What is Walt Whitman's opinion of animals?  Why?  To what does he attribute the root of happiness?

Walt Whitman says animals are placid and self-contained. They don’t whine about their condition and they don’t complain about their faults.  He said not one is dissatisfied or demented with the mania of owning things, and not one kneels to the other or to his kind that lived thousands of years ago.  And not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

Russell briefly lists some of the causes of unhappiness due to social systems. What are they?  

Some of the causes are concerning the abolition of war, of economic exploitation, and of education in cruelty and fear.

What is the cause of day-to- day unhappiness?  

“My purpose is to suggest a cure for the ordinary day-to-day unhappiness from which most people in civilized countries suffer, and which is all the more unbearable because, having no obvious external cause, it appears inescapable. I believe this unhappiness to be very largely due to ethics, mistaken habits of life, leading to destruction of that natural zest and appetite for possible things upon which all happiness, whether of men or animals, ultimately depends.  These are matters which lie within the power of the individual, and I propose to suggest change by which his happiness, given average fortune, may be achieved.”

What are the three kinds of self-absorption?  (i.e., what are the symptoms of each one?)  What is the cure for each one?

The three kinds are the sinner, narcissist, and the megalomaniac. 

The sinner is the man who is absorbed in each consciousness of sin. Liberation from tyranny of early beliefs and affections is the first step towards happiness for these victims of maternal “virtue.”

The narcissist is a converse of a habitual sense of sin; it consists in the habit of admiring oneself and wishing to be admired.  The cure lies in the growth of self-respect but this is only to be gained by successful activity inspired by objective interests. 

The megalomaniac wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved.  To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men in history.  Power kept within its proper bounds may add greatly to happiness, but as the sole end of life leads to disaster, inwardly if not outwardly.     

No, The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one.  There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.  Life is not to be conceived on the analogy of a melodrama in which the hero and the heroine go through incredible misfortunes for which they are compensated by a happy ending.  

What is the cause of unhappiness of some scholars, according to Russell?

As all men may read in the works of Aristotle, Seneca, Tully, Avicenna, Alfarabius, Plato, Socrates, and others, they attained to the secrets of wisdom and found out all knowledge.     

Why is love important and to be valued?

Love is to be valued in the first instance and this, though not its greatest value, is essential to all the rest, as in itself a source of delight.  And not only is love a source of delight, but its absence is a source of pain.  Second, love is to be valued because it enhances all the best pleasures, such as music, and sunrise in the mountains, and the sea under the full moon.  Love is able to break down the hard shell of the ego, since it is a form of biological cooperation in which emotions of each are necessary to the fulfillment of the other’s instinctive purposes.  

What is Russell's opinion regarding the pursuit of success?  

“What I do maintain is that success can only be one ingredient in happiness, and is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.”

What distinction does Russell make between success, being wealthy, and showing excellence?  

“Now while it is true that there is a competitive element in success, no matter what a man’s profession may be, yet at the same time the kind of thing that is respected is not just success, but that excellence, whatever that may be, to which success had been due.”

What is the relationship between boredom, happiness, and success?  What are the consequences of competition?  

Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.  The competitive habit of mind easily invades regions to which it does not belong.  The emphasis upon competition in modern life is connected with a general decay of civilized standards such as must have occurred in Rome after the Augustan age.     

Does Russell recommend that we abandon the competitive spirit and the search for success?

The trouble arises from generally received philosophy of life, according to which life is a contest, a competition, in which respect is to be accorded to the victor.  Competition considered as the main thing in life is too grim, too tenacious, too much a matter of taut muscles and intent will, to make a possible basis of life for more than one or two generations at most.  The cure for this lies in admitting the part of sane and quiet enjoyment in a balanced ideal of life.

What is Russell's opinion of boredom?  

