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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, we welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm editor Knadas Keener, joined by fellow editor Kaden Lambert.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, candles, Good morning. I'm trying to speak with

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Speaker 1: a little something extra in my voice, a note of

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Speaker 1: enthusiasm and excitement, because the topic of today is happiness,

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Speaker 1: and you know it really started brings you down if

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Speaker 1: you hear it to your hosts talking about happiness and

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Speaker 1: the sling thing would rather slip their risk and be

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Speaker 1: talking into a microphone. I'll do what's past everyone, um

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Speaker 1: exclamation points. Everywhere. Since the recession, I've noticed that all

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Speaker 1: manner of publications and advertisements have been pushing a different

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Speaker 1: type of fulfillment. You know, before with things if you

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Speaker 1: have this bracelet, if you have this car, if you

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Speaker 1: have this television, you know it'll make you happier because

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Speaker 1: it adds a new type of Richmond to your daily life.

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Speaker 1: But now I read and I see things about experiences

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Speaker 1: as a way to fulfillment, and it seems like no

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Speaker 1: matter if you're pushing a thing, a tangible thing or

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Speaker 1: an experience, there's still marketing happiness. Can you really do

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Speaker 1: that and what really is happiness. It seems like it

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Speaker 1: might be appropriate to turn back to some of the

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Speaker 1: oldest conceptions of what happiness really is. So we shall

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Speaker 1: travel back to ancient Greece, and we're gonna hang out

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Speaker 1: with Herodotus Um, who of course wrote the history, which

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Speaker 1: is one of the classics of classics, if I can

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Speaker 1: say that, and he tells the story of Crisus and Solon.

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Speaker 1: Crisus was the richest man pretty much on earth. He

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Speaker 1: was the king of Lydia. He was there Donald Trump,

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Speaker 1: and Solon was an adene lawgiver and general wise man.

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Speaker 1: And Crisis said to Solon very confidently that he thought

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Speaker 1: he was the happiest man in the world, and so

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Speaker 1: On basically called him an idiot and said the happiest

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Speaker 1: man in the world was a guy named tell Us,

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Speaker 1: who had been killed in battle at the prime of life.

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Speaker 1: And the second happiest people were two brothers, Cleobus and Biden,

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Speaker 1: who had carried their mother to a festival, yoked up

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Speaker 1: to this cart like Oxen, and then died. So basically,

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Speaker 1: the three happiest people in the world were all dead,

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Speaker 1: which isn't really what you think of when you think

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Speaker 1: of happiness so much um. But his point was that

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Speaker 1: you can only figure out if you're happy when you're dead,

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Speaker 1: because the possibility of chance and luck and fortune that's

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Speaker 1: ended at that point, and otherwise you never know what's

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Speaker 1: going to happen. The Greek idea of happiness was very dependent,

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Speaker 1: I think, on the idea of chance, and we should mention,

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Speaker 1: while neither of us has a degree in philosophy, if

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Speaker 1: it has done a marked amount of research, that the

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Speaker 1: closest word for happiness in Greek seems to be youd ammonia,

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Speaker 1: which etymologically speaking at lay means living in a way

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Speaker 1: that's favored by the gods, you meaning well and de

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Speaker 1: moon meaning a spirit. So living well would be living happily,

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Speaker 1: or living in a way that's pleasing to the gods.

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Speaker 1: But happiness in a way that we can see that it,

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Speaker 1: which could be ice cream cones and sunny days or

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Speaker 1: you know, a rainy day in a book and an

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Speaker 1: ice lamp, depending on what type of personality you have,

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Speaker 1: wasn't It wasn't the way the Greeks thought about it.

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Speaker 1: It was more or less a series of experiences, and

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Speaker 1: of course that would vary depending on the philosopher you're

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Speaker 1: looking at, and Katie's mentioned Herodotus, and I think that's

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Speaker 1: an excellent place to start. And at the risk of

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Speaker 1: sounding like we're we're taking off a list of different

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Speaker 1: Greek philosophers, we are because we wanted to give you

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Speaker 1: all a broader take of the Greek definition of happiness.

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Speaker 1: And someone I find particularly interesting is Socrates. And Socrates

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Speaker 1: was all about the soul and virtue. The Greek word

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Speaker 1: for virtue is actually are at, which means something more

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Speaker 1: along the lines of excellence. And socrates Is question was

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Speaker 1: what makes an excellent person or what makes an excellent life?

