Damn! All that doom and gloom gone to waste!

Seriously, it is good to find that Australians are, perhaps, ignoring the muck spreaders of academia and the media.

This article makes a nice change from the moaning and groaning we are too often subjected to these days.

If we are so wonderfully happy then how come there how come so many people at all levels of society use and are addicted to alcohol and other kinds of drugs? Especially people who seem to have it all in terms of the current socially defined "success"!
And how come so many people, including increasing numbers of children, are on some kind of prescription drug to help them get by?---mothers little helper as it were.
And how come so many marriages end in divorce?
And how come there are so many disturbed and abused children?---ask Fiona Stanley.
And how come so many people effectively use shopping as unhappiness therapy?
How many people use eating (and thereby become obese) as unhappiness therapy?
Do genuinely happy and sane people allow degrading garbage via so called "reality" TV to be piped into their "living" room via the insanity machine in the corner----stay tuned for the next episode of dehumanising degradation!

I agree with the author, a well written piece. It is I believe a fair representation of how middle class Australians think and feel. Personally I have never been happier. When I look around I think most people are happy and optimistic at the moment. Sure there are problems, when aren't there. Most things are improving however, including the environment.

"Depending on circumstances, and especially if we are pushed in the right direction, this individual capacity for fear can be turned quickly into a collective capacity for panic. Throughout history humans have panicked about a stunning array of things from race to plague to radio plays."
To global warming...catastrophe!

"People scare each other to gain political support, get funding for scientific research, make headlines, raise money for causes or sell books."
Dare I say global warming again...seems to be the mass panic of choice at this point in time.

"It is in the interests of both the extreme Right and the extreme Left to pretend our values are in crisis. Crisis suits extremists of all persuasions because an impending calamity suggests you must adopt new behaviours immediately to avoid annihilation."
There are numerous posters on these forums that decry our way of life. Continually screaming to everyone about any calamity you can think of. All of them when engaged, allude to the promise of a better and vastly different way of life. In much the same way as the Jehovah's that beat on your door every weekend, they extol their new utopian ideals. Most however, are very short on detail, want to impinge on people's freedoms and generally take us into a neo-dark age.

Cassandra,
I'm happy that you're happy. There a lot of Australians who are not happy, and who are begining to discover that a plasma TV does not bring happiness as the yank consumerism story tells them it should.

It is difficult to pick these days but we are Aussies not yanks, and traditionally we are happiest when we are in the company of family and friends. Workchoices put a stop to that frivolity now we work for a pittance to make someone else ever wealthier instead.

Happy, we are not.

A quote from my favourite "philosopher".

"The human world has become a kind of insane sporting event, at which people threaten one another and carry on in an insane manner---something like the gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome.It is madness. And TV helps create and also plays to that insanity. Everywhere, people and groups look to get attention by getting themselves on TV---often through the exercise of rotten and demented violence, and through the exercise of an altogether aggravated disposition.

The human world of nowtime is a lunatic asylum, a soap opera of benighted mummers. That absurd soap opera actually CONTROLS THE DESTINY AND EXPERIENCE OF THE TOTAL WORLD OF HUMAN BEINGS---and that benighted world-mummery is, in its root disposition, TOTALLY INDIFFERENT to human life, and to the world altogether.

Narcissus is the nature of human society now. As a result, human society is becoming progressively more and more aggravated, and leading to an absurd and insane life of competitive conflict for the totality of humankind. And that life of competitive conflict has already negatively affected even the natural systems of the Earth---and it is causing, and will continue to cause, terrible suffering everywhere."

See also http://www.dabase.org/coop+tol.htm

It's all relative

I don't think Cassandra and I live in the same world.
I certainly don't consider myself happy, or as having freedom, or choices.
It may be that materialism brings happiness to those who can afford to purchase whatever it is that makes them happy.
The majority of us, however, barely manages to make ends meet (even with 2 incomes) and I struggle to find a sense of purpose in a society that considers material acquisition as the worthiest pursuit of all.
Cassandra and I definitely don't live in the same world.

