Reverence and Happiness

I just had the fortune of gazing up at a full moon, reflecting the light of the sun through lazy, misty night clouds. The celestial body is so far away that I can't even register it with my sense of depth perception. It is ludicrously huge and distant.

I never made the full moon appear. It was just there, unexpectedly. Nor did I play any part in engineering the sky, which appears massive and profound from this open-air space I call home. From here the sky is not a slither of blue between buildings, as it is for most in the urban sprawl. It is a vast canvas, and I can see the sun rising on one side of the world and setting on the other so much that the process has become embodied within me.

Depth, distance, size and scale is integrated into life out here. Wonder carries with it. This wider sense takes me somewhere further than moment to moment happiness - they create reverence for the cosmos by making me part of it.

Without a sense of reverence and wonder and eternal mystery, how flat our lives.

This is not to promote lack of understanding like some romantic rube. We have scientific tools that can tell us how far the moon is from the earth, or even take us there to have a proper gander at it.

The availability of these facts do nothing to remove the sheer poetic joy of the moon in this moment. For perhaps it is gazing back at me, and feels like I am some small part of its perception.

Imagine not having that sense of art or poetry.

How terrifying it is to think that we may live in a future where vast walls surround us and we lose all contact with the Cosmos which created and sustains us. Once we lose this sense we lose reverence.

And where else can that lead but to the moment-to-moment emptiness of mass-hedonism; the second-rate happiness which plagues our age and tramples the natural joys beneath its clumsy feet.

For there is a difference between the flickering light of a fire and the scientific canopy of a lightbulb. The latter is more useful, but the former is more terrible and passionate and beautiful.
 
The moon is high in the sky tonight, and nothing of human contrivance can match its wonder - except perhaps the conversations in the corridors of philosophers

Selim 'Selim' Talat.

Spinoza on emotions, self-preservation and our being

Emotions: pesky little things aren’t they? Some bring joy; others anguish, with a whole host of different feelings betwixt the two. Think of the first time you fell in love, or got a present you really wanted, or passed an exam or driving test. Now, think of a saddening event. Thence, think of how you felt before and after. A whole host of emotions plague us, day in day out: to be torn in all directions is the natural human condition.

For a certain Mr Baruch de Spinoza, who believed that we are all defined through a non-religious God who ultimately controls all things in the universe, emotions are beautiful, logical things. This is because God is defined by logic: he is self-causing and his essence is this self-causation – he must thus continue to produce things to continue to exist. Logical, no? If we are thus created by a logical God, and so is everything else – every imaginable thing: plants, cars, muscles, thoughts, pens and paper, musings and eyebrow raises – emotions, too, are logical. ‘Emotions can be treated and explained through logic, as if they were geometry’, to paraphrase the good man. 

Power of acting; definition of emotions

How though, do we get to this idea? What, first of all, is an emotion? Spinoza tells us in the following statement to define it as the modes of a body by which the body’s ability to act is increased or decreased, the perceptions of these and the resultant reaction. 

Let us take the following example to understand Spinoza’s idea better: I am punched in the face. I see it coming, I feel it – my face feels it and my mind registers it simultaneously. I now stumble back: I cannot act, or be, as well as I could before the punch. I feel anger – my power of acting, of moving, of doing anything, may be better than before, but still not as good as before I was punched. Emotions cannot be controlled by us, says Spinoza – they are logically defined.

Spinoza gives us two base emotions, upon which all others are constructed: joy and sadness. It is through emotions that we can see how the environment is working for us. Emotions are the link between our inner state and the outer world. We can only find our ‘power of acting’ indirectly through the emotions – it can never be grasped directly.

We constantly desire to maintain a joyous, happy state – as everyone, of course, likes to be happy. We thus attempt to repel things that will have the ability to make our power of acting decrease – be it a sad event in our lives, an argument with somebody or a punch in the face; we always strive for the happier ones, as these give us a bit more ‘oomph’ and confidence.

Conatus

The notion of the ‘power of acting’, Spinoza takes yet a step further. Spinoza notes that we all have a certain drive within us: a desire and striving to stay alive. As we are all ultimately created by God, and he, as noted above, must necessarily create to keep existing, he leaves a little imprint of his power in all things, including humans: the desire to survive, the power of self-preservation at whatever cost. This power, he coins as the term ‘Conatus’.

The Conatus is in all things: it can be as obvious as someone running at us with a knife and us fleeing, or as abstract as an electron figuratively turning away from a proton or neutron. Self-preservation is what makes us, us. We do not want to be destroyed, hence we run – this is at our very being.