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't sensual pleasure, it wasn't money, it wasn't family,

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Speaker 1: so sorry family, um. But he did have the idea

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Speaker 1: that you can't achieve happiness, which was pretty revolutionary. This

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Speaker 1: is something that you can get you personally, and to

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Speaker 1: get to that, what you have to do is put

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Speaker 1: your soul to rights. He basically believed that your soul

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Speaker 1: could rot and die or it could flourish and you

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Speaker 1: could live this good, flourishing life and the worst thing

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Speaker 1: that could happen to you was to be a wicked person.

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Speaker 1: So wicked people can't be happy. So just playing devil's

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Speaker 1: advocate here, what if you're born with a wicked heart?

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess some people would argue that some

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Speaker 1: people are born with kinder dispositions and some people have

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Speaker 1: more inherent nasty spirits. And I think Aristotle had something

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Speaker 1: to say about what you're born with and making the

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Speaker 1: most of it. In terms of happiness, Aristotle had a

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Speaker 1: bit of a grimmer view of happiness. Um, he thought

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Speaker 1: it was really important to be of good birth and

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Speaker 1: to have lots of friends and good friends, and money

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Speaker 1: and children and a healthy old age and on and on.

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Speaker 1: I presume he had all of these things himself. Well,

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Speaker 1: the problem is that if you don't have these things,

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Speaker 1: you can't be happy. But you can't exactly choose what

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Speaker 1: you're born into. So that doesn't leave a lot of

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Speaker 1: room for some of us. And in fact, he didn't

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Speaker 1: believe that women had reason, and reason, of course, was

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Speaker 1: the way to get to happiness. So chindas you and

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Speaker 1: I are excluded from this whole happy thing. Apparently so.

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Speaker 1: But I tend to be a pretty active person. I

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Speaker 1: like to do things exclamation point. And that's a philosophy

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Speaker 1: that Aristotle favored. He didn't think that attaining happiness happened

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Speaker 1: by living passively. You had to be active. You had

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Speaker 1: to actively be conceiving of ways to reach well being.

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Speaker 1: The thing about Aristotle was that he believed that happiness

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Speaker 1: was man's highest purpose, that we actually have an end

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Speaker 1: point the teleological argument, and that separates us from animals

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Speaker 1: and plants well, because we can think with reason, and

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Speaker 1: he thought reason was the one thing that separated us.

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Speaker 1: So if you acted with reason, you could find your

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Speaker 1: way to the highest good, which was yourn ammonia happiness.

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Speaker 1: But you know, of course, as women couldn't get there.

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Speaker 1: And the thing that really gets a little bit depressing,

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Speaker 1: Sorry Happiness podcast, was that he thought the best kind

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Speaker 1: of happiness was a godlike happiness, which he also says

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Speaker 1: is pretty much impossible unless you're born into that state, right,

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Speaker 1: not even just you have to have all of those prerequisites,

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Speaker 1: the good birth, the good family, and all the friends

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Speaker 1: and the money and everything. And then out of those

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Speaker 1: select few, because that narrows it down a lot, a

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Speaker 1: couple of you, you know, might attain that whole godlike

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Speaker 1: happiness thing, but the rest of us are kind of screwed.

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Speaker 1: But I suppose if you're on the screwed end of

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Speaker 1: the spectrum and you don't have a good family, and

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Speaker 1: you're not attractive and you're childless, which are all things

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Speaker 1: he pointed out, is being key to that state of contentment.

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Speaker 1: You could say that instead of being bitter and cursing

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Speaker 1: the state you're in, you could always strive toward happiness.

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Speaker 1: You could you could take the point of view, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe I don't have all these facets that are necessary,

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Speaker 1: but I could still actively pursue some sort of contentment

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Speaker 1: and well being well, and that might bring us to

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Speaker 1: some of the later philosophies. I know you've been talking

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Speaker 1: earlier about Epicureanism exactly, And if I had to pick

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Speaker 1: a Greek philosophy of happiness, I think I'd go with

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Speaker 1: Epicurean is um sort of the least of all evils,

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Speaker 1: because I have to say that if one expects to

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Speaker 1: live by some sort of Greek philosophy in the modern age,

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Speaker 1: you're hopelessly anachronistic. And I don't think it's possible. And

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Speaker 1: if you do, please email me immediately because I want

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Speaker 1: to know how you're doing it. Um. Epicurus advocated detaching

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Speaker 1: oneself from philosophy, essentially being a type of hermit. He

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Speaker 1: did say, however, you can surround yourself with like minded

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Speaker 1: folks and a commune, which is where he lived. And