Cassandra, I am also happy that you are so happy. Don't let that toxic coalition of anti-capitalist and anti-modern commentators make you believe that Australia's economic success has anything to do with the tidal wave of human misery in the poorest part of the world. Definitely don't succumb to anxiety, depression and sadness over any such connection. Definitely don't read Ted Trainer (Sydney University) et al "The Limits To Growth Analysis" - stay happy.

Cassandra, I am happy that you and I live in the richest quintile of world incomes which is some 70 times more than that of the poorest quintile. They might not be too happy but you are right - we really certainly have very little to complain about.

I was not terribly happy about the bit in the above analysis that says the main reason the poor of this world are so poor and will probably always stay so is that we are so rich and happy and have the economic and technological might to keep it that way.

Trainer and his toxic friends say the the world is running out of resources and it is our fault. They say that our lifestyle is "grossly unsustainable". Some people just don't want us to be happy. It made me very unhappy to read his document. I advise you not to read it. Stay happy.

If societies general aspirations dont work for you CitizenK, then develop your own. If you dont see meaning in the pursuit of wealth, then dont. Seek to help people, seek to surf every weekend (or play golf), sell your house and buy a caravan and travel round Australia (working as you go for enough to eat). If you try to do what someone else thinks is a great idea for them, then its little wonder that you are not happy. Yes, its a struggle to make ends meet, but then it always has been. Do you live in the city? If so, then leave. The city is a very depressing place - all that concrete, people and noise - yuk!

In short, work out what you think is a worthwhile pursuit, and if you then follow that pursuit, you'll almost certainly be reasonably happy.

Great article

I get tired of the four favourite fallacies of modern day anti-capitalist apocalyptics:

- Prosperity makes you miserable
- Prosperity equates venality/shallowness/greed/crassness/consumerism/cultural impoverishment
- Prosperity cannot possibly last; and
- Our prosperity is bought at the cost of others’ impoverishment

Country Gal – well said. To my mind the greatest freedoms of prosperous societies are not the freedoms to buy more flat-screen TVs, but rather to define and live according to one’s own values and priorities. We are not perfectly free in this of course, but we have more options and more possibilities than any generation before us, and members of almost any other modern culture.

As Cassandra says:

“Prosperity provides opportunities to explore the self-actualising behaviours and social engagement that improves our wellbeing. In addition, prosperity and the availability of a wider variety of experiences increase opportunities for sensory pleasure such as better food and more stimulating recreation that, although it isn't happiness, certainly helps the winter nights fly.”
Amen

Not a bad piece at all. And Ho hum, in answer to pretty much all of your questions 'because they want to.'
Reality tv? Seriously? It may be garbage, but it's what rates, and it's therefore what people want.

The author's right in that it's nowhere near as bad as a casual glance at the media will tell you.
That isn't to say we don't have to be vigilant to ensure it stays that way...

Unsurprising piece, who ever met a realistic saleswoman? Upton Sinclair over 100 years ago wrote, "it is impossible to get a man to understand a fact if his salary depends upon him not understanding". Cassandra writes from her privelidge, and however carefully she might search out & slice statistics to fit her neoliberal spin, everyone living outside the ruling class can smell the bulls**t a mile away.

I dunno Liam. I think this is more about optimism and pessimism than any class.

I'm not living in any ivory tower, nor am I keen on neo-liberal politics. Yet I just don't buy into all this doom and gloom crap. I look outside and see that I have plenty of opportunities to be happy, and realise that rather than moan about fate, I can live a pretty decent life if I have the gumption to make one for myself.

"because people want it" isn't an answer to HoHum's questions.

"because people want it" is the typical "Turn right" corporate response to any question that challenges the status quo.

If you acknowledge the 'reality' that Hohum presents, then how are people happy in such situations?

