Why Everything Is Wonderful But Nobody’s Happy, And What To Do About It

[corbe]

Why Everything Is Wonderful But Nobody’s Happy, And What To Do About It
 
Never before in human history have so many, with so much, been so miserable. See, happiness requires the risk of unhappiness. The alternative to loneliness is the risk of heartbreak.

By Nathanael Blake   
August 28, 2018
 
We were supposed to be happy. Americans live in a time of comparative peace and unprecedented prosperity, with technological wonders and remarkable personal liberty.

For most of us, the old indignities of life are gone or greatly reduced. We have light and water—hot or cold—on command, our bodily waste is flushed away, and we live with central heating and cooling. Indeed, for many of us, sweating, stinking, and suffering are what we do for exercise or recreation, not inescapable features of life. Endless entertainment and nearly boundless education are available for the price of a smartphone and an internet connection, or just a library card.

Yet the symptoms of civilizational despair are persistent and worsening. The doleful litany is familiar: Fertility and life expectancy are down; suicides are up; overdose deaths are way up. The press recently informed us that deaths from alcohol abuse are up. The comforts of modern life have not made us happy, even as material comforts that were once exclusive to the rich have become the norm. Never before in human history have so many, with so much, been so miserable.

Nor has sexual liberation, the last, best hope for materialist pleasure, brought general happiness. In a prescient essay, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, “Sex is the only mysticism materialism offers, and so to sex the pursuers of happiness address themselves with an avidity and dedication seldom, if ever, surpassed.”

Sexual pleasure seems to offer a glimmer of transcendence, so we try to cheat the reaper with each petite mort. But widespread sexual indulgence has left our culture so far from sexual bliss that even The New York Times is running columns lamenting our sexual dystopia.

With Greater Desires Come Greater Corruption

<..snip..>

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/28/everything-wonderful-nobodys-happy/

[corbe]

 

[goatprairie]

"Never before in human history have so many, with so much, been so miserable"

Oh, bullsh*t!!! Ask the average older  Chinese person whether they were happier starving under Mao than now.

[dfwgator]

Start a World War.

[Absalom]

A reflection.
Early Man existed in a tribal environment; sustaining himself from the land.
As millennia passed, he created a more structured existence which evolved
into culture and later on, into society.
The sustaining element in this evolution was a moral order derived from the
Natural Law; whose essence and focus was other worldly and non-secular.
This dynamic persisted from the Fertile Crescent till the mid-18th century;
almost 10,000 years.
Then the French Enlightenment emerged around 1750, altering that earlier
dynamic irreversibly, as the focus became this worldly and secular.
Almost contemporaneously w/this sea change in attitude and sentiment,
emerged the Industrial Revolution gaining impetus decade after decade.
The impact of these two events created our modern world, warts and all.
Our existence is now defined almost exclusively by Mankind's level of
economic betterment and material well being.
Nate Blake asserts that Everything is Wonderful but Nobody is Happy;
yet wonders why?
Suggest he reflect by comparing the virtues and values of the Giants
of the past who created Western Civilization w/those of our present.
 

[Wingnut]

Start a World War.

I'll do my happy dance for that.  And tip 12%