As the mind and body are simultaneously aware of each other through perceptions of the outside world (as one hits the body, the mind registers it and vice versa) and as the body cannot come into contact with something that would destroy it, neither then, can the mind. This means that the mind cannot think of anything that would destroy it: it cannot comprehend or even have a vague notion of death. To have a vague notion of death, would equate to its feeling of death through the body and it cannot do this, for if it had felt that, it would, by definition, be dead and thus unthinking. As a result, for Spinoza – the mind can only feel incredible highs and the depths of sadness, but nothing beyond that: death is not an option.

A few questions...

This also means that suicide is not an option – how is this explained? Spinoza would say that we can be killed, but only through an external cause, from an outside object. The mind would have no idea that we would die if someone stabs us: it would only sense threat. Can suicide ever exist in a Spinozian world?

Spinoza goes on to elaborate on every conceivable emotion in over 40 pages, all based upon the base emotions of happiness and sadness. Is it right to say that these are the basic emotions that we all feel?

Spinoza says that our basic desire for self-preservation makes us who we are. Is there not more to us than this?

Joe Sturdy

A thought on happiness - by David McDonagh

A thought on happiness

As far as I am concerned, leading a happy life requires dedication to one or more various tasks.

As do ants, we should put forth as individuals toward a shared but necessarily unspoken of development of the whole.

Why should humans think themselves as capable of experiencing more happiness than little ants?

by David McDonagh

The happiest person who ever lived...Epicurus

The word epicurean I imagine to be rarely used. It seems to be colonized by an impossibly pretentious gaggle of gourmet food enthusiasts, who have perverted the name of a great historical figure. Somehow, they have decided to take the least materially hedonistic philosopher in two and a half thousand years of western philosophy, and apply his name-label to the act of being materially hedonistic! It is akin to starting a philanthropic movement and calling it napoleonic.

Those of us who respect the word epicurean beyond the consumption of some tortured animals flesh, or a quaff of pretentiously overpriced, fancy wine, should fight to have the theft of our beloved word revoked. And of course, we are not only fighting for a mere word, but the legacy it represents!

Yet before this article resumes, let us take pause and consider Epicurus of Samos, a philosopher who lived in Athens for most of his (incalculably happy) life. Epicurus lived in an academy of his own creation, The Garden, surrounded by his disciples and friends. He opened the doors of this academy to women and slaves, who at the time were not given the same opportunities as manly, beard-stroking men.

In summary, Epicurus taught that fear of death and general anxiety were the ultimate driving forces of misery, and that to live a happy life we must be free from them. As he did not believe in gods (at best considereding them distant and unconcerned with our affairs) or an afterlife, this meant that Epicurus' goal was the seeking of happiness in this life, with happiness as an end in itself - thus making him a hedonist. 

However the epicurean is not a hedonist in the vein that the word has acquired, a pleasure seeker whose sole purpose is to obtain physical treats (the cyrenaics are an example of a greek philosophical school matching this description; a consumer is a modern example). Epicurus was a hedonist who considered friendship, independence, freedom from fear of death and an analysed life as the height of all pleasures. 

He taught that the small joys in life will lead to a state of content happiness, a freedom from anxiety the Greek's named ataraxia. The hedonist who wants it all will find herself plunged into a world of anxiety and uncertainty in order to obtain her every whim - she will have to work extra hard to sustain her material treats; if she steals, she will always have to look over her shoulder. By asking for little we can stay out of danger, we can appreciate what we have, we can be happy right here, right now.  We can gain control of our lives only when we have overcome desire.

This is the basis of Epicurean Virtues.

In contrast to ascetics:

We cannot truly call an epicurean ascetic. It is the contemplative monk we would call ascetic, for his self-denial is an extreme act of rejecting earthly experience in the name of some higher realm. The monk seems to thrive on a holier-than-thou attitude. He inadvertantly makes himself a novelty to be observed by people; his extremism is fascinating, but not inspirational. People will see the monk and think, 'Let us admire his holiness! Look at how he lives, what a moral character!' but they will not see the monk as a realistic example - the monk is too far removed from the onlookers goals of earthly physical pleasure to seriously affect those people. 

The epicurean lifestyle may appear similar to the monk's. The epicurean shuns the so-called material pleasures drifting around her. Her refusal to participate may appear to have the same motives as the monk; a rejection of earthy pleasure for the sake of some higher spiritual ideal. 