Sure we are told daily and and in a myriad of ways by corporations (mostly through their TV/media) that we are happy.

Except, happiness requires conciousness.

That's why the Great Depression was so named.

We'll see how happy people are during the next one.....

Blind, self-indulgent ignorance and indifference towards the harsh realities being forced upon some 2 million or more 'ordinary' (working class) Australian citizens. A toxic mixture of Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) and managerialist psychobabble!

Throw a barbie, Cassandra, for the 'workers-at-the-coalface' of the burgeoning Charity Industry (NOT the 'executive directors', CEOs, CFOs and the like)... often offshoots of the various 'Christian' sects, and listen to the anecdotal evidence out there regarding the rapidly worsening plight of several million already marginalised and alienated individual Australians and families.

Oh, and whilst you and your care-free (for the moment that is) kids are "wolfing down a Happy Meal" I suggest that you closely read and reflect at length on 'The Hidden Injuries of Class', as opposed to the fantasy of another Harry Potter!

"But what makes me happy is to take my kids to laugh our heads off through the new Pixar movie, stop in at Time Zone to bust some moves in a video dance-off and put in an order for the new Harry Potter before wolfing down a Happy Meal"

Then what makes you happy is the act of making your children happy.
And it's likely that what makes the kids happy is not just the happy meal, the games, and the movie, but actually the sharing of these experiences with their mum and their siblings.

The author demonstrates once and for all that ignorance really is bliss.

Seems to me there has been boom time for the unhappiness industry for 20 odd years. Every oddity and personal quirk gets a label these days- I'm sure even 'optimism in the face of difficulties' has been classified by some psychologist on the make.
Climate change would be better marketed as 'opportunity to end pollution' etc than as it is now, where its a political weapon or a chance for the 'end of the worlders' and 'human haters' to vent their spleens.
Gotta go QUEEEEENSLANDER

Despite a vast increase in wealth and consumption, according to the 2007 Year Book Australia " various surveys conducted since the 1950s have produced results within a fairly narrow range, that is average life satisfaction of around 6.5 to 7.5 on a scale of one to ten, indicating general satisfaction with their lives." (sorry URL too long to include)

This German study http://darp.lse.ac.uk/papersDB/Ferrer-i-Carbonell_(JPubE05).pdf finds that "the larger an individual’s own income is in comparison with the income of the reference group, the happier the individual is" and also "that poorer individuals’ well-being is negatively influenced by the fact that their income is lower than that of their reference group, while richer individuals do not get happier from having an income above the average."

This all suggests to me that it is not income level that makes people happy or unhappy (unles you're living in real poverty). Rather it is income disparity that causes dissatisfaction. And guess what? Australia is becoming a more unequal (and presumably more dissatisfied) place. Average wage-earners may be better off, but they've seen executive salaries boosted into the stratosphere. The ultimate irony is that this doesn't even make the rich any happier, tt just makes those left behind feel worse....

There is an industry built around those who don't like what's happening in the world around them. They take as many steps and make as much noise as possible to make life miserable for others.

Cassandra, if you read these comments, you might care to look at the effects of participatory democracy at school. With respect to the brilliant Declaration of Independence, a book was published last year that reflected the outcomes of a study of alumni of the Sudbury Valley School (SVS) in the USA. It's title reflected the moods and hindsight views of life by its former Students - "The Pursuit of Happiness". Along with sister Schools in other countries, SVS found its past Students have different approaches and attitudes to many aspects and challenges in life, most of it very positive and uplifting, partly because they are independent, self-directed, self-motivated people who can overcome failure. They know about democratic values including freedom, because they prepared for life experiencing those things at School. They don't rely on governments. They follow their own interests, are self-fulfilled as a result, in the full gamut of professions and occupations.

