Be Happy 101

A London School of Economics prof says that kids ought to be given "happiness lessons" in school:

All schoolchildren should have "happiness" lessons up to the age of 18 to combat growing levels of depression, according to a senior Government adviser.

Pupils should study subjects such as how to manage feelings, attitudes to work and money, channelling negative emotions and even how to take a critical view of the media, said Lord Richard Layard, a Labour peer and professor of economics at the London School of Economics.

In a speech last night, he said that Tony Blair's Respect programme - the crackdown on young offenders and problem families - was "far more repressive than preventative" and may be fuelling levels of depression.

He said all state school pupils should receive tuition in "how to be happy" up to the age of 18 and their progress in the subject should feature in university applications.

How does one grade the exams? "Sorry, Forbes Minor, we're going to have to hold you back. There's an insufficient spring in your step and your smile is upside down."

Philosopher AC Grayling weighs in with an editorial on the subject of what makes happiness:

There are two points that need to be firmly grasped before one can talk seriously about the real question at stake, which is not best phrased as "how can we increase the amount of happiness in society", but rather "how can we equip individuals to live more personally satisfying lives?"

Despite seeming to be versions of each other, they are radically different questions. The first suggests a view of happiness as a form of welfare that public funding, if suitably directed through education or some other vehicle of social engineering, could subsidise.

The second recognises that there are very many ways in which people can use the word "happiness" to describe what they feel when their lives are going well, and that what they mean by it is almost always a very individual thing.

The individual thing in question is typically an enduring mood or mindset arising from the joint operation of a number of factors. These include health, the quality of personal relationships, satisfaction in work or other avocations, engagement in creative and pleasurable activities, either financial security or indifference to money, a sense of being valued at work or in the community, and a sufficient degree of independence to be able to make individually important choices and act on them.

Each of these things in turn requires a degree of understanding and a capacity for self-government, which individuals can be helped to acquire both by education and through prevailing social attitudes. For example, health is enhanced by exercise and good diet. That is something that can be taught.

Good relationships are based on mature understanding of others, generosity and tolerance, and an ability to express feelings constructively and appropriately; these are more complex matters, and central to "emotional intelligence", but they likewise can be encouraged and fostered through education and the social debate.

Still, no general prescription is ever going to capture what unique combinations of such factors will suit all individuals.

But society can help individuals to acquire the tools they need for the task of building their own uniquely satisfying lives. And indeed, education is the principal such tool. An education that results in an ability to think, to evaluate evidence and arguments, and to know where to find information and to make use of it is one key; a wide acquaintance with literature and history, and the challenge to respond reflectively to both, is another.

Perhaps "happiness studies" as such will help, but the two keys mentioned are indispensable, and perhaps the only real foundations of a chance for good lives.

Sadly, but perhaps not at all surprising, the concept of religion doesn't seem to enter into the discussion at all. A real pity since, at least IMHO, practical Christianity encompasses so many of these ideas.