Boredom as a factor in human behavior has received, in m opinion, far less attention that it deserves.  It has been, I believe, one of the great motive powers throughout the historical epoch, and is so at the present day more than ever.  Boredom would seem to be distinctively human emotion.  One of the essentials of boredom consists in the contrast between present circumstances and some other more agreeable circumstances which force themselves irresistibly upon the imagination.  It is also one of the essentials of boredom that one’s faculties must not be fully occupied.  Boredom is essentially a thwarted desire for events, not necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the victim of ennui to know one day from another.  

What types of boredom are there?

Fructifying and Stultifying.  Fructifying kind arises from the absence of drugs, and the stultifying kind from the absence of vital activities. 

Which fatigue is the most damaging to a happy life? 

Nervous Fatigue

How can one minimize the effect of that fatigue?

A great deal of nervous fatigue can be dealt with in this way.  Our doings are not so important as we naturally suppose; our successes and failures do not after all matter very much.  Even great sorrows can be survived; troubles which seem as if they must put an end to happiness for life fade with the lapse of time until it becomes almost impossible to remember their poignancy.  But over and above these self-centered considerations is the fact that one’s ego is no very large part of the world.  The man who can center his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life which is impossible to the pure egoist.  

What is the cure for envy?  

The only cure for envy in the case of ordinary men and women is happiness, and the difficulty is that envy is itself a terrible obstacle to happiness.

What is the relationship between envy, admiration, modesty, competition, and fatigue?

There is a human nature, a compensating passion, namely, that of admiration.  Whoever wishes to increase human happiness must wish to increase admiration and diminish envy.  Unnecessary modesty has a great deal to so with envy.  Modest people need a great deal of reassuring, and often do not dare to attempt tasks which they are quite capable of performing.  Modest people believe themselves to be outshone by those with whom they habitually associate.  Therefore they are particularly prone to envy and through envy to unhappiness and ill will.  Envy is of course closely related with competition.  We do not envy a good fortune which we conceive as quite hopelessly out of reach.  Fatigue is a very frequent cause of envy.  When a man feels inadequate to the work he has to do, he feels a general discontent which is exceedingly liable to take the form of envy towards those whose work is less exacting.     

What is the relationship between sin and happiness?  

A man who cheats at cards or fails to pay his debts of honor has nothing within himself by which to stand up against the disapproval of the herd when he is found out.  These men, in spite of the hostility of the herd, do not feel sinful, but the man who entirely accepts the morality of the herd while acting against it suffers great unhappiness when he loses caste, and the fear of this disaster or the pain of it when it has happened may easily cause him to regard his acts themselves as sinful.  

From whence comes the sense of sin?  

The sense of sin in its most important forms is something which goes deeper.  It is something which has its roots in the unconscious, and does not appear in consciousness as fear of other people’s disapproval.  In consciousness certain kinds of acts are labeled Sin for no reason visible to introspection.  When a man commits these acts he feels uncomfortable without quite knowing why.  Consequently he goes through life with a sense of guilt, feeling that the best is not for him and that his highest moments are those of maudlin penitence.  

Why is our subconscious morality divorced from reality?  

Because the ethic believed in by those who had charge of his infancy was silly; because it was not derived from any study of the individual’s duty to the community; because it was made up of old scraps of irrational taboos; and because it contained within itself elements of morbidness derived from the spiritual sickness that troubled the dying Roman Empire.  

Does the sense of sin lead to happiness?  What should we do in order to maximize feeling happy?

As a matter of fact the sense of sin, so far from being a cause of a good life, is quite the reverse.  It makes a man unhappy, he is likely to make claims upon other people which are excessive and which prevent him from enjoying happiness in personal relations.  Feeling inferior, he will have a grudge against those who seem superior.  

An expansive and generous attitude towards other people not only gives happiness to others, but is an immense source of happiness to its possessor, since it causes him to be generally liked.  

How can we detect the elements of persecution mania in ourselves?  

Malicious gossip, the inventor, genuine grievance, philanthropist 

What are the four maxims for preventing persecution mania?

1) Remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.

2) Don’t overestimate your own merits.

