Comments on: Human happiness http://www.resistentialists.com/2007/07/23/human-happiness/ because this could also work... Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:50:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: S/E http://www.resistentialists.com/2007/07/23/human-happiness/comment-page-1/#comment-165 S/E Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:31:47 +0000 http://www.resistentialists.com/2007/07/23/human-happiness/#comment-165 My apologies for perpetuating a pessimism you seemed eager to shake with the first bourbon...but on a note to complicate things further, regarding choice and threats, is Ulrich Beck's quite compelling theory of a "risk society", where the traditional hazards of life (earthquakes, droughts, and so on) are replaced by all the risks manufactured to keep us in a state of anxiety about the choices we do make: eat butter today, don't eat it tomorrow; obesity is genetic, now its contagious (watch out for those fat friends!!); red wine will keep your heart fit one day, turn you alcoholic the next. No bloody wonder people are confused, and more than likely go for the simplest option, which is to find distractions - any will do - from real thinking. And about happy indexes, the most worrying thing of all must be that for those who manage to distract themselves, they might really be "happy". What if Rachael Ray's smile is genuine, and she manages to keep it? If there is any injustice here, it must be that we are the ones who get to be depressed about other people's brainlessness while they sail on their merry way (to the bank). My apologies for perpetuating a pessimism you seemed eager to shake with the first bourbon…but on a note to complicate things further, regarding choice and threats, is Ulrich Beck’s quite compelling theory of a “risk society”, where the traditional hazards of life (earthquakes, droughts, and so on) are replaced by all the risks manufactured to keep us in a state of anxiety about the choices we do make: eat butter today, don’t eat it tomorrow; obesity is genetic, now its contagious (watch out for those fat friends!!); red wine will keep your heart fit one day, turn you alcoholic the next. No bloody wonder people are confused, and more than likely go for the simplest option, which is to find distractions – any will do – from real thinking.

And about happy indexes, the most worrying thing of all must be that for those who manage to distract themselves, they might really be “happy”. What if Rachael Ray’s smile is genuine, and she manages to keep it? If there is any injustice here, it must be that we are the ones who get to be depressed about other people’s brainlessness while they sail on their merry way (to the bank).

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