Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Among the Clockmakers
"Like the fella says, in Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love—they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."—Harry Lime, The Third Man [1949]
Reminds me of what I wrote on Facebook today:
ReplyDeleteWill Wilkinson is a happiness expert. Interesting data here. Antidepressants work. I think there is a religious resistance to antidepressants because 1. it makes people less likely to turn to religion for help (in short, they are competitors); and 2. they may help people feel better about themselves when the guilt imposing religious authorities think they should not.
But I also think there are non-religious philosophical arguments against people being "too happy." We don't yet fully understand the science behind human nature, but the greatest creators don't seem to be the happiest, complacent folks. I don't think Nietzsche would have thought too highly of antidepressants. They are drug of choice for the despicable self satisfied bourgeois "Last Man."
Stop the Scandimania: Nordic nations aren’t the utopias they’re made out to be
Nordic nations aren’t utopias.
washingtonpost.com
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Wilkinson is an expert in the social science research on "happiness." As far as I understand the research and data, the Scandinavian nations report higher levels of both happiness and antidepressant usage (happy pills).