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Speaker 1: his big philosophy was attaining pleasure by avoiding pain. So

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Speaker 1: you know, it takes two objects to cause friction. Two

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Speaker 1: different services running against each other is going to cause

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Speaker 1: a spark, cause some sort of disturbance, and he said,

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Speaker 1: just avoid it, no friction. That's okay. You'll be happier

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Speaker 1: if you just avoid that all together. And he was

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Speaker 1: a hedonist, and today we may think of a hedonist

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Speaker 1: to someone who drinks too much and parties too much

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Speaker 1: and eats too much. But his definition or the definition

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Speaker 1: that he abided by, was a little bit different. Um,

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Speaker 1: Miriam Woobster just defines it as the doctrine that pleasure

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Speaker 1: or happiness is the soul or chief good in life.

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Speaker 1: And we're not talking a Dionysian sort of hedonism. He

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Speaker 1: was epicurious, advocated a sort of ascetic lifestyle like Candice

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Speaker 1: was saying, you know, living in a living kind of

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Speaker 1: as a hermit. And even though he wasn't a set,

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Speaker 1: he didn't believe in deprivation. Necessarily, he believed in moderation

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Speaker 1: and simplicity, And just for argument's sake, I think that

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Speaker 1: there's a whole industry today built on the idea of simplicity.

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Speaker 1: You could confine yourself to a diet of bread and

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Speaker 1: peanut butter, but if you go to a gourmet grosser

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Speaker 1: and buy a fourteen dollar jar of almond butter and

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Speaker 1: a ten dollar loaf of fancy bread, you're not exactly

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Speaker 1: being an epicurean well, And I think the bottom line

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Speaker 1: Frebertarianism was that if you don't want a lot of things,

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Speaker 1: you can satisfy those few things that you have. Like,

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Speaker 1: the worst thing that could happen is to have a

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Speaker 1: bunch of unfulfilled longings. And if you get rid of

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Speaker 1: those desires by saying you only want, say, three things,

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Speaker 1: instead of three hundred things, you up your chances of

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Speaker 1: actually being able to accomplish that. And he also put

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Speaker 1: mind over body in terms of happiness, the idea of

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Speaker 1: an intellectual pleasure versus some sort of carnal or corporeal pleasure.

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Speaker 1: And this is something that John Stewart Mill picked up

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Speaker 1: on later when he talked about the kernel pleasures of

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Speaker 1: food and drinking sex, and Epicurius actually advocated abstaining from

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Speaker 1: sex as well as substaining from marriage. So well, there

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Speaker 1: you go. But the exact opposite of hedonism as we

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Speaker 1: would think of it today, really, but he would have

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Speaker 1: argued that no matter what circumstance you're and no matter

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Speaker 1: how painful it is, as long as you can put

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Speaker 1: your mind over that situation, you can find pleasure mind

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Speaker 1: every body. Aren't there all sorts of magicians today who

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Speaker 1: talk about putting mind everyone's body? Are you saying, Epicaris,

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Speaker 1: It's like David Copperfield, I don't know about that. It's

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Speaker 1: an interesting proposition. I think one of the most striking

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Speaker 1: things about Epicureanism was that Epicarius believed that there are

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Speaker 1: gods who exist, but they're not even concerned with us.

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Speaker 1: They don't care about you, They really don't. They like

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Speaker 1: to do exactly god like things. And he was implying

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Speaker 1: basically that you can make your own destiny because the

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Speaker 1: gods don't care you're here, you're in motion, not do it,

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Speaker 1: you will well. And if there is no divine order,

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Speaker 1: the only things you have to depend on to figure

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Speaker 1: out what's good and what's bad are your senses. And

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Speaker 1: obviously pleasure is good. When you things are pleasurable, you

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Speaker 1: feel good, and when you're in pain or you're anxious,

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Speaker 1: you feel terrible. And stoicism is actually supposed to be

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Speaker 1: the opposite of Epicureanism. They believed. Stoics believed that the

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Speaker 1: universe was rational, harmonious whole, and since human beings are

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Speaker 1: also rational, we should be able to find our place

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Speaker 1: by living in a virtuous way, by living an excellent life.

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Speaker 1: And it's funny because stoicism is supposed to be the

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Speaker 1: total opposite of Epicureanism, but they do have a lot

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Speaker 1: of things in common. They believe that you should be

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Speaker 1: happy regardless of the external factors of what was going on.

