A Proposal to Classify Happiness as a Psychiatric Disorder

May 4, 2006

You wish, Alobar.

unfortunately the essay does not seem to be a spoof. Read this from a

June 2004 article in the New York Times:

Some have worried that happy people tend to be apathetic and easily

manipulated by political leaders -- contented cows, so to speak. In

Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, ''Brave New World,'' the working

classes are kept in docile submission by a diet of drugs that render

them universally happy. In the real world, however, there is little

evidence that happiness creates complacent citizens; in fact, studies

show that happy people are more likely than alienated people to get

politically involved, not less.

There is one bit of the world that happy people do see in an

irrationally rosy light: themselves. As the British psychologist

Richard P. Bentall has observed, ''There is consistent evidence that

happy people overestimate their control over environmental events

(often to the point of perceiving completely random events as subject

to their will), give unrealistically positive evaluations of their

own achievements, believe that others share their unrealistic

opinions about themselves and show a general lack of evenhandedness

when comparing themselves to others.'' Indeed, Bentall has proposed

that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder.

C0A9629C8B63

Original message:

" Alobar " Alobar

Wed May 3, 2006 0:07pm(PDT)

" A Proposal to Classify Happiness as a Psychiatric Disorder "

I believe this essay is a spoof -- at least I hope it is!

" A Proposal to Classify Happiness as a Psychiatric Disorder "

--

The individual is supreme and finds its way through intuition.

Sepp Hasslberger

My blog on physics, new energy, economy: http://blog.hasslberger.com/

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