Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Happiness is always a delusion

Via Bookslut:

Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Happiness is always a delusion

here's a few quotes:

I don't want happiness to be part of the currency," he sighs, "but by that I don't mean that I want people to be miserable, but I do think that if you have a sense of reality you are going to be really troubled. Anybody in this culture who watches the news and can be happy - there's something wrong with them.



You're supposed to go: 'Happiness! Yes, that's all I want!' But what about justice or reality or ruthlessness - or whatever my preferred thing is?"


There is a presumption that there is a weakness in the people who are depressed or a weakness on the part of scientific research and one of these two groups has got to pull its socks up. Scientists have got to get better and find us a drug and the depressed have got to stop malingering. The ethos is: 'Actually life is wonderful, great - get out there!' That's totally unrealistic and it's bound to fail."


"Sanity involves learning to enjoy conflict, and giving up on all myths of harmony, consistency and redemption."


"Freudian psychoanalysis suggests that there is something over and above this. These are parts of ourselves - that don't want to live, that hate our children, that want ourselves to fail. Freud is saying there is something strange about humans: they are recalcitrant to what is supposed to be their project. That seems to me to be persuasive." It also, you might notice, suggests humans have a design flaw.