasures but without any meaning, sense of achievement, love or reflection would be miserable. An overly harsh life without simple pleasures would be at odds with our physical desires, causing lifelong conflict.

It is also clear that the pursuit of both types of happiness needs to sustainable. This is most clear with economic resources - in a market system we need to trade our services in order to get those goods and services which satisfy our needs or give us pleasure. Over burdening ourselves with debt for immediate pleasure would not be sustainable; nor would running our planetary resources down to zero. It also needs to be sustainable in terms of not being overly addictive. This is most obvious with hedonistic happiness. Consuming a good at higher and higher rates with no discernible increase in our enjoyment of that good is not sustainable.

This I hope is a conflict free definition of happiness and its nature. It is pretty straight forward, self-evident, measurable (see ONS, OECD, Stiglitz-Sen and Nef) and probably easy to improve given enough time. Yet there have not been any material increases in our happiness in the west for over 50 years. It is clear we have not been taking it seriously - but why haven't our politicians?

In my next blog I will explore some of the myths that stop politicians from discussing and using such concepts in their policy making. Many activists have good arguments for happiness to be taken seriously - The Action for Happiness looks at this issue on their website, as does the New Economics Foundation. My exploration will look in detail as to why it is that our politicians are so at odds with happiness.