Struggling with Happiness

Last weekend, the German newspaper Die Zeit published a special edition to its Sunday paper on trying to define what makes a good or happy life.  Within the collection of articles, each contributing thinker attempted an answer to this age-old question.  The philosophers ranged from Martin Seel of the University of Frankfurt to author Sudhir Kakar to Michael Sandel of Harvard University.  Each article, focusing on a different concept of happiness or fullness of life (justice, love, freedom), sought to answer the question through its own paradigm.  However, the people featured in Die Zeit are not indicative of philosophers of old, who for the most part, tended to be much more scattered towards the question. 

So we start, as writings like this often do, with Socrates, the Greek giant of philosophical musings.  As he is the influence of all major Greek thinkers that followed, it makes sense to focus on the great one himself.  Socrates' student, Plato, felt that Socrates only saw happiness as possible when one focused on self-actualization or the improvement of oneself for its own sake.  Once this internal "beauty" is held, then none of the temptations of life can persuade one away from true happiness of the soul and spirit.  The Roman philosopher Cicero concurred but went further to say that the beauty we find with other people, in the form of friendship or love, is the highest form of happiness and the sign of a treasured and good life. 

The medieval period and its philosophy was dominated by religious thinking.  St. Augustine of Hippo suggested that the happiness of life lies in how close to God we grow.  Anselm of Canterbury connected the pursuit and obtaining of happiness to be a condition of free will as he expounded upon the ideas of Augustine.  In later medieval philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas followed a more Aristotelian attitude by suggesting the ultimate end of life's ambition is happiness but unlike Aristotle and drawing closer to Augustine, Aquinas felt that closeness to God was a key to happiness.  Even for those who do not believe in God, they who Aquinas admitted would throw a wrench into his theory, still seek happiness.  God exists for them whether they want Him to or not.   

After the ideas of the ancients and the theologians of the Middle Ages, things turn a little dark.  A pessimism looms large in later writings, beginning with and epitomized by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.  Schopenhauer suggested that life was pain and suffering and he saw the efforts of man, ultimately, to be futile.  Much later in life, he would gravitate towards Buddhism and champion the idea of asceticism in the hopes of ridding suffering.  Happiness was not a great consideration for Schopenhauer, who influenced so many...like Friedrich Nietzsche.  Nietzsche too thought happiness to be an insignificant and futile goal but did offer a suggestion.  He said that he sought not happiness but he sought only his work.  To Nietzsche, there was a way out and that was enduring the suffering, not necessarily the escape from it.  By embracing and accepting it, it is possible to reveal the true nature within and in the process, persevere.

While these ideas are much repeated and studied (and rightfully so), I tend to disagree and suggest that happiness, without the paralyzing affect of contentment, is possible.  It speaks more to the idea of one's clarity.  Clarity would include a person who was brought up and educated under a certain narrative, one which organizes their life and structures their national purpose and one within which they live.  The clarity is also seen in the purposefulness one approaches their job and their lives.    A person of faith will have an easier time not just understanding their role in life but also face the unknown after life with greater comfort.  It is seen in an individual who knows their place within the family and the community.  This idea is best summed up by Albert Camus, who said, "But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads."  There is an organization who has created a "happiness index" as a way of measuring which countries have the largest and smallest amount of happy people.  It seems silly but it would be interesting to see if my clarity thesis holds.

Of course, it has been suggested that simply giving into our base instincts can be the only way to create true happiness.  Aristippus of Cyrene said that happiness lies within hedonism.  Some have suggested that man was made and designed to hunt, kill and fornicate indiscriminately - none of which is socially allowable in the way it was meant.  There are those that live that life, or try to, but I think I shall stick to the notion of clarity.  I've seen people that seek a guiltless society but what makes us human and what makes us better than animals is our understanding, deep inside, of what should be.  This is not really a question that can be answered and there is so much I've left out from the minds of men like Leo Tolstoy or Sigmund Freud or the Dalai Lama.  It must be left to you, I'm afraid, to figure out your own path of happiness.  I think I've found it.     

The Blackboard Jungle, Revisited

When I was young, I was fascinated by movies like Glenn Ford in The Blackboard Jungle or Sidney Poitier in To Sir, With Love – an outsider going into “tough” schools and fighting the attitudes of students, parents and teachers.  The other day, I visited a very large, inner-city school for a job interview.  The school was recently saddled with a negative rating from the state and was looking for teachers to boost their social studies department.  I spoke with a couple of, I assume, very nice people.  One was the director of curriculum for social studies and English instruction and the other was the department head for the social studies department.  Over the course of the next thirty or so minutes, it was made clear to me what is wrong with that school and inner-city schools in general.   

First of all, and this applies to all schools, the fear of litigation and “unfair hiring practices” has compelled schools to use a “script” of ten questions or so through which to judge each applicant.  How can one appropriately evaluate someone through standardized questions?  It is symptomatic of the U.S. education system and the Department of Education’s paradigm.  They seek the most streamlined, standardized way to conduct business.  So, in an attempt to evaluate possible teachers, they picked a system of questioning that is designed only to get canned answers to canned, obvious questions.  What is gained from these questions?  It is hard to tell because it took little intellectual effort to come up with them and for a cagey, teaching veteran such as myself, it takes even less effort to answer.  During my answers, I have to shoehorn in my views and my theories of education to a group of people to be heard (and then, in all likelihood, ignored).  Unless school officials are capable of and allowed to ask better questions of teacher applicants, I’m not sure how one can hire better teachers. 

Second is the horrible mindset of school officials in inner-city schools.  When former president George W. Bush introduced his No Child Left Behind education policy, he referred to a soft racism.  It was a racism of reduced expectation for minorities.  When the subject of the interview turned to testing, the coordinator said that the school’s test scores were fine and their biology scores were great, given their demographics.  For the record, the school is made up of a predominantly Mexican-American population.  I was not aware, having earlier taught for seven years in such a school, that Mexican-Americans were predisposed to do poorly in biology.  She masks her racism by saying that she is there for the children, where she is needed the most.  Even the use of the word “children” infantilizes them – a part of her mindset.  The liberal philosophy cannot be enacted unless someone is placed in a permanent state of disadvantage.  So, under the auspices of helping, they perpetuate an “ingrained” sense of ineptitude.   

The denouement of this debacle came when I asked my final question.  Why should I teach at this school?  Earlier in the interview, the curriculum director asked if I was willing to take a job teaching “regular” classes and not Advanced Placement – something I’ve done nearly exclusively for the last ten years.  I was honest in that I said it was a factor, a large factor, but not the only one.  When I asked my last question, the curriculum director said, “You have to want to be here.  We want people here for the children and not for any personal desire to teach this or that.  It must be for the children.”  First of all, that does not answer my question.  Second, it is a ridiculous philosophy.  By that notion, I should not even be interviewing but content with my current assignment because it is for the “children.” 

Until inner-city schools are operated and driven by administrators and teachers that expect the exact same standards as the “good schools” expect of their students, these beleaguered programs will never progress.  As long as administrators seek out teachers with the same non-sensical philosophies as they, the students will continue to wallow in a state of disadvantage.  When we seek to extend students latitude for their failings, we continue to cripple them.