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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

No, and also, happiness is an ideology that needs critique.


A description of Sara Ahmed's The Promise of Happiness:

The Promise of Happiness is a provocative cultural critique of the imperative to be happy. It asks what follows when we make our desires and even our own happiness conditional on the happiness of others: “I just want you to be happy”; “I’m happy if you’re happy.” Combining philosophy and feminist cultural studies, Sara Ahmed reveals the affective and moral work performed by the “happiness duty,” the expectation that we will be made happy by taking part in that which is deemed good, and that by being happy ourselves, we will make others happy. Ahmed maintains that happiness is a promise that directs us toward certain life choices and away from others. Happiness is promised to those willing to live their lives in the right way.

Ahmed draws on the intellectual history of happiness, from classical accounts of ethics as the good life, through seventeenth-century writings on affect and the passions, eighteenth-century debates on virtue and education, and nineteenth-century utilitarianism. She engages with feminist, antiracist, and queer critics who have shown how happiness is used to justify social oppression, and how challenging oppression causes unhappiness. Reading novels and films including Mrs. Dalloway, The Well of Loneliness, Bend It Like Beckham, and Children of Men, Ahmed considers the plight of the figures who challenge and are challenged by the attribution of happiness to particular objects or social ideals: the feminist killjoy, the unhappy queer, the angry black woman, and the melancholic migrant. Through her readings she raises critical questions about the moral order imposed by the injunction to be happy.

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chaos wrote

This is a conversation worth having, I've never considered this.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

The book's worth reading! I had a look online to post it earlier but didn't have much luck. It's on aaaaarg though I'm sure, but they seem to be down.

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Cosmicsloth42 wrote

Over all? Yeah, I can't complain to much. I actually like my job, janitor, it isn't glamorous but I do enjoy the people I work with and at least the hours are steady. What excitement I don't get out of work I get from my hobbies, (rock climbing, running etc.) And my spiritual life (I'm a secular Taoist) keeps my life in perspective. I could have it a lot worse. It could be better sure, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it while we strive to be better.

I know not everyone is as lucky as me, and I try my best to help those who aren't. I volunteer as much as I can with some local non-profits who homelessness and help with drug recovery. I just think to many people get caught up in the bad and not in the good.

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000 wrote

I'm only happy when with animals or alone in nature. Everything else is soul draining. Maybe I need to go feral?

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sudo wrote

No, my job is crushing my soul. The best I can do to escape from it is read and participate in my local communist party.

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ziq wrote

I'm content. I live where the food is good and cheap, low population density so little competition for resources, and I'm very good at entertaining myself without needing human company.

And my job is only soul crushing 20% of the time.

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Enkara wrote (edited )

Haha, No I'm like falling into a muddy pit grasping desperately at the sides as I slide down depressed r/n, I can't really keep a job or function normally anymore, and the experience of hanging out with friends or playing games with them is muted as fuck, which sucks. I'm like one minor setback in life from just ending it but afraid that if I fail to jump I'll get hospitalized and then I'll get a huge fucking medical bill haha fuck capitalism.

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hotcool wrote (edited )

"Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so." ~John Stuart Mill

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jaidedctrl wrote

I dunno, I'm finally without dysphoria (mostly), so I'm feeling better than I have since... as long as I can remember, actually.

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000 wrote

Just a quick suggestion to those who seek happiness: please consider adopting an animal from a rescue shelter. It may seem daunting at first but they will fill a void like nothing else will.

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Crassula wrote

Sometimes. My goal is to just feel "ok" most of the time though. Not to judge the low periods, and not cling to the highs.

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mofongo wrote

I don't think that's relevant.

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hotcool wrote

That's something I might say to avoid saying no ;)

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