Yet how different the epicurean is from the monk! In fact, the epicurean has less in common with the monk than the holy man's supposed opposite; the pleasure seeker. The monk and the seeker have both acknowledged certain physical things as being desirable. The monk then refuses those desires, whilst the seeker indulges in them as often as possible. The epicurean says, 'Desire is not pleasurable'.  The epicurean is not refusing (so-called) life, but is refusing the facade of happiness offered her. She has come to realize that self-denial ultimately lies in the endless desire for physical pleasures, and that by passing over these transient treats she can reach a state of constant happiness which is far more rewarding. 

Unlike the monk, the epicurean is not chasing an afterworld, she is not relying on anything outside that which she can experience to give her life meaning - she is not denying this life for the next. The epicurean does not consider herself a sacrificial novelty for some higher goal - the epicurean rejects most physical pleasure and is happier for it! Whats more, the epicurean is not a novelty, but is someone who can argue her philosophy and actually live it. Epicureanism offers people the opportunity to be happy, not to deny themselves happiness like an ascetic.

To be fair, the word ascetic can also apply to one who 'abstains from the normal pleasures of life', yet even this definition, and its use of the word abstain, implies that the epicurean is somehow withdrawing from something; they are abstaining from normal pleasure. In my eyes, the epicurean has long since passed over those supposed pleasures, and is not so much abstaining as she is indifferent to them.

To conclude, please do not poison the concept and the word epicurean by associating it with the hedonistic morons who have so captured the beloved word, and next time you are at the table with a real epicurean, do not be surprised when she refuses your eloquently prepared veal steak, but rather understand that she is refusing your hard work in the name of her own state of happiness. She most certainly will not feel like she is missing out on anything, nor punishing herself for the love of some divine higher-realm.

Selim 'Selim' Talat

In defence of Utilitarianism - By Lloyd Duddridge

In defence of Utilitarianism

Perfect the Will, the Mind, Feeling, their corporeal organs and their material tools; be useful to yourselves, to your own ones, and to others; and Happiness, insofar as it exists on this earth, will come of itself.
- Bolesław Prus


The greatest happiness for the greatest number. On a instinctual level this appears to make sense. However Utilitarianism has faced many challenges from the philosophical community. They say that it undermines the idea of individual justice. That the idea would seemingly condemn an innocent individual if it suited the whims of the mob. That also seems instinctively correct, justice is not a numbers game, its not a mathematical equation. They also say that one persons conception of happiness, is not the same as another's,so how could happiness be seen in such general terms? They also say that it is bloody hard to spell. This final objection I concede to the prosecution. However it is the previous two objections that I wish to defend Utilitarianism against.
The first objection is usually formed by using an example such as this: Imagine a single man that holds views that are not dangerous,but make the mob angry. Now under simple Utilitarian argument the mob are entitled to do what they want with the man who makes them unhappy. The reason they are able to do this is their collective happiness,seemingly outweighs the happiness of the individual. Thus things such as gang rape,would be permissible. So how could Utilitarianism respond to such a damning objection?
I would argue that it could say this in response. Justice is a bedrock upon which most peoples happiness lies. Now the mob may seem the larger group in the example outlined. However the even greater number is the group that believe in justice. Thus in committing an unjust action, you are committing an action, that in the longer term would bring about greater unhappiness. The question of justice can be thrown back at the critics of utilitarianism. Does justice bring about the greatest happiness in the greatest number? The answer is seemingly yes. Thus it appears that even concepts go through the process of utilitarian judgement. We disregard injustice for the simple reason that it fails the utilitarian test. This is the simple answer to those who say that utilitarianism will always lead to unjust situations. The evidence is that all concepts we hold in either positive or negative go through a process of utilitarian testing. So if justice is utilitarian,how can utilitarianism be unjust?
The second objection is that utilitarianism is too general. One persons happiness is not another's. This is a point that I concede, but it is one that I feel can be overcome. This is because I feel that we must approach ethics and morality in a different way. We must see morals as useful myths. They may not hold in all possible universes,they may not be god given. However they are still vital to human life. They are myths given to us,in order to give us rules for action. They are bed time stories but no less important for that. Now if we see ethics as an individual call for action, what could be a better lessons for action than, you should act in a way you think will bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number?
How can you understand other peoples happiness they will ask. I would answer that we should not view action as something that happens blind,and arbitrarily. We act after experiment, after seeing what works for people. We can do things such as ask others what makes them happy. Action does not happen in a vacuum. Or rather it should not happen in a vacuum. This is the difference between intelligent action, and unintelligent action. So how can we understand other peoples happiness? A good start may be by asking them what makes them happy. Communication and language make utilitarianism possible. Thankfully these are two tools that human beings possess.
So in summary. Happiness is increased by concepts such as justice. Thus utilitarianism rather than being the ethical school of the unjust, becomes the province where justice is taken most seriously. We do not value justice because it is our duty to value justice, we value justice because it makes us happy. Thus gang rape is not permitted under utilitarian logic, for it undermines justice and thus undermines happiness. Additionally we must see ethics as rules of action. Man made rules, rules that can be questioned, but vital rules none the less. Now can there be a rule that can be improved upon than this: When you act, act to increase the greatest happiness for the greatest number? I would argue there is not. However all ethical rules will only work if we do not make ourselves into islands. We must communicate with each other. We must ask other questions on just what they value,for we value that which makes us happy. It on this remark that I rest my defence for utilitarianism.

