Kyiv International Institute for Social Studies has been doing researches on the level of Ukrainians’ happiness for over 10 years. Recent surveys showed that it decreased significantly during 2011 and 2012. In 2011, 63 percent of the surveyed people said they were happy, and in 2012 only 53 percent admitted to that. The worst situation was observed in the period from 2001 to 2004, only 35 to 50 percent of people rated themselves as happy. Starting from 2005, the number of happy Ukrainians was increasing each year, but at the end of 2009 it started falling again. Happiness is a subjective entity, and this is proven by the numbers: those who do not have enough money for food can feel happy, and those who can buy practically anything can be unhappy. Actually, this is the special feature of Ukrainians, the level of happiness is tightly connected to the level of financial well-being: the more financially stable the person is, the happier they feel. In February 2012 another survey was conducted, and according to it 10 percent of people who do not have enough money for food (the poor) felt happy (and this is big number), and only 34 percent of those who can afford almost anything (people with income that is higher than the average) said they were happy.
At the Universal Congress of Psychoanalysis “Happiness Policy” that was held in Kyiv recently, psychoanalyst, Candidate of Sciences in philosophy, and founder of the Museum of Dreams (Saint Petersburg) Viktor Mazin commented on the interrelation between happiness and level of well-being.
The psychoanalyst reminds that in the 6th century BC Heraclitus said, “If happiness were a matter of bodily pleasure, oxen should be considered happy when they find a pea to devour.” Psychologists and philosophers say that the secret of being happy lies within the ability to go beyond your own “self.” Happiness is to be a part of something else, and this provides for the presence of another person. By the way, education is one of the factors that influence the level of happiness. Surveys carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Social Studies show that people with a higher level of education are generally happier. And it is easy to understand: these people’s outlook is broader, they have a deeper understanding of the concept of happiness. The polls show that up to 40 percent of college undergraduates rank as happy. Happiness figures vary from one education group to another. Thus, among our happy fellow citizens are 49 percent of high school graduates, 51 percent of non-degree professionals, and 61 percent of college graduates. Overall, the young tend to be a little happier than older people, and men on average are happier than women. The lowest happiness figures are to be found in seniors, only 35 percent.
One of the peculiarities of the modern world is that appeals and even a duty to be happy are one of the key elements of mass culture. This is a cause of many problems and complexes in the society.
“Nowadays happiness became a matter of politics, science, and technology. Western culture of the late 20th – early 21st centuries can be called the culture of happiness, even the culture of overproduction of happiness, which has almost become a cult. European and American politics took a hedonistic course and transformed into an infrastructure designed to service happiness. In the post-industrial societies scenarios of a happy person’s life are being created. Today people are offered models of being happy. Suffice it to see what is sold at bookstores. You get a choice of happinesses, because everyone must feel it: an endless variety of recipes, even the formula of happiness has been devised. According to the mass philosophy, you must enjoy here and now, pleasure may not be postponed. The well-known psychologist Lacan said that in his pursue of happiness, man feels like a refugee from paradise. The ideology, which imposes all manner of happiness scenarios on us, makes happiness a must. But can man be forced to be happy?” asks Svitlana Uvarova, a Kyiv-based psychoanalyst, president of the Ukrainian Psychoanalytic Association.
The idea of obligatory happiness is mongered by politicians, who manipulate it. According to social psychologists, political attempts to make man happy sooner or later end up in totalitarianism. Psychoanalysts appeal to our Soviet past, when happiness was a matter of propaganda, because Soviet man was “made to be happy.”
The idea of compulsory happiness easily caught and politics of manipulation. According to social psychologists, that political attempts to make people happy now or in the future lead to totalitarianism. Psychoanalysts appeal to our Soviet past, when there was agitation for happiness, they say, the Soviet people “was created for happiness.”
“All political systems propagate their own happiness myths. Most often these myths are consistent with the memories of Paradise Lost (one’s happiness) and expectations of future happiness. The recollections of the happy past nurture hopes of the happy future, and drifting between those poles allows an individual to overcome the calamities of the present. Now, the idea of urging people to submit and serve the idol of happiness is rooted in the idea of controlling the society, enabling governments to manipulate the people,” says Mazin.
According to psychologists, in Soviet time happiness fitted in a kind of triangle, where the first angle was represented by Comrade Stalin (or another Secretary General) and his absolute power; the second, by the liberated collective labor which created the welfare state; and the third by “studying, studying, and again, studying.” Lenin’s order to keep studying was the best part of this triangle but alas, today it has lost its imperative.
“The discourse of modernity suggests that man can be happy. Here it has developed into man’s feeling of anxiety and depression, since the peculiarity of our time is that legitimate pleasure should be a must. Chasing this pleasure, man becomes unhappy. Thus it turns out that happiness is impossible because pleasure is obligatory,” explains Uvarova.
In their quest for bliss, people turn to psychoanalysts, seeking to transform psychological suffering into human happiness. Yet psychoanalytical space presumes man’s right to be unhappy. Hence a paradox: man starts feeling better as he embraces the idea that he may be unhappy as well. Ukrainian culture still has tendencies to harbor the values of suffering. A lot has been said about this being a typical trait of a nation which until recently has been deprived of statehood (now this in-depth peculiarity is causing constant conflicts in Ukrainians with the imported Western values). Psychologists believe that it is this “value of suffering” (often disguised as socially meaningful) that brings Ukrainians to psychoanalysts. They also add that bilingual environment in Ukraine, too, is a factor in this, since it reflects the repercussions of the debased nation. Meanwhile, in Europe and America the situation is just the contrary. An individual must demonstrate his well-being and keep smiling (which is why he, too, often ends up at a psychologist’s office).
Politics and happiness has been a discussion theme everywhere in the world, because man’s personal happiness depends, albeit indirectly, on the social and political situation in the country (wars, famine, welfare, etc.). That is to say that personal happiness depends on the country an individual lives in – certainly, if the “cult of happiness” is not imposed on him. Psychologists are convinced that politicians must create conditions for people to be able to build a dignified life, instead of manipulating the concept of happiness. Then, having his primary needs satisfied, man will think of helping his neighbor and of his nation in general.
“Saint-Just, dubbed the archangel of the French Revolution, who theorized on human happiness, wrote: ‘Happiness is a new idea in Europe,’” says Genevieve Despot, councilor of France’s minister of culture, president of EPI, a culture association. “Also, ‘our goal is to live a life which will make the nation happy.’ I think it is always important to see how an individual poses a question of happiness, what he says, where he comes from, whose side he takes in society, is he a ‘master’ or a working man; a bourgeois or a proletarian. I think we can speak of personal happiness as well – but does it have a place if there is so much unhappiness in the world? Sometimes I, too, can feel happy, when I forget of the world’s sorrows.”
Uvarova gave a nice example of harmonious combination of personal and common happiness: her grandmother saw her husband come back from the war.
“Once I asked Grandmother which day was the happiest in her life. She didn’t even pause to think when she answered, ‘May 9, 1945.’ She said so because the war was over and none of her nearest and dearest was killed,” says Uvarova. “It was indeed a miracle, because Grandfather survived the war as a member of a ‘death company,’ where men were treated as cannon fodder, so there survival chances were virtually zero. Yet Grandfather got away with a few minor injuries. He said he had known for sure he would survive: the men believed that he would get killed whose wife had been unfaithful. Grandpa would say, ‘I knew my Vira would never betray me.’ And I understood that love helps survive where survival otherwise is next to impossible. And faith, which man cannot be deprived of, chases death away.”
