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I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the line virtue became a dirty word.
You can’t say it without getting weird looks. You can’t even think it without feeling like a hypocrite. Virtue? Isn’t that something Victorians believed in? Look where that got us: a world so full of oppression that the sun never sets on it.
I used to be in that camp. Virtue was a guilty pleasure of mine. I believed in it (sort of). But I always felt like either a faker or a cultural imperialist for doing so. Whenever the word popped into my mind, I gave myself one good mental flogging as penance.
The field of psychology seems to have been beset by similar demons. Much of the research agenda has been dedicated to identifying pathology (things gone very wrong), and mitigating it where possible.
That is, until now (or, to be more accurate, until about ten years ago). Martin Seligman is one of the founders of the field of Positive Psychology, a new branch of research that tries to identify what can go very right.
His findings are compiled in Authentic Happiness. The book has vindicated virtue, at least in my mind.
Seligman has spent the last decade plus trying to identify the sources of human flourishing. He has found a combination of six such sources appearing in literature from the Indus Valley to the Japanese Archipelago to the Mediterranean Sea (how about South America, Africa, or the annals of the Iroquois Nation? I’m not sure. I bet you’d find these traits in abundance there, too, if you looked).
The six (drumroll please) more-or-less ubiquitous human virtues as uncovered by Seligman’s team of graduate students are….
Ha! As if I’m going to just tell you. Go read the book!
This book is of immense value simply by virtue of the fact that it opens up the conversation on what is probably the most important topic, period: What constitutes a life well-lived? What priorities are most sensible and condusive to happiness/satisfaction/reward/contentment/(whatever you want to use as the most fundamental term). But unfortunately, the connection between the two key areas of the book is not drawn very clearly, limiting its utility considerably.
First, Seligman introduces the equation H = S + C + V, (other reviewers have adequately explained it, so I won't) which is quite useful. But he doesn't flesh this out as well as he could have, and doesn't return to it enough after introducing it. S, we are to understand, is the set range, which seems to be basically genetically imposed temperament, but this isn't as clear as it should be. It seems to me that many of the factors included under V are also determined by S.
Part 1 of the book is essentially a taxonomy of positive experiences, divided by temporal orientation (toward past, present, and future) and intensity level. He separates purely bodily/sensate pleasures from "higher pleasures" which involve mentation to a greater degree. This is very helpful. One can quibble with this choices, but it's helpful to have a frame.
He then makes a loose but important distinction between the two sets of aforementioned pleasures on the one hand and "gratifications" on the other. Although he does not reject pleasures and indeed offers helpful tips on enhancing them, his (quite reasonable) assertion is that gratifications are the most important component of authentic happiness.Read more ›
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Pr. Seligman embeds a warning early in his book : he is not trying to help those who are at -8 on the happiness scale to get to -3, he is trying to help those at +3 to get to +8. Well, tough. Those at +3 don't buy books with this sort of title, those at -8 do. He proposes a 240 question on-line questionnaire to determine what are the reader's Strengths, in their order of dominance, and proposes that the 5 most dominant are the reader's 'Signature Strengths', and that is by exercising them to the maximum in different domains of life that Flow, and the Full Life, will be achieved. Hence the title of this review. The questionnaire is a snapshot of who you are and how you function. If who you are and how you function has made you as miserable as Hell for the last 20, 30, 40, or 50 years, then investing in even more of the same is not exactly going to improve things.
I first read Pr. Seligman's book 6 years ago, and put it aside in annoyance. Re-reading it has brought my ideas about it into focus.
Pr. Seligman seeks to reintroduce the notions of 'Virtue' and 'Character' into contemporary thought, as he finds 'personality' and 'traits' too open to moral relativism. He found the field of psychology too heavily invested in the study of the sick as opposed to that of the healthy. Well, Maslow got there before him.
The book falls into 3 parts. The first outlines the correlations between happiness (well-being) and a wide variety of positives : living longer, living healthier, more stable marriage, career success, and so on. Great, although Pr. Seligman sometimes fails to walk the line and ascribes cause and effect when there is just correlation. More often he doesn't, but when he does it's annoying.Read more ›
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This item: Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment
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