By Lloyd Duddridge

Happiness and the City, by Eliza Veretilo

Happiness and the City, by Eliza Veretilo

People who live in cities either love or loathe them. The advantages and disadvantages are countless and living in one creates habits that can change you as a person. Originally, cities were planned around a place of gathering, like a market or a church. Thus we have their social nature; but they were also designed for protection, which is why old cities have walls around them. These walls would not only protect people from enemy attacks but also from the chaos of nature. So far, cities seem like a good place to live, products and services are accessible and you are provided protection, but are cities really that good for us? Are they the epitome of civilization? Why did people abandon the fields and move to the flats? Are people happier there? Does art, culture and technology develop faster in cities and if so, why?

Living in London, which is a modern day mega-city (of around 10 million inhabitants) and one of the most important art cradles of the past century, I have always wondered whether and why people become so productive here. The city demands a lot of you. It can drain you both financially and energetically. So why choose the city? To explore these questions I am going to sit on the edge of Freud’s essay ‘Happiness and Civilization’. We agreed that in theory, cities are good places to live and that art develops at an amazing speed; but art doesn’t always spring from happiness. Anger, sadness, wrath and loneliness have inspired some of the most beautiful art pieces.

Cites isolate people within an incredibly populated space, pretty paradoxical. Parting from the notion that human beings are sociable creatures, this contradiction of ‘belonging’ to a city but ‘not’ to the community at the same time (for instance people don’t know who lives next door) may cause a sort of frustration and deep loneliness which perpetuates the accelerated life style of the city and perhaps gives birth to angry art. 

So, surely the biggest exodus that has occurred in human history, when millions moved from the country side to the city in China in 2009, has to be viewed as a good thing, as progress? Here I am going to have to argue a big: NO. People are getting charmed by the glow of the city lights and are starting to forget where things (food for example) really come from. This can especially be seen in the mega-cities and across the urbanised ‘developed world’. The accessible resources and seeming big opportunities are a dangerous lullaby. Contact with nature and a sense of community have become obsolete, though not in reality, only as propaganda for the metropolises. I am in favour of individuality and think that everyone should be entitled to do as they feel, but the mega-city may not be the best place to bloom, it does not give you independence, high rents and long working hours are not my idea of freedom. 

The average person in a modern city interacts with at least three hundred people a day depending on their job (by interact I mean being in the same bus, cafe, at the till of a shop, etc). As this happens daily, we start creating habits that we may not even be fully aware of; maybe our brains are trying to cope with the sea of faces and storm of activities we see around us City people are quicker to pick trends and new technology, why? Maybe because their ‘copy-cat’ survival instinct is constantly working at high speed. There are exceptions, of course, such as tramps, but that’s a different story about people who were perhaps pushed to disillusionment by the city itself. Coming back to your average office or shop worker at the city, where trends spread like fire in a paper house, these people will be quicker to get all the codes in appearance of urban tribes, different social statuses and jobs. They are over-exposed, and that makes them over-aware. If you think of the geography of the planet, we have so many vast open spaces, and staring at these landscapes does nothing but good to us. The National Geographic says we can fit all 7 billion human beings in the city of Los Angeles so why do we insist on cramming up? Are factories and businesses in need of workers accumulating human labour in cities and have complete disregard for actual human needs besides the basics? I think yes.

