Happiness

If you think about happiness — and I mean happiness itself, not something that “makes you happy” — it starts to get unexpectedly slippery. As an idea, I mean. It’s certainly important to people. Aristotle thought it was the only thing that people want just for itself. Everything else that you might want, like health or money, you want because it serves a purpose for you. The purpose is often because you think it will help you achieve happiness. But happiness, he said, is an end in itself.

On the other hand, what Aristotle was talking about might not be quite the same as what we think of as “happiness” today. That is, if it’s even possible to pin down what it is that we think of. He used the word “eudaimonia,” and 2500 years later people are still arguing about just what that means. You can interpret it as an activity instead of a state of being. A “happy life,” to Aristotle, meant that you fulfill your human nature successfully. You’re able to “flourish,” which is one way that “eudaimonia” is translated — it’s made up of the word “eu” (“well-being”) and “daimōn” (“spirit’), so it’s almost identical to the English phrase “good spirits.”

But since we’re talking about Aristotle, we can go one step further (with Aristotle there’s always another step further; it’s exhausting) and look into what he meant by “fulfilling your human nature. He argued that everything (or at least every living thing) has a unique function. Not that a living thing has just one function, of course, but there is one specific thing it’s best at. Aristotle being, well, Aristotle, he decided that the function that humans are uniquely best at is thinking.

Now, if you happen to be at an Aristotelian level of ability to think, then I can see his point. And by extension, Aristotle must have lived a very happy life indeed, because he was constantly fulfilling his best function. If you read his work about this (it’s in Nicomachean Ethics, by the way, which is pretty interesting in spite of being about 2500 years old — there are several different translations available, and some are public domain), it’s a bit difficult to figure out whether he meant that reasoning (thinking) is the best function of any human, or if he was talking about the kind of human that flourishes as a classical Greek philosopher. It’s common to assume he was generalizing to everybody, but I’m not so sure.

Reasoning things out can be fulfilling and result in happiness, but for everybody? I’d have to guess maybe not. And even for somebody who does find reasoning fulfilling, I wonder if that’s always true for them, and whether it’s true at every stage of their life. What would be quite Aristotelian here would be to point out that I’m suggesting there’s an aspect of scale to happiness. Even the things that really do lead to happiness for you can differ by how old you are. Or by what you’re engaged in on a particular day. If you’re a runner, a day when you’re running as far or as fast as you can would be fulfilling a function that’s just as unique to you as thinking is to a philosopher.

Fulfillment might even differ by time of day. Someone might find fulfillment in walking the dog in the morning. Or maybe the afternoon walk is the key for them. Think about eudaimonia as a flow state, where you’re so fully engaged in whatever you’re doing that you don’t notice time passing. If you’re a cook, maybe you find that flow state is associated with making dinner. If you’re a baker, your flow state might be very early in the morning when you’re making bread.

The key to Aristotelian happiness? It seems to be doing your best at what you’re best at doing.

Tales from the Forest

“I don’t know, Raccoon, all this sounds pretty unbelievable,” smiled Sloth.

“It’s just an experiment,” said Raccoon for the fourth time. “You said yourself you don’t really know how you got to the forest, Sloth.”

“That’s so,” nodded Sloth slowly. “But to go from that to magically waking up someplace I happen to have a dream about…it just seems ridiculous.”

“But what else could possibly have happened? You used to live on a whole different continent, Sloth.”

“What about that ship? The one the Rat brothers Rat were talking about at the party. You know them, right? Wharf and Bilge? That ship came from near where I lived. Maybe I was on it, and just slept through the whole thing. I sleep through a lot of things, Raccoon.”

“Hmph,” humphed Raccoon, “that might explain getting to the seaport, but what about getting from there to here in the forest? How did that happen, huh?”

Sloth smiled her big, wide smile. “I don’t know. But Raccoon, it doesn’t bother me that I don’t know.”

“But Sloth,” said Raccoon, “what if you fall asleep one day, dream about some other place, and wake up there? Then what?”