Our School failed in Australia because, like other cultural differences that we have with the USA, the State can't handle the fact that some people want to be truly independent and can self-manage their affairs, through participatory democracy. Governments and the odd political party maintain a practice of meddling and interfering in people's lives. They are intolerable intrusions. Government meddling and every new regulation erodes our freedom, including our choices, and individuality. There are now generations who believe that to be happy you must rely on government, their props, their controls, our redistributed money. They don't realise that only freedom and independence will provide self-fulfillment and happiness.

We have realised that in order to seek self-managed, self-determining independence and freedom is by becoming a self-funded independent (not just non-state) School. We'll write our own Declaration of Independence. It'll be interesting to see the roadblocks that are put in our path, and what measures we'll use to overcome them.

Johnj
The survey you quote reports that “When asked about how they felt about their lives as a whole, 76% of Australian adults indicated they were delighted, pleased or mostly satisfied with their lives. Less than 6% of people indicated that they felt mostly dissatisfied, unhappy or terrible about their lives”.

It also reports that Australia has amongst the highest happiness scores in international studies:
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0e5fa1cc95cd093c4a2568110007852b/0D4CB6F07133EA5DCA2572360002FAA3?opendocument

Doesn’t this, and the fact that measured life satisfaction has been pretty stable despite huge economic and social change, suggest that the doomsayers on this thread are wrong, and that there’s no evidence either that we’re utterly miserably, or that we suffer growing dissatisfaction because of income disparities (on which the evidence is also pretty mixed – see http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6523.02003-04?OpenDocument.

I’m not surprised that Australians are showing up on surveys as happy little Vegemites. As a rule, Westerners in general don’t like to admit to being unhappy because, as inheritors of an Enlightenment culture that is driven by the pursuit of happiness, such an admission carries the stigma of failure. If formally asked, the average Westerner will tend to say that they are happy, regardless of their reality, because it is the socially desirable response.

Add to this the fact that Australians, in particular, are drip-fed through the media and popular culture to believe that we are a happy-go-lucky, sun-blessed, sport-mad, fresh-faced lot who have inherited a ‘lucky country’ whose freedoms were bravely defended by a bunch of plucky little Anzacs who died in their thousands a century ago on the other side of the world.

With all of this happiness pressure being thrown at us on a daily basis, only the terminally contrary would dare to admit to not feeling all that good about life.

The reality that I see in my friends and family, and the people I meet every day, is that Australians are generally over-worked, over-mortgaged, over-governed, over-educated, over-alert/alarmed and over-stressed by the pressure to meet the minimum requirements of living in this user-pays society that has been carefully designed for us by successive governments over the last 25 years.

Derek@Booroobin,

‘Our School failed in Australia because, like other cultural differences that we have with the USA, the State can't handle the fact that some people want to be truly independent and can self-manage their affairs, through participatory democracy.’

My children went to a very similar school to Sudbury – as you are probably aware, there are a handful of these truly democratic, independent community schools dotted around Australia, even though they may not be entirely identical to the Sudbury philosophy.

What I found during the years that my children attended this school was that, deep down, many potential school parents – and very occasionally, children – did not really want to be ‘truly independent’ or to ‘self-manage their affairs through participatory democracy’. Usually, on visiting the school initially, they would be inspired at all the creativity and confidence in the children, but by about 6 months after enrolment, they would be tearing their hair out because their little Johnny was not at the same reading or maths level as their neighbours’/friends’/sisters’/brothers’ children in the mainstream system. Sadly, these people would invariably give up and leave, often in a blaze of recrimination.

For those who stayed, however, the rewards were extraordinary. Now teenagers, my children still thank me on almost a weekly basis for the privilege of going to a school in which they were given the awesome responsibility of directing their own learning and making their own rules. Whether this will make them self-directed adults, only time will tell - but I think they got a good start.

No society in the modern world has been able to provide this sense of individual responsibility for their citizens, but sooner or later, one will successfully break through and set a powerful precedent. There are tentative signs that the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela may beat the odds and get a genuine, self-directed, grassroots democracy up and running. Again, only time will tell.