City people live under constant pressure from all angles and almost no release; there is a layer of individuals who are almost expected to be more cultured, to have money, to have a position, that’s what people want when they move to the city, right? Cities do have a dense accumulation of: universities, libraries, museums and galleries as well as bars, casinos and night clubs. The choice is there, the city engulfs you. I do believe that the incredible amount of ‘choice’ and lack of ‘air’ (literally and figuratively) can cause frustration in individuals and this relatively new phenomenon: stress, is a consequence of urban living; and poverty.

City people are also almost forced to maintain a serious facial expression and a tougher attitude in order to keep their place in a cue, for instance, but it could also be because of a fear of crime, which is a hard reality of the city. This surely will have consequences in your real mood, if you have to pretend to be moody all day. Maybe it has been this constant interaction with people which at the same time hides an infinite solitude and the pressure to appear tougher in order to survive, that has made cities the default hatching point of development, not of happiness or contentment but of stuff yes, material things. Also, rooted in non-conformism, cities are hatching places for art and culture, crude, rude and true, street art reflects our dissatisfied state.

To Freud, there were three main sources of unhappiness: our own bodies, the environment (the rain for example) and our relations to others. If we address each one with regards to the city, we can see how the city can be a candy coated paradise, till it cracks. Our body causes us much distress, with its many needs, lust and tiredness. It gets in the way of plans and projects. In the city, we can find easy solutions for our bodily needs, we have food from all over the world, ready-made and sometimes very cheap, we have brothels, we have night clubs, we have hotels, we have drugs. Cities offer a lot of easy escapes which the country side doesn’t, in the country side you need a more planned life, you need to stock up your fridge, and its harder to find a partner, but maybe, maybe the end results are more substantial. The environment in the city is almost an artificial one, we put sand over rivers to build roads and build canals in valleys to give way to boats. Human beings manipulate the land of cities over and over again as if they stopped being part of nature and became permanent construction grounds. In the country side, on the other hand, people have to dwell a bit more with the environments, a snow storm will block the road, but, at the same time, people at the country side, especially the ones that do like to get their hands dirty, can get into a harmonious rhythm with the environment, the seasons, nature, the pace of growth of plants can tell us a lot about ourselves and can be great shapers of character. How else do you think human beings can survive in the Sahara desert and the Himalayas? Because we can work with nature.

City people get consumed by their work, they can become automatons that only want to sleep and eat. Meeting friends becomes harder; a few lucky ones have families, which is a great source of happiness according to Freud. Many, many city people feel isolated, perhaps consumed with the idea that work is home and home is a place to sleep. Some think they should be more ambitious and chase the rabbit’s tail of the city dream: a better job, a better flat, nicer clothes, be more powerful, be respected; but most of the time they end up in the same job, trying to cover the same bills, saving up for the never coming holiday, its sad but statistically true. Country side people have a choice, they can be isolated or be part of their community. A smaller town means that the chances of meeting its inhabitants are higher and a more relaxed, less competitive environment means people are more likely to stop, talk and share. This is not intended to be a 'City versus Country side article; I am just suggesting that we could live differently.

Still, the city feels unnatural, with its millions of inhabitants, most of which are lonely hearts. Perhaps it is that feeling of emptiness that creates art, an art that tries to create an impression, to exist and to shock, to change. It is also the sense of comfort which the city claims to provide which makes city people so innovative and always in the search for a new thing, a search for more comfort perhaps, something easier, stronger, better, shinier, faster; as if the city was an invisible personal trainer that was always saying: keep pushing. With this statement I am not saying that art is not created in the country side, or that people from more rural environments are less creative, the only thing I am comparing here is the speed rate, the incredible velocity of development that occurs in the city. It is perhaps, the social pressure of the city what has increased the speed so incredibly.

But why do we still move into the cities? Maybe to look for better jobs, we could work the land but we don’t, why? In Freud’s words: humans don’t search for happiness, humans avoid pain. Our herd instinct is perhaps stronger than we like to admit. In 20 years at least 80% of us will be living in cities, either because old cities will expand or because mass migration to the cities will continue. Perhaps we need to reconsider this; perhaps we need to restore a balance. More attention to the softer, more patient side of our characters, the one that is able to look after a plant, a field, a horse, can teach the city rat a few things about well being, as patience is a limited resource in the city. We need it back. Perhaps if we weren’t so consumed with the idea that we need to impress to exist in the city, we would move slower, even create slower but deliver quality, the quality that comes from dedicated, enjoyed, non-pressured work. Perhaps if people didn’t loose themselves to the concrete streets, or if there was something other than just concrete in our streets, our city tales would be less about anger and more about sharing and the result would be, happiness and the city.