3) Don’t expect other’s to take as much interest in you as you do yourself. 

4)  Don’t imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any desire to persecute you. 

What do most people need in order to be happy?  

Very few people can be happy unless on the whole their way of life and their outlook on the world is approved by those with whom they have social relations, and more especially by those with whom they live.

Why do conventional people become upset when others deviate from conventions?  

Conventional people consider adultery one of the worst crimes, but large sections of the population regard it as excusable if not positively laudable.  Among Catholics divorce is totally forbidden, while most non-Catholics accept it as a necessary alleviation of matrimony.  

What is his recommendation regarding public opinion?  

Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards whose who obviously fear it than towards those who fell indifferent to it.  A dog will bark more loudly and bite more readily when people are afraid of him than when they treat him with contempt, and the human herd has something of this same characteristic.  One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.  

What is necessary in order to enjoy true happiness?

It is difficult to achieve any kind of greatness while fear of public opinion remains strong, and it is impossible to acquire that freedom of spirit in which true happiness consists, for it is essential to happiness that our way of living should spring from our own deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes and desires of those who happen to be our neighbors, or even our relations.  

What are the distinctions between the two types of happiness? 

The two sorts might be distinguished as plain and fancy, or animal and spiritual, or if the heart and of the head.  The Simplest way to describe the difference between the two sorts of happiness is to say that one sort is open to any human being, and the other only to those who can read and write. 

Does every human being enjoy both types?  

A modest estimate f one’s own powers is a source of happiness.  The man who underestimates himself is perpetually being surprised by success, whereas the man who overestimates himself is just as often surprised by failure. 

What should educated individuals do in order to maximize their likelihood of experiencing happiness?  

The happiest are the men of science. The reason of this is that higher parts of their intelligence are wholly absorbed by their work and are not allowed to intrude into regions where they have no functions to perform.  

Are artists or scientists more likely to be happy?  Why?  

Scientists are happy in their work because in the modern world science is progressive and powerful, and because it’s importance is not doubted either by themselves or by laymen.  They therefore have no necessity for complex emotions, since the simpler emotions are like foam in a river.  

Artists, on the contrary, deal more with painful situations of having to choose between being despised and being despicable.  Artists are on the average less happy than men of science. 

How can everyone (educated and uneducated persons) achieve fundamental (whatever he means by that; is it another type of) happiness?  

Belief in a cause is a source of happiness to large numbers of people.  Fundamental happiness depends more than anything else upon what may be called a friendly interest in persons and things.  

What is the secret of achieving happiness?

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.  

What is the distinctive trait of happy individuals?  

Zest is the most universal and distinctive mark of happy men.  

What is the "malady of the introvert?"  

“We are all prone to the malady of the introvert, who, with the manifold spectacle of the world spread out before him, turns away and gazes only upon the emptiness within.  But let us not imagine that there is anything grand about the introvert’s unhappiness.”

Should we focus our attention inwards or outwards?  Why?  

The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways, but without materials from the external world it is powerless since events only become experiences through the interest that we take in them:  if they do not interest us, we are making nothing of them.  

The man, therefore, whose attention is turned within, finds nothing worthy of his notice, whereas the man whose attention is turned outward can find within, in those rare moments when he examines his soul, the most varied and interesting assortment of ingredients being dissected and recombined into beautiful or instructive patterns. 

What causes the loss of zest?

Loss of zest in civilized society is very largely due to the restrictions upon liberty which are essential to our way of life.  The savage hunts when he is hungry, and in so doing is obeying a direct impulse.  

What happens to children who are loved by their parents and those who are not loved?  

The child whose parents are fond of him accepts their affection as a law of nature.  He does not think very much about it, although it is of great importance to his happiness.  He thinks about the world, about adventures that come his way and the more marvelous adventures that will come his way when he is grown up.  But behind all these external interests there is the feeling that he will be protected from disaster by parental affection.

