Why The Politics Of Happiness Makes Furedi Mad

Submitted by tonyplant on May 27, 2006 - 17:30.

Somewhere or other, Frank Furedi claims that in the UK and US,

self-reliance and problem-solving through informal relationships have been gradually replaced by a therapeutic culture that, by medicalising everyday behaviour, encourages helplessness and promotes new forms of social control.

More recently, amongst various other protestations about the politicisation of happiness and the rise of the 'therapeutic state', Furedi writes:

Individuals are no longer seen as self-determining subjects capable of exercising democratic citizenship, but rather as potentially ‘damaged goods’ who need the support of professionals and Layard’s army of 10,000 counsellors to instruct them on how to be contented...The new therapeutic social contract is underwritten by the paternalistic assumption that the unhappy patient needs the management and ‘support’ of officialdom...Public policies delivered by thousands of therapists are likely to turn the public citizen into a helpless patient – and the focus on the self will likely reinforce people’s sense of atomisation...

I need to write a fuller response to Furedi's piece - amongst his other arguments is that

Rather than causing us to be unhappy, hard, purposeful work is often the means through which we cultivate our own sense of happiness.

I wouldn't disagree with him - and I doubt that the mainstream happiness researchers would either. Happiness is not solely concerned with hedonism, self-indulgence or the abdication of personal responsibility: it is not necessarily either ridiculous or politically dangerous. Authentic happiness (to use the Seligman term) encompasses the need for work and engagement in life. Happiness demands involvement, it is rarely something that can be delivered solely by external means.

I need to write more about the Furedi at another time.

I'm running a Laugh-a-thon event in aid of the British Heart Foundation in my local park tomorrow. Although attendance is voluntary, is this part of a slippery slope by which I am transformed into an agent of the therapeutic state?

Maybe I should be rehearsing a sinister laugh.

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project

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