“Yes, well, then what?” said Sloth. “Even if that happened like you say, everything has worked out very nicely now that I’m here. So if that happens again — and I’m not saying it happened the first time, because I don’t believe it — who’s to say that it won’t just work out just as well or even better?”

“I’ll be back,” said Raccoon. “There’s somebody I want you to talk to.”

“Okay,” sighed Sloth. “My nap time is coming up anyway, Raccoon, just stop by tomorrow.”

Raccoon climbed down the tree, still carrying Beaver’s book. “It must have happened that way,” she muttered to herself, “it’s perfectly obvious. And Sloth is taking a big chance. She’s much too optimistic, with that smile of hers. I know just who can explain things better.”

Raccoon went to see Hedgehog. Hedgehog always had something to worry about, and more often than not he was worried about everything at once. Hedgehog didn’t think much of Raccoon’s theory either.

“Just waking up someplace else because you dream about it?” he said. “Come on, Raccoon, I’m worried you’re losing your mind. That’s just silly.”

“It fits the facts,” sniffed Raccoon. “Sloth used to live in South America, right?”

“Says who?” asked Hedgehog. “Is that what Sloth says?”

“Well, Sloth remembers living in a tree, but a different sort of tree than we have in the forest,” said Raccoon. “You have to understand, Hedgehog, that Sloth is pretty relaxed about these things. I think it was Beaver that explained about South America, and Sloths coming from there.”

“Just because most sloths live there doesn’t mean that Sloth did,” said Hedgehog. “I’m worried that your imagination is getting away from you.”

“But the ship,” said Raccoon, “I explained about the ship, too, and the Rat Brothers. They live in the seaport and know all about ships.”

“But we don’t even know whether Sloth was on that ship,” said Hedgehog. “Does she remember being on a ship?”

“She probably slept through it,” said Raccoon.

“That’s a long nap, even for Sloth,” said Hedgehog. “I’m worried that part doesn’t make sense. Sloth would have woken up at least a couple of times on a whole sea voyage.”

“That’s the dream part,” said Raccoon.

“I thought the whole thing was the dream part,” said Hedgehog.

“Maybe there were two dream parts,” said Raccoon.

“Wait, now you’re saying that Sloth was in a tree in South America, dreamed about being on a ship, then stayed asleep on the ship and dreamed about being in the forest?” said Hedgehog. “I’m worried that this whole thing doesn’t make any sense at all, Raccoon.”

“Oh yeah?” said Raccoon, “then how did Sloth get here?”

“It worries me that you’re so interested in how Sloth got here,” said Hedgehog. “How did you get here, Raccoon? Do you remember?”

Raccoon blinked. “Well…” she said. “I…um…”

“Exactly my point,” said Hedgehog. “Lots of times none of us really remember how we got here. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t think you should worry about it.”

“Shouldn’t worry about it??” said Raccoon. “Hedgehog, you’re the expert on worrying! If I don’t worry about this, what am I supposed to worry about?”

“Oh boy,” said Hedgehog, “are you sure you want to know? Right this second there could be a giant asteroid heading straight for Earth. Or a volcano just about to erupt right underneath us. Or there might be an earthquake; nobody can predict those, you know. Or a forest fire. Or a herd of elephants might stampede through the forest and knock down all our houses.”

“Hang on,” said Raccoon, “there aren’t any elephants around here.”

“Maybe not lately,” said Hedgehog, “but there didn’t use to be any sloths either. So I think you’d do a lot better to worry about elephants than about how Sloth got here.”

Raccoon blinked again. “I never thought about that,” she said. “Do you really think it might happen, Hedgehog?”

“Chances are pretty small,” said Hedgehog, “but it’s something to worry about. And for that matter, have you considered that you might just be trotting down the path toward home, trip, break your leg accidentally, and not be able to get up? Chances are much better for that sort of accident, you know. Most accidents happen close to home.”

“Isn’t that just because everybody spends most of their time close to home, though?”

“Doesn’t matter. A serious accident is something to worry about all the time.”

“I never thought about it like that, Hedgehog.”

