In the latest issue of The Nation, historian Jackson Lears takes the “happiness industry” to task for believing, with Margaret Thatcher, that there is no such thing as society. Lears disdains the notion of happiness and the array of self-help books out there aiming to help you pursue it. The focus on individual well-being, he thinks, distracts us from more worthwhile goals like reducing the unnecessary suffering of others. But is pursuing your own happiness really antisocial?
Lears criticizes both the cultural individualism of the left and the economic individualism of the right for sharing “a common asocial (or antisocial) vision worthy of Thatcher herself.” The common enemy, according to him, is individualism, which has found its perfect expression in manuals telling you how to be happy.
But individualism, and the cultural and economic freedom it thrives on, is not antisocial. A few individuals might cut themselves off from society, but as the very happiness industry he derides takes pains to demonstrate, friendships and other social interactions are a big part of what really makes most people happy. What individualists like me actually believe is that the greater the level of individual freedom, the better the society. People living in a free society—a society in which as many aspects of life as possible are left in the hands of individuals and voluntary associations—will be wealthier, healthier, and happier, and will experience less suffering. It is neither right nor practical to try to organize society from the top down. Government coercion of individuals through taxation and regulation (both of which the modern world has in spades, despite equivocation from Lears and many others) interferes with the spontaneous order of the market and tends to make people worse off.
While I’m not a fan of everything Thatcher did, it’s clear from the context in which she denied the existence of society that, broadly speaking, she was advocating the kind of individualism sketched above. In other words, the belief that leaving individuals free to pursue their own happiness leads to a better society. If positive psychology self-help books can make that pursuit more successful, all the better.
But individualism, and the cultural and economic freedom it thrives on, is not antisocial. A few individuals might cut themselves off from society, but as the very happiness industry he derides takes pains to demonstrate, friendships and other social interactions are a big part of what really makes most people happy. What individualists like me actually believe is that the greater the level of individual freedom, the better the society. People living in a free society—a society in which as many aspects of life as possible are left in the hands of individuals and voluntary associations—will be wealthier, healthier, and happier, and will experience less suffering. It is neither right nor practical to try to organize society from the top down. Government coercion of individuals through taxation and regulation (both of which the modern world has in spades, despite equivocation from Lears and many others) interferes with the spontaneous order of the market and tends to make people worse off.
While I’m not a fan of everything Thatcher did, it’s clear from the context in which she denied the existence of society that, broadly speaking, she was advocating the kind of individualism sketched above. In other words, the belief that leaving individuals free to pursue their own happiness leads to a better society. If positive psychology self-help books can make that pursuit more successful, all the better.