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A Q&A With Darrin M. McMahon

By BILL DURYEA
Published February 12, 2006

In the 1990s, Darrin M. McMahon was teaching a "Great Books" course at Columbia University ("from Plato to NATO," he calls it), and one subject - happiness - "was leaping off the page in all these major texts." At about the same time, he noticed New York City, then enjoying a stock market boom, was in the grips of a frenetic hedonism.

"I thought these two things were coming together - the cultural moment and this long and abiding interest in the Western philosophical tradition," he said. The result is Happiness: A History. Recently McMahon, a professor of history at Florida State University, spoke with the Times' Bill Duryea about his book and the amazing historical moment when man decided he, not God, could control his own happiness.

Times: Why did the ancient Greeks believe that you had to be dead if you wanted to call yourself happy?

McMahon: Herodotus ... gets at this idea that the world is uncertain, that the gods are whimsical and that we don't entirely control our fate. When the heroes of Greek tragedy think things are going well for them, the gods have a tendency to strike them down. ... You never want to make a premature statement about things, because a piano might fall on your head.

The other point is that the Greeks don't think of happiness in terms of feeling the way we do. Happiness isn't just about a smiley face, it's about living a good life, and they have a certain objective notion of what that would entail.

Times: Living well for them does not mean the same as what we understand living well to mean now.

McMahon: Exactly. We use the term epicurean, and we think of large meals and lots of wine, but that's not really what Epicurus was all about. He's about controlling desires and controlling appetites in order to bring those into keeping with what you already have. Epicurus doesn't think we need a whole lot. A simple piece of bread and a glass of water should be all right to satisfy you if you have balance in your life.

Times: At a certain point there is a pivotal transformation between the happiness that is essentially controlled by Fate, the gods, chance and something we can control ourselves. Describe for me that moment.

McMahon: There are a couple of transformations, and one of them occurs in Athens around the time of Socrates. He's the one who says, "Look, we know everyone wants happiness. Now let's figure out how to get it." By linking virtue, how we act in the world, to happiness and promising happiness as a reward, he on the one hand holds out this incredibly enticing prospect, but on the other hand is saying something really radical, which is that human beings can be happy almost like the gods, because happiness has hitherto been the preserve of the gods or the particularly fortunate.

But for moderns, the even more important moment comes later in the 18th century. You're getting a critique of some dour Christian notions from outside the Christian tradition, from a more secular enlightenment perspective. People begin to say, "Look, pleasure is good and pain is bad." John Locke says this very clearly, and that becomes a dominant notion. Look, human beings aren't born into this world destined for misery. In fact, our natural state is to be happy.

I try to trace how that idea gets widened and extended and universalized so that you end up with the notion that you have today, which is that happy is the way we really ought to be and if we're not happy then there's something wrong, either with the world in which we live and we need to change that, or with ourselves and we need to change that, too, by getting therapy or going on Zoloft or whatever it is.

Times: This may be an unfair question, but we're more prosperous, more healthy, more educated, more comfortable than ever before, but are we more happy?

McMahon: That question is impossible to answer. I'm something of a skeptic of work that people are doing in subjective well-being. What (the studies) seem to show is that this does not change, that Americans are as happy today as they were in the 1950s, no less, no more. What many contemporary economists are doing is saying, "Look, we've had massive gains in GNP over this time frame; we're doing something wrong." In other words, money is not bringing us happiness, so we ought to refocus the goal of public policy to look at something else. I see that as a sort of strange conclusion to draw. Moralists since the beginning of time have said money doesn't buy happiness. I don't think Adam Smith believed that money bought happiness.

Times: Why have philosophers abandoned the discussion of this subject?

McMahon: That's one of the ironies I mention at the end of the book. I could say philosophers have turned inward on themselves and are less concerned with the big value questions, or indeed are skeptical there are even answers to those questions: What is truth? What is the good? Maybe finally it's cowardice. A lot of my academic colleagues bemoan the fact that no one listens to professors, but sometimes it's because they're not telling us anything very useful. Philosophers ought to have the courage of their convictions and re-engage with the public. This is the oldest philosophical question. Professional philosophers have ceded that question to life coaches and the self-help industry, which I see as a real tragedy.

Times: Is it possible they were overtaken by science? I wonder, why ask the big questions if it all comes down to genetics?

McMahon: We know that genetic predisposition is a powerful force, the way it interacts with environmental factors is always very complicated. My best friend's a psychoanalyst, and he would say doing congnitive therapy can reroute brain patterns and so forth. It's naive to think we can solve all problems with Band-Aids. Living the examined life is the meaningful life. There's still a role for that kind of introspection on the therapist's couch, and there's still a role for that kind of approach in philosophy.

[Last modified February 11, 2006, 10:43:05]