Hi MLK,

Over 8 years of operation of a non-state school demonstrated, until our admission processes evolved in response, that many people, particularly parents knew what they didn't want from Schools, but very, very few knew what they actually wanted. In other words, few people had taken the time to know what they actually wanted out of education or in life for their children. It was a completely different experience during the period of 2.5 years that a self-funded Democratic Centre of Learning operated. The removal of the shackles of coercive government funding was almost a relief, and people were more aware and focussed. It became more of a learning community than ever before. But then in July 2006 the day to day operation was suspended on the basis of legal advice, following destructive intimidatory threats of criminal action and fines by the State Education Minister.

For those people who did know what they wanted, they wanted for their children the kind of freedom, with responsibility, and a deep personal philosophy, knowledge, experience and most of all day to day practice of democratic values, that few others know.

Unfortunately in the authoritarian, bureaucratic, hierarchical mainstream education system that most young people are compelled to attend for between 12,000 and 15,000 hours of their lives, they are actually prepared for the type of existence which leads to unhappiness because they're only accustomed to external authority figures, and not their intrinsic abilities, for approval and authority. When they don't get the support from authority that they expect, or authority figures don't respond as they expect, they look for someone to blame, not accepting their own personal responsibility.

Like Booroobin Graduates and Graduates of democratic previously (and hopefully future) sister Schools around the world, I'm pleased that your children appreciate their democratic education experiences. Sudbury Graduates are prepared for life as independent effective adults in an open, civil democratic society. Democratic education is a truly awe inspiring experience for those involved and also those who witness the outcomes of the young people who stay for the long term.

I don't mind being unhappy.

My bank account is bulging and I don't mind being unhappy.

Weird.

MLK
you must have a high opinion of your own perceptiveness, and a very low one of your fellow humanity, if you really believe that the75+% who report being happy are lying because they’re embarrassed to admit the truth

Rhian, have a look at this paper http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/~aleigh/pdf/TopIncomesAustralia.pdf . According to this research "during the 1980s and 1990s, top income shares rose rapidly. At the start of the twenty-first century, the income share of the richest was higher than it had been at any point in the previous fifty years. Among top income groups, recent decades have also seen a rise in the share of top income accruing to the super-rich." For, the salary of Alan Moss, head of Macquarie Bank, is now $30 million per annum, 2% of Macquarie's net profit.

Australia is clearly becoming a more unequal place. My point was that if (a big if) ordinary folk are comparing themselves to the rich, they are likely to have become more dissatisfied. Don't forget to throw in increasing job insecurity and disproportionate tax cuts for the well-off.

I can agree with you on MLK's comments. The notion that people are lying in surveys on their level of happiness seems a little silly.

Johnj I agree with you on this point. The widening gap between rich and poor is a catalyst for dissatisfaction and possible social unrest. Australians as a whole have increased in wealth but we do not want to create an American style underclass. Unfortunately we do seem to be heading in this direction currently. Perhaps a change of government might slow this.

Rhian and Johnj,

‘The notion that people are lying in surveys on their level of happiness seems a little silly.’

Why should it be ‘silly’ to suggest that people lie on surveys? Even professional researchers recognise the tendency to give socially desirable, as opposed to real, responses to value-loaded survey questions. This tendency is even acknowledged in the following quote that comes from the ABS site you linked to, Rhian (Thursday, 24 May 2007 4:36:24 PM):

‘People from different cultures bring different meaning to the notions of life satisfaction and happiness based on differing cultural values, structures, histories and circumstances. This, combined with the individual nature of life satisfaction, are factors which should be considered when interpreting international comparisons of life satisfaction.’

Also, if 76 per cent of Australians claim to be happy, that means that 24 per cent are unhappy – that’s one in four people!! (If you take in the ‘socially desirable response’ factor, it could be more like one in three!) Regardless of how that stacks up against other countries, it does not exactly point to a healthy society.

