Abstract
The concluding chapter summarizes the book by explaining how and why the origin of happiness is relevant to our understanding of the modernization processes and contemporary experience of happiness. It argues that happiness has represented one of the central themes guiding the processes of modernization that have fundamentally determined what we experience today. Following from this, the birth of happiness is presented as essential to our understanding of a broader context in which important aspects of individual and social life—such as consumer culture, the modern state, economic system, science and technology, idea of progress, etc.—have emerged in the West.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Even though the book focuses on the period ranging from the fourth to the eighteenth centuries, in light of future research it is worth noting that in the nineteenth century it is possible to observe certain (mostly intellectual) movements that questioned particular aspects of the Enlightenment project of progress towards (public) happiness. In direct contrast to the medieval material scarcity, low overall quality of life and Christian refusal of sensual pleasures, initially the dominant strategies of happiness were predominantly tied to emphasizing material welfare, economic progress and physical sensual gratification. Marxism was the first influential intellectual movement that criticized the exploitation of large segments of the population in the context of the industrial revolution and the unequal distribution of the fruits of material progress for which the Enlightenment movement believed that is supposed to unquestionably contribute to public happiness. On the other hand, romanticism at roughly the same time questioned the widespread Enlightenment assumption that material welfare, rationalism and physical gratification alone can bring happiness (this is at least partly related to the fact that the romantics were mostly wealthy aristocrats well acquainted with the abundance of sensual pleasures); hence the romantic emphasis on intimacy, emotions and “weltschmerz”. Another important intellectual movement in the nineteenth century that can be considered as a sort of questioning of the Enlightenment vision of happiness was psychoanalysis. While for the romantics physical gratification alone is not enough to bring true happiness, for Freud physical gratification cannot be simply equated with happiness because it is ultimately impossible. We have argued that for the mainstream Enlightenment vision of the pursuit of (public) happiness, an individual on his own or society (if he is not capable of doing so) ought to rationally restrain the inherent individual drive for pleasure (what Freud (1961) calls ‘the pleasure principle’). On the contrary for Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents (1961), it is precisely this “civilized restraining” of desire that is the main source of unhappiness (in Freudian terms, pleasure principle vs. reality principle). It is true that Freud (1961) sees the origins of this tension as emerging much earlier than in the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, we believe that the early experience of happiness and its vision of public happiness can be seen as a development in Western thought that can help us understand—to a certain extant at least—the context in which Freud started to problematize this tension.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zevnik, L. (2014). Conclusion: Modernization as the Collective Pursuit of Happiness. In: Critical Perspectives in Happiness Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04403-3_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04403-3_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-04402-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-04403-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)