Consider the different ways in which men behave when they sit down to a meal. There are those to whom a meal is merely a bore; no matter how excellent the food may be, they feel that it is uninteresting. Like everything else, meals are tiresome, but it is no use to make a fuss, because nothing else will be less tiresome. Then there are the invalids who eat from a sense of duty, because the doctor has told them that it is necessary to take a little nourishment in order to keep up their strength. Then there are the epicures, who start hopefully, but find that nothing has been quite so well cooked as it ought to have been. Finally there are those who begin with a sound appetite, are glad of their food, eat until they have had enough, and then stop.
Those who are set down before the feast of life have similar attitudes towards the good things which it offers. The happy man corresponds to the last of our eaters. What hunger is in relation to food, zest is in relation to life. The man who is bored with his meals corresponds to the victim of Byronic unhappiness. The invalid who eats from a sense of duty corresponds to the ascetic, the gormandiser to the voluptuary. The epicure corresponds to the fastidious person who condemns half the pleasures of life as unaesthetic. Oddly enough, all these types feel contempt for the man of healthy appetite and consider themselves his superior. It seems to them vulgar to enjoy food because you are hungry or to enjoy life because it offers a variety of interesting spectacles and surprising experiences. From the height of their disillusionment they look down upon those whom they despise as simple souls. For my part I have no sympathy with this outlook. All disenchantment is to me a malady, which, it is true, certain circumstances may render inevitable, but which none the less, when it occurs, is to be cured as soon as possible, not to be regarded as a higher form of wisdom.
Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happi
The mistake of equating an ability to derive pleasure from ordinary experiences with simplicity is one I too am guilty of. Those able to derive pleasure from playing with snow, which is, after all, solidified hydrogen and oxygen, or from igniting crackers, mixtures of sulphur and potassium, looked down upon as simple or jejune.
Disenchantment is too easily passed off as wisdom, all the more so since not partaking of whatever others are allows you to appear above it. You also have umpteen theological and philosophical arguments to back your position. The greatest wealth, Seneca said, is a poverty of desires. The Buddhist idea that desire is the cause of suffering; suffering can be overcome by overcoming desires, therefore every additional experience you derive pleasure from is one more weakness, one more source of misery that through its transience causes you suffering before it can be attained, as well as when it has ended. Socrates dissatisfied, John Stuart Mill claimed, is much above a pig satisfied. The very fact that one is dissatisfied is an indication of a superior mind, a mind above those of plebeians, too easily satisfied by a particular food or song or any such triviality. A superior mind, surely, is not so easily pleased, lest it become commonplace. The refined one is above it all, tired by and cynical of the ordinary and mundane.
There is nothing wrong in not enjoying snow or music, just as there is nothing wrong in enjoying them. There is, I think, nothing better in not enjoying an experience than in enjoying it, while there is, as Russell cogently argues, at least one way in which the latter is better than the former.
Suppose one man likes strawberries and another does not; in what respect is the latter superior? There is no abstract and impersonal proof either that strawberries are good or that they are not good. To the man who likes them they are good; to the man who dislikes them they are not. But the man who likes them has a pleasure which the other does not have; to that extent his life is more enjoyable and he is better adapted to the world in which both must live. What is true in this trivial instance is equally true in more important matters. The man who enjoys watching football is to that extent superior to the man who does not. The man who enjoys reading is still more superior to the man who does not, since opportunities for reading are more frequent than opportunities for watching football. The more things a man is interested in, the more opportunities of happiness he has, and the less he is at the mercy of fate, since if he loses one thing he can fall back upon another. Life is too short to be interested in everything, but it is good to be interested in as many things as are necessary to fill our days. We are all prone to the malady of the introvert, who, with the manifold spectacle of the world spread out before him, turns away and gazes only upon the emptiness within. But let us not imagine that there is anything grand about the introvert’s unhappiness.
Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
One can argue that it isn’t so, that the man who likes strawberries is in fact to that extent inferior to the one who doesn’t, for, in the absence of strawberries – which, I imagine, is the greater part of life – he pines away, or at least suffers somewhat, from his unmet need. This is the same assumption that underpins the idea that the cause of suffering is desire, that every desire, though giving momentary pleasure during its fulfilment, is a source of enduring unhappiness before and after that moment.
The difference lies in the assumptions one builds upon. The case for disenchantment rests on the assumption that desire is powerful enough to cause unhappiness in the absence of fulfilment. A desire not satisfied causes longing for fulfilment, a desire satisfied longing for repetition. Only in the brief interval between the two is there any joy, and a fleeting one at that.
The word ‘desire’, however, is loaded. Not all likings or interests, I think, are so powerful or omnipresent that their absence casts a shadow, as one associates with the word ‘desire’ in this sense. Most desires are mere interests, likings, preferences – for strawberries, snow, football, reading or whatnot. An interest is something one enjoys when available, and doesn’t (usually) pine for when not. Most interests, I think, fit better in this sense – hardly anyone, I imagine, pines away for want of strawberries, though many delight in them when available. Notwithstanding the halo around minimalism and disenchantment, therefore, Russell’s reasoning does follow. The man who likes strawberries has a pleasure which the other does not have; to that extent his life is more enjoyable and he is better adapted to the world in which both must live. The more things a man is interested in, the more opportunities of happiness he has.
Another argument is – what’s the relevance, what’s the utility? Take football, for instance. What is it to do with me? Why should I invest my time in watching overpaid grown men kicking a circular object into a rectangular net? Why should I invest my emotions in people who know nothing of my existence? And if I like the game, why not simply play myself rather than vicariously living through strangers? All of these, and more, are questions I’ve often asked.
One of the sources of unhappiness, fatigue, and nervous strain is inability to be interested in anything that is not of practical importance in one’s own life. The result of this is that the conscious mind gets no rest from a certain small number of matters, each of which probably involves some anxiety and some element of worry.
The world is vast and our own powers are limited. If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give. And to demand too much is the surest way of getting even less than is possible. The man who can forget his worries by means of a genuine interest in, say, the Council of Trent, or the life history of stars, will find that, when he returns from his excursion into the impersonal world, he has acquired a poise and calm which enable him to deal with his worries in the best way, and he will in the meantime have experienced a genuine even if temporary happiness.
Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
In one sense, there is no good answer to any of those questions. Yes, objectively, what I am doing is watching well-paid strangers kicking a round object into a net, rooting for one group to defeat another. But in another sense, there is a great answer, the one Russell makes. The man who likes football has a pleasure which the other does not have; to that extent his life is more enjoyable and he is better adapted to the world in which both must live.
The other side is the person who neglects what is of practical importance for what isn’t. The unemployed – and unemployable – lad partaking in riots and protests and agitations, fixated on everything, religious dogma and perceived historical injustices and public causes, everything except what is of practical importance in his own life. The impractical and far-off interests, in this case, are more a source of escape from drudgery and failure than a real source of happiness. But between the two extremes – one solely practical, one entirely impractical – lies most of humanity. Once one has set their house in order, perhaps, interests outside oneself add to happiness, at least, that is, to the point they set the house into disarray.
As someone with a turn towards disenchantment, a predisposition for inwardness over outward interests, and drawn to narrow and deep absorptions rather than wide ones, Russell’s words run counter to my natural way of thinking. There is, I imagine, nothing particularly shocking or even unconventional in anything here – that it’s nice to be interested in and like things, that someone who likes football is in one aspect happier than someone who doesn’t, that disenchantment is a malady not wisdom. Perhaps from the hole one digs oneself into one loses sight of basic truths and homely clichés. Be that as it may, there are, I think, few experiences nicer than someone changing the way you thinking about a subject on which you have strong views. And to do it so simply, as Russell does, is nicer still.