One of Derek@Booroobin’s comments above deserves requoting: ‘ …in the authoritarian, bureaucratic, hierarchical mainstream education system that most young people are compelled to attend … they are actually prepared for the type of existence which leads to unhappiness because they're only accustomed to external authority figures, and not their intrinsic abilities, for approval and authority.’

We are a society that has lost touch with the natural order and with ourselves, so we settle for imperfect measures of happiness. If people are telling a few fibs about how happy they are, can you really blame them?

MLK – check the data again. Only 6% of people reported being unhappy. Most of the 24% were “mixed”.

JohnJ - some interesting points. Some questions:

If inequality causes unhappiness and inequality is rising, why do surveys not point to rising unhappiness?

Inequality of what? -
– Isee two key differences between the survey you cite and the ABS data I quote – firstly, time period (the Leigh survey covered a longer timeframe but was a little less up-to-date than the ABS), and secondly, the thing being measured. The ABS “equivalises” gross income for the effects of taxes, benefits etc. In general, recent years showed a trend of increasing inequality of own-source income that was offset by progressivity of the tax a benefit system to mean that effective disposable incomes of those on low incomes actually grew faster than average. But if subjective well-being depends on the status implied by absolute earnings, not the utility of what can be consumed, progressive taxes and benefits paradoxically might not make much different to we welfare of the relatively poor.

Relative to whom –
Am I going to become more unhappy because James Packer stack on a few more millions, or because I can’t afford a flat-screen TV like my next-door neighbour. I’d guess my comparators will be people somewhat like me. If so, the growing incomes of the superrich won’t bother me very much

What is the source of the unhappiness -
Is ranking or magnitude the key determinant – if our concern is with relative status rather than the absolute utility of consuming more, then I’d expect that status ranking rather than the magnitude of the gap to between comparators is the key issue (look at the intense rivalry between schoolkids over trivial points of difference). If so, unless we have exact equality then reducing the degree of inequality will not improve happiness very much.

Does it matter?
Life is not a contest against other people. The tenth commandment warns us against covetousness. If some people are discontented because they have less than others, should this concern us greatly?

Rhian,

I did check the data – one in four Australians included in the ABS surveys clearly admit to NOT being happy. And it is naive to ignore the cult of happiness and the stigma of unhappiness in our society as a factor in wellbeing surveys. Measuring a nation’s wellbeing by simply asking people to tick a box as to whether they are happy or unhappy – with all the value loading that this entails – is a deeply flawed system.

MLK

I suspect your insistence on inferring the most negative possible interpretation of the survey data, in contradiction of the evident meaning of the results, tells us more about your psychological state than the survey respondents.

However, I agree that there's more to a country's wellbeing that reported emotional states. But that’s precisely why I think the anti-prosperity ideologues are wrong to say that economic growth and living standard don’t matter. Living in a prosperous society gives us more opportunities to do the things that really contribute to our wellbeing, whether it’s education, health protection, opportunities to travel or meet people from different cultures, or even to opt out and live the simple life without the grinding poverty and hard work that entails in poorer societies. These things might not show up I a happiness survey, but they contribute to our quality of life in a broader sense.

Rhian,

‘… I agree that there's more to a country's wellbeing that reported emotional states.’

Well … I am so pleased that you have finally decided to agree with me on this. Thank you. As for YOUR insistence on proving the ‘anti-prosperity ideologues’ wrong, I never entered the debate on causal links between prosperity and happiness. My concerns on this thread have been the folly of relying on value-loaded happiness surveys as gospel truth and a questioning of the ‘real’ happiness of (what I perceive to be) a culture that invests too much of its self worth in external measures. It’s a pity you were much more interested in taking pot shots at my supposed psychological state than reading what I actually wrote.

PS I won’t be commenting any further on this.