The homeostatics of happiness

摘要

The Western world has never been more prosperous than it is now, even if much of its wealth seems the outcome of smoke and mirrors. What to former eras were utopian fantasies (greater productivity, reduced infant mortality, higher life expectancy) are now so taken for granted we hardly notice them. What we notice, in fact, are the shortcomings. These days, in the garden of earthly delights, market forces have even managed to turn hedonism into a kind of militancy. Yet journalists, sociologists, and historians — not to speak of the occasional professional ethicist — are equally of one voice: we are not happy. It is one of the distressing futilities at the heart of modern life, one related to that other contemporary concern: the less real adversity we experience in our lives the more we feel under threat.