The child from whom for any reason parental affection is withdrawn is likely to become timid and unadventurous, filled with fears and self=pity, and no longer able to meet the world in a mood of gay exploration.  Such a child may set to work at a surprisingly early age to mediate on life and death and human destiny.  He becomes introvert, melancholy at first, but seeking ultimately the unreal consolations of some system of philosophy or theology,  

What is the motivation to marry in individuals who had unwholesome affection in childhood?  

Very frequently previous misfortunes in childhood have produced defects of character which are the cause of failure to obtain love in later years.  This is true where men are concerned than it is as regards women, for on the whole women tend to love men for their character while men tend to love women for their appearance.  Men show themselves the inferiors of women, for the qualities that men find pleasing in women are on the whole less desirable than those that women find pleasing in men. 

What are the two functions of affection?  

1) Expression of a zest for life

2) Expression of fear

What are the three types of affection that a person can give to another?  

The best type of affection is reciprocally life-giving:

1) Each receives affection with joy and gives it without effort

2) Each finds the whole world more interesting in consequence of the existence of this reciprocal happiness. 

3) There is, however, another kind, by no means uncommon, in which one person sucks the vitality of the other, one receives what the other gives, but gives almost nothing in return. 

What is most fatal to true happiness?

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps most fatal to true happiness.

What is capable of being one of the greatest sources of happiness?  

Affection of parents for children and of children for parents is capable of being one of the greatest sources of happiness, but in fact at the present day the relations of parents and children are, in nine cases out of ten, a source of unhappiness to both parties, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a source of unhappiness to at least one of the two parties. 

What must the individual do to create this particular happiness?  

The adult who wishes to have a happy relation with his own children or to provide a happy life for them must reflect deeply upon parenthood, and having reflected, must act wisely. 

What do people feel when they forgo the happiness of parenthood?  

“For my own part, speaking personally (Russell), I have found the happiness of parenthood greater than any other that I have experienced.  I believe that when circumstances lead men or women to forgo this happiness, a very deep need remains ungratified, and that this produces a dissatisfaction and listlessness of which the cause may remain quite unknown.”  

“To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the remote unknown future.  

Is the future important to them? How do they feel about their own doings?  

A man who is capable of some great and remarkable achievement which sets its stamp upon future ages may gratify this feeling through his work, but for men and women who have no exceptional gifts, the only way to do so is through children. 

Those who have allowed their procreative impulses to become atrophied have separated themselves from the stream of life and in so doing have run a grave risk of becoming desiccated.  For them, unless they are exceptionally impersonal, death ends all.  The world that shall come after them does not concern them, and because of this their doings appear to themselves trivial and unimportant.

To the man or woman who has children and grandchildren and loves them with a natural affection, the future is important, at any rate to the limit of their lives, not only through morality or though effort of imagination, but naturally and instinctively. 

What are the primitive roots of the pleasure of parenthood?  

The primitive root of the pleasure of parenthood is twofold.  On the one hand there is the feeling of part of one’s own body externalized, prolonging its life beyond the death of the rest of one’s body, and possibly in its turn externalizing part of itself in the same fashion, and so securing the immortality of the germ-plasm.  

On the other hand, there is an intimate blend of power and tenderness.  The new creature is helpless and there is an impulse which gratifies not only the parent’s love towards the child, but also the parent’s desire for power.

Which one of these primitive roots can lead to conflict and loss of parental happiness?  

From a very early age there comes to be a conflict between love of parental power and desire for the child’s good, for, while power over the child is to a certain extent decreed by the nature of things, it is nevertheless desirable that the child should as soon as possible learn to be independent in as many ways as possible, which is unpleasant to the power impulse in a parent.  Some parents never become conscious of this conflict, and remain tyrants until the children are in a position to rebel. Others, however, become conscious of it, and thus find themselves a prey to conflicting emotions.  In this conflict their parental happiness is lost.

What is the last product of civilization?  

To be able to fill leisure intelligibly is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.

What are the advantages of work?  

