Café Philos: an internet café

Ed Diener is America's foremost psychologist researching human happiness. In a 2003 study, he and Shigehiro Oishi discovered that European and Asian Americans behaved differently when choosing tasks to perform.

The European Americans typically picked tasks they were good at, while the Asian Americans were significantly more likely to ignore whether they were good at something when choosing whether to do it. Diener and Oishi further discovered that over time the European Americans expressed greater happiness with their tasks than the Asian Americans. That is, both groups were given a choice what tasks to perform, but only the European Americans picked tasks that made them happy.

Given a choice, why would anyone not choose to do what makes them happy?

Unfortunately, not everyone in this strange world has the option of fully playing to their strengths. It seems in many cases the reasons for that are economic. I would guess the need to earn a living, combined with a lack of opportunities for doing so, has probably forced more people into jobs and lives that play to their weaknesses than perhaps any other single factor. Just imagine how many immensely talented people in the long course of human history have been street beggars because the society and economy they lived in provided them with little or no opportunity to do anything else! Yet, even in wealthy nations today many people find themselves going into jobs where they cannot make full use of their talents and skills, but must to one great extent or another play to their weaknesses.

Besides economics, many social and cultural factors can pressure people into opting for a job or life that does not play to their strengths and leaves them less happy than they would otherwise be. The classic example of that is the social and cultural oppression of women. Until recently, most societies allowed women very few choices in life. And minorities within a society often face similar restrictions.

A third set of factors are probably psychological. A few years ago, the Surgeon General of the United States released a startling report that concluded one in five Americans was mentally or emotionally ill. A symptom of many disorders is anhedonism -- that is, an aversion to pleasure. People who suffer anhedonism are more likely to seek things that make them unhappy than things that make them happy. Although I don't know what percentage of the population suffers from anhedonism, it seems likely enough that it could be a few million of us.

While playing to our strengths is a significant source of happiness, not all of us do so for many and various reasons -- some of which I've touched on.

I read an extremely disturbing story earlier tonight of a young woman who was raped a few months before her planned wedding. Not only was she sexually violated, but afterwards, most of her community -- rather than rush to her support -- betrayed her. They turned against her as if she were the criminal. And they succeeded in destroying any chance she had of marrying the man she loved and who loved her.

We are the most insane of all the great apes.

As most of us know, rape is an atrocity. It ranks with murder and manslaughter as among he most heinous of crimes. It very often leaves its victims emotionally and mentally scarred for years. And the threat of rape alone is a curse against freedom. It is bad enough in itself, but it is even worse when the victim's community abuses the victim for having been raped. At that point, the community becomes despicable. It becomes immoral. And it becomes worse than the rapist himself.

Precisely the opposite should happen. The community should rally to the support of the rape victim. It should do everything within its power to reassure her that she is loved, valued, and held in esteem. It should make it its mission to help her heal from the trauma of rape, to recover her life, and to move on as best she can. A community that will not or cannot do at least that much for a victim of rape is treacherous. What possible allegiance could anyone owe such a community?

People's attitudes towards the victims of rape can and must change.

"It's important to remember that feminism is no longer a group of organizations or leaders. It's the expectations that parents have for their daughters, and their sons, too. It's the way we talk about and treat one another. It's who makes the money and who makes the compromises and who makes the dinner. It's a state of mind. It's the way we live now."

- Anna Quindlen

Source

It's quite often said these days that "if women are oppressed, all of us are oppressed." I believe there's enough truth in that to make it a viable statement, and it is one reason I support many feminist positions. But last night, I came across a blog post arguing people should not support feminism for that reason. The author was sure anyone who supported feminism for such a "selfish" reason was ignoble and a detriment to the cause.

Instead, she believed the only sound reason to support feminism was because supporting it was the "right thing to do" if you believe in "justice."

In other words, she is an idealist.

She believes that people can and ought to support something for an ideal reason, rather than because their skins and the skins of their friends might happen to be at stake. Well, I have to disagree with her on that.

Very few people are genuinely motivated by ideals. Most of those who say they are motivated by ideals are really motivated by some kind of self-interest -- and too often a perverse one. Moreover, the few who are genuinely motivated by ideals tend to be much too familiar with human nature to ever ask anyone else to do something merely for an ideal. Instead, they appeal to other's self-interest even when they themselves are doing the thing for selfless reasons.

You cannot find enough people in this country to support feminism -- or any other cause -- for purely idealistic reasons to fill a convention held in a small country church, let alone enough to change society. The average joe and sally are going to support feminism -- if they support it -- because it's somehow in their own self-centered interests to support it. Maybe I'm just too old and cynical to see it any other way, but that is indeed how I see it.

Recently, the Economist Intelligence Unit created the Global Peace Index -- a ranking of countries according to their level of peacefulness.

It's hoped the Index will further the study of how the world can achieve peace. But the Index seems to have a major flaw: It does not track violence done to women and children. Hence, countries in which great violence is done towards women and children show up in the Index ranked deceptively high for "peacefulness".

From the Christian Science Monitor:

The first-ever study ranking countries according to their level of peacefulness, the Global Peace Index, was recently published by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Sensibly, its basic premise is that "peace isn't just the absence of war; it's the absence of violence."

The index uses 24 indicators such as how many soldiers are killed, the level of violent crimes, and relations with neighboring countries.

Yet it fails to include the most prevalent form of global violence: violence against women and children, often in their own families. To put it mildly, this blind spot makes the index very inaccurate.

That certainly is "putting it mildly". Overall, violence towards women and children creates a "cycle of violence" in which the children tend to perpetuate violence towards others when they grow up. Two infamous cases where that happened were Hitler and Stalin -- both of whom grew up in violent households. It's hard to believe you can accurately measure the peacefulness of a society without taking into rigorous account the society's treatment of women and children.

I consider myself something of a feminist sympathizer. Within the last few years, though, I've often wondered whether feminism will survive the up and coming generations -- which according to some surveys I've read of in the popular press, largely consider feminism either to be irrelevant or to be detrimental to their interests.

So, I've wondered if feminism is wounded and perhaps dying? And if so, what wounded it? Or, will kill it? Any ideas you might have about that would be greatly appreciated by me.