Q&A: What Is Happiness
What Is Happiness.
Question
Hello Rabbi,
The West is the most comfortable place in the world to live. It has good material conditions, abundance, freedom, ethics, and so on. Despite this, Westerners are the most depressed people in the world—confused, lacking meaning, and lonely. By contrast, people who live in poor conditions—and not only that, even people who live in fundamentalist sects—are much happier. In fact, there is a clear correlation between fundamentalism and happiness.
The question is: what is happiness? If fundamentalists and those living in various cults (like North Korea) are happier, isn’t that a preferable way of life compared to being free, prosperous, and miserable? Personally, I choose freedom because it is something very deep within me, but am I right?
Answer
I think happiness is not everything. Freedom is not merely a tool for happiness, but a value or an asset in itself (see my columns on freedom and liberty). Therefore, even if I were less happy, I would still prefer to be free (and happy). Just as it is better to be wise and miserable than a happy fool.
By the way, on this issue see my comment about the utility function in column 20 and in the latest column (197), which went up just today.