“You’re the one who asked what you should be worrying about,” said Hedgehog. “I’m just answering your question.”

“Oh my,” said Raccoon, fiddling with Beaver’s book. “I never really…and for that matter, what if I lose Beaver’s book? He’d be really angry with me; he loves his books.”

“You’d better go home and make sure everything is safe there,” said Hedgehog. Door locks secure, everything on your shelves stored so things won’t fall on you during an earthquake. Windows strong enough for the hurricane-force winds that are coming…”

“There are hurricane-force winds coming?” asked Raccoon, who was starting to look frightened.

“Well not today,” said Hedgehog, “but maybe someday. Maybe someday soon.”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Raccoon, “Hedgehog, I’m sorry but I should go. I’m…I’m not at all sure my house is safe.”

“Oh, it’s not,” said Hedgehog. “I’m worried about what might happen.”

“Me too!” wailed Raccoon, and she rushed out, heading home.

“I was worried about that,” said Hedgehog to herself. “Raccoon is pretty impressionable.”

Raccoon spent the rest of the day working on her house, and completely forgot to go back and visit Sloth. Sloth didn’t really mind at all.

And the rest, by Spock

There are a lot of emotions besides happiness (or possibly, depending on who you ask, there are only five others). The interesting thing about all of them except happiness is that for the most part, we don’t seek them out, at least not consciously. There’s a lot of literature about people driven, seemingly, to “negative emotions.” And don’t forget about that giant of 20th Century Characters, Mister Spock from Star Trek; as a Vulcan, he avoided all emotions. Or maybe just most of them; if you watch those old shows he acted pretty emotionally — he was just calm. Except “calmness” really isn’t the absense of emotion; it’s a restful state where you aren’t letting any particular emotions guide your behavior. And then there was the famous Vulcan dedication to what they called “logic,” which was suggested as a sort of opposite of emotion. The whole premise was pretty difficult to sustain, it seemed to me. The Vulcans were just emotionally attached to logic; they loved it, and they feared what might happen without it. Love and fear probably qualify as emotions, right?

Think about how natural it seems to assume that intelligent beings who aren’t human will have emotions — and generally similar emotions to ours. Sometimes the reasons are obvious; coming up with aliens can be a great way to tell a story about humans. The point is not to dream up plausible space aliens — what you need is plausible enough, and then you can exaggerate whatever human traits and emotions you need for your story.

Some authors do try to depict what actual non-human intelligence might plausibly be like. An interesting thing happens (usually): they end up focusing on different forms of rationality, and generally don’t even try to depict different forms of emotion. It’s quite hard to think of different forms of emotion. After all, any emotion you can dream up that would be desireable is just a form of happiness, isn’t it? And if it’s an emotion that’s more negative, it’s hard to explain away why it isn’t fear or anger or sadness.

Since we’re considering Spock, we might as well explore the biggest puzzle about the character (well, in my opinion anyway). And some non-human fictional characters too — they can be perfectly fluent in English. I know, I know, on Star Trek the whole communication conundrum is hand-waved away by referring to the “universal translator” gadget. But think about it. To establish communication with somebody who shares practically none of your background of experience, you can probably start with numbers, and it’s not all that far fetched to get as far as a shared set of terms (this is assuming the idea of “terms” makes any sense to them at all) for anything you can physically refer to, from quartz to gravity to how your warp drive works (you probably have a warp drive in this situation). Meanwhile, humans can’t even agree amongst ourselves about how many emotions there even are, or what some of them are for. We run into Vulcans, who are not supposed to have any emotions at all, and they have no trouble at all understanding what we mean by “happiness” or “sadmess?” Go try to explain them yourself — even to yourself. Warp drives are easy in comparison.

