“Why Pursue Happiness Anyway?”

A READER WRITES: “To be free, I should neither pursue long-term happiness nor short term pleasure.”

BB SAYS: This is a valid approach - attaining freedom through the annihilation of ALL desire, and thus attaining a genuine liberation from the suffering of life. This is the approach of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who believes that all life is a meaningless struggle, with people oscillating helplessly between desire (which is frustrating) and boredom (which is the desire to have a desire, and also a form of suffering). Consequently, life consists entirely of various types of suffering. The only true solution is the TOTAL ANNIHILATION OF ALL DESIRE, advocated in various ways by Buddhists, Hindus, Christian monks, Stoics and other types of ascetics. One must therefore conquer all one’s desires, including the desire for pleasure and for happiness.

However, Schopenhauer says that only a small proportion of human beings have the strength and ability to attain this blessed state. If you have the strength to do it, then perhaps it is the way for you to go.

But for most human beings, it is impossible to completely overcome one’s basic, natural desires. Indeed, philosophers such as Nietzsche have argued that asceticism and quietude are false consolations, and that even people who claim to achieve Nirvana, do not really do so, but are merely fooling themselves, and sublimating or repressing their true desires, which then mutate and find a release in some other way (often in a dangerous, perverted, unhealthy way). Nietzsche argues that in order to experience joy one must also experience suffering. Consequently, he advocates an embrace of suffering, so that one can live a full and joyful life. He regards ascetics as cowards, who do not have the courage to say “Yes to life”. Saying “Yes to Life” means accepting that a certain amount of suffering is inevitable, since one cannot live without suffering.

Whatever one thinks about the merits of Nietzsche’s arguments, it would seem that the complete absence of desire is not feasible for most people.

But there is room for reasonable people to disagree on this. To some extent the disagreement centres on the meaning of the word “Happiness”. Your comment essentially replaces the word “happiness” with the word “freedom” – if we define “happiness” at the most abstract level, as the ultimate state which human beings would like to attain.