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Speaker 1: So you can't control the things that happened to you,

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Speaker 1: unlike Aristotle. You know, you can't control how you're born

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Speaker 1: and what you're born into, and you can't control disease

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Speaker 1: and famine war, but you should be able to find

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Speaker 1: your happiness regardless of what's going on. You should be

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Speaker 1: stoic in the way that we use it today. And

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Speaker 1: for the sake of argument and presenting another side of

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Speaker 1: the happiness story, we're going to travel much further into

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Speaker 1: the future, not the present day, but back during the

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Speaker 1: Romantic period. And this has a little to nothing to

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Speaker 1: do with the Greek philosophers, but it presents a very

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Speaker 1: interesting contrast to their ideas of attaining happiness. And there's

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Speaker 1: a book that came out not too long ago by

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Speaker 1: Eric Wilson called Against Happiness and Praise of Melancholy. And

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Speaker 1: Wilson is a noted professor of Romanticism at wake Forest University,

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Speaker 1: and he abides by the philosophy of melancholia, and essentially

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Speaker 1: what he explained in his word is that melancholy is

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Speaker 1: an essential part of being a human being, and he

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Speaker 1: defines it as a very active state. When we're melancholy,

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Speaker 1: we feel uneasy in relation to the way things are,

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Speaker 1: the status quo, the conventions of our society. We yearn

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Speaker 1: for a deeper, richer relationship to the world. And he

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Speaker 1: goes on, but I'm going to trail off there. And

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Speaker 1: what struck me about this definition of melancholy and how

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Speaker 1: it's a necessary contrast to living happily and obliviously some

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Speaker 1: might say, is that it's so different from this idea

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Speaker 1: of epicurean detachment it's sort of like being immersed in

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Speaker 1: a world that you don't understand. You may be unlucky

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Speaker 1: in it, you may not have a strong foothold in it.

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Speaker 1: But that's a good thing. That's an excellent thing because

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Speaker 1: it makes you almost hyper aware of your surroundings and

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Speaker 1: your place in the world. And unlike the Stoics who

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Speaker 1: would say take your lot and live with it, he's

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Speaker 1: essentially saying, yeah, take your lot, but look how much

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Speaker 1: you can do with it. Because out of this state

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Speaker 1: of awareness and dissatisfaction comes great art, great poetry, which

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Speaker 1: of course the Greeks had in spades when you look

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Speaker 1: back at all sorts of Greek art and architecture and literature.

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Speaker 1: What they also had and what we enjoy so much today,

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Speaker 1: is the idea of democracy. And I was reading a

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Speaker 1: really good book called Happiness, a History by Darren McMahon,

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Speaker 1: and he was positing that perhaps the idea of democracy

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Speaker 1: led to all these questionings of what happiness is and

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Speaker 1: how you achieve it because people had a choice. They

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Speaker 1: had a choice to elect who they wanted, a choice

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Speaker 1: to participate at least in the process. And maybe you

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Speaker 1: can also participate in the process of achieving your own happiness.

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Speaker 1: And at the risk of sounding like a kindergarten teacher,

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Speaker 1: we have that choice to every day when you wake up,

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Speaker 1: you choose whether or not you're going to have them

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Speaker 1: quote unquote right attitude. But happiness is, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: more than just the smile you put on for the

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Speaker 1: rest of the world. It is really no matter what

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Speaker 1: philosophy you live your life by. It it's how you

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Speaker 1: find enjoyment and fulfillment. And if you look at happiness

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Speaker 1: like a line graph, it's different for everyone. For some

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Speaker 1: people who live contentedly and happily, it's probably just a

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Speaker 1: straight line. For other people who depend on experiences or

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Speaker 1: themes to make their day, you probably see a line

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Speaker 1: that goes up very sharply with a peak of happiness

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Speaker 1: and then plummets with the trough of unhappiness and then

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Speaker 1: up and down and up and down. And whether you

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Speaker 1: prefer that type of line graph for your happiness cycle

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Speaker 1: or a straight line again your choice. I feel like

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Speaker 1: I should start singing more than a feeling. Oh that's

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Speaker 1: a great song, um, and Katie actually is about too,

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Speaker 1: but working to spare all of your ears. So we'll

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Speaker 1: go ahead and let all of you go, But if

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Speaker 1: you have any ideas, and for heaven's sake, if you

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Speaker 1: are a real philosopher and you want to weigh in

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Speaker 1: on any of this, email us at History podcast at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com or common on the blog.

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Speaker 1: And for more about the ancient Greeks and ancient civilization,

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Speaker 1: be sure to visit the website at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

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Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com and be sure to

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Speaker 1: check out this stuff you missed in History Class blog

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