What happened today that was important in 1863

According to Chambers’ Book of Days from 1863, one of the most important people born on August 14 was Dr. Charles Hutton, in 1737, in Newcastle-on-Tyne. He did math. Unfortunately I can’t tell you much more than that about him, because he evidently didn’t do enough math that he’s any more considered important enough to remember and write about. Not much else happened on the 14th, except that Queen Caroline was buried in 1821. That would be Caroline of Brunswick, who was married to King George IV. It was an arranged marriage of convenience. They didn’t get along at all, and the King tried to do various nasty king-type things to her and even tried to divorce her (a Big Deal in those days). However, nobody liked him, and everybody liked her quite a lot, and his nefarious plans were thwarted. He had her investigated for adultery twice, but found nothing. Just goes to show you that government investigations have been instruments of intimidation for a long time, and pretty often have very little to do with really investigating anything.

Tomorrow, the 15th, is much more auspicious and the 1863 entry is several pages longer. That’s almost entirely because Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the 15th of August, and provided a great deal more fodder for writing about. Interesting coincidence, though; both Napoleon and Queen Caroline died the same year, 1821. There’s no record that they ever met, but they certainly would have known of each other. Britain and France were at war for the majority of Caroline’s reign as Queen.

Word of the day: chauvinism

You don’t hear the word “chauvinism” as much as you did a while back, when “male chauvinist” was a more popular epithet. As you probably know, “male chauvinism” is the belief that males are inherently superior to females. It was primarily applied to men — that is, human males, although I suppose a true believer might extend the notion to any species. Any careful examination of the relative dominance (male chauvinism is all about dominance) of males breaks down pretty quickly if you study, say, spiders or bees, but as a belief, chauvinism of any sort, male or otherwise, is generally pretty resistant to actual evidence.

Male chauvinism was first mentioned in 1935, in the play “Till the Day I Die” by Clifford Odets. But chauvinism itself goes back a bit further. The word is an eponym — that is, it’s based on a person’s name. In this case, the person is Nicolas Chauvin. He was a French soldier who was a Bonapartist to a fault; he believed in Napoleon and in France being an imperial power led by an authoritarian leader. Chauvin was badly wounded in one of the Napoleonic wars and received only a tiny pension. Even the other Bonapartists ignored and forgot about him. Nevertheless, he maintained his steadfast devotion, believing Napoleon was going to bring glory to France even when it was getting to be quite obvious nothing of the sort was going to happen.

The word “chauvinism” was first popularized in an 1831 play, “La Cocarde Tricolore”, by the Cogniard brothers — they were ridiculing the large number of Napoleonic veterans in France who were aggressively — and blindly — patriotic. Chauvin himself was portrayed as a young soldier in Napoleon’s army.

There were other stories about Chauvin, though. One was that he served in the “Old Guard”, which was the central unit of Napoleon’s imperial guard. They were surrounded in the battle of Waterloo, and the story went that Chauvin shouted “The Old Guard dies but does not surrender!” This almost certainly didn’t happen; the commander of the Old Guard at the time was Pierre Cambronne, who did shout something, but a number of independent sources attested that what he actually yelled was “Merde!”

“Chauvinism” became pretty common in English by the 1870s, and at the time it was exclusively used to mean excessive, unexamined patriotism. The journal “American” printed an article in 1883 noting that “educated men are supposed to see the difference between patriotism and Chauvinism.” Note that back then, “Chauvinism” was still capitalized.

Over the next decades, chauvinism lost its capital “C”, Nicolas Chauvin was generally forgotten (again), and usage expanded to include any unwavering belief in a cause, a group, an idea, or what have you, especially if that belief involved prejudice against somebody else. It was used in “scientific chauvinism” in 1955, “cultural chauvinism” in 1975, “human chauvinism” in 1973, and even “female chauvinism” in 1970. Carl Sagan even came up with this in 1974: “A carbon chauvinist holds that biological systems elsewhere in the universe will be constructed out of carbon compounds…”

Probably the key aspect of any kind of chauvinism is that it resists evidence. You could presumably point out to Nicolas Chauvin that Napoleon’s brief reign hadn’t exactly covered France in glory, but it wouldn’t change his mind in the least. To a real chauvinist, real life and actual evidence just don’t matter. That’s probably appropriate for a belief that, if you recall, was popularized in two plays. Not only that, but as far as anybody can tell, there’s no evidence that “Nicolas Chauvin” ever really existed at all.

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