Work’s first advantage is that it’s desirable as a preventive boredom, the second advantage of most paid work and o some unpaid work is that it gives chances of success and opportunities for ambition.  

What are the two sources of happiness in work?  

Two chief elements make work interesting: first, the exercise of skill, and second, construction.

Which is a greater source of happiness?  

The more important source of happiness is the exercise of skill.

Is consistent purpose (i.e., continuity of purpose) important to happiness?

Consistent purpose is not enough to make life happy, but it is an almost indispensible condition of a happy life.  And consistent purpose embodies itself mainly in work.

What do impersonal (i.e., subsidiary) interests have to do with happiness?

List their advantages.  

All impersonal interests, apart from their importance as relaxation, have various other uses.  To begin with, they help a man to retain his sense of proportion.  It is very easy to become so absorbed in our own pursuits, our own circle, our own type of work, that we forget how small a part this is of the total human activity and how things in the world are entirely unaffected by what we do.

What kind of outlook on life is necessary in order to experience "deep happiness" and the feeling that one's death is no more than a "negligible incident"?  

“You will have, beyond your immediate activities, purposes that are distant and slowly unfolding, in which you are not an isolated individual but one of the great army of those who have led mankind towards a civilized existence.  If you have attained this outlook, a certain deep happiness will never leave you, whatever your personal fate may be. Life will become a communion with the great of all ages, and personal death no more that a negligible incident.” 

What does Russell wish to substitute for orthodox religion?  

“If I had the power to organize higher education as I should wish it to be, I should seek to substitute for the old orthodox religions-which appeal to few among the young, and those as a rule the least intelligent and the most obscurantist- something which is perhaps hardly to be called religion, since it is merely a focusing of attention upon well-ascertained facts.” 

What does he hope to achieve with his substitution?

“I should seek to make young people vividly realizing that the future of man will in all likelihood be immeasurably longer than his past, profoundly conscious of the minuteness of the planet upon which we live and of the fact that life on this planet is only a temporary incident; and at the same time with these facts which tend to emphasize the insignificance of the individual, I should present quite another set of facts designed to impress upon the mind of the young the greatness of which the individual is capable, and the knowledge that throughout all the depths of stellar space nothing of equal value is known to us.”

What role does effort have in the conquest of happiness?  

“Happiness is not, except in very rare cases, something that drops into the mouth, like a ripe fruit, by mere operation of fortunate circumstances.  That is why I have called this book “The Conquest of Happiness.”  For in a world so full of avoidable and unavoidable misfortunes, of illness and psychological tangles, of struggle and poverty and ill-will, the man or woman who is to be happy must find ways of coping with multitudinous causes of unhappiness by which each individual is assailed.  In some rare cases no great effort may be required.”

Happiness must be, for most men and women, an achievement rather than a gift of the gods, and in this achievement effort, both inward and outward, must play a great part.        

What role does resignation have?  

To a very large percentage of men in Western countries, more than a bare living is necessary to happiness, since they desire the feeling of being successful.  In some occupations, such, for example, as scientific research, this feeling can be obtained by men who do not earn a large income; but in the majority of occupations income has to become the measure of success. At this point we touch upon a matter in regard to which an element of resignation is desirable in most cases, since a competitive world conspicuous success is possible only for a minority.

The amount of effort involved in the successful rearing of children is so evident that probably no one would deny it.  Countries which believe in resignation and what is mistakenly called a “spiritual” view of life are countries with high infant mortality.

Resignation, however, has also its part to play in the conquest of happiness, and it is a part no less essential than that played by effort.

Resignation is of two sorts, one rooted in despair, the other in unconquerable hope.  The first is bad; the second is good.

Should we have personal or impersonal hope?

The man who has suffered such fundamental defeat that he has given up hope of serious achievement many learn the resignation of despair, and, if he does, he will abandon all serious activity; he may camouflage his despair by religious phrases, or by the doctrine that contemplation is the true end of man.  But whatever disguise he may adopt to conceal his inward defeat, he will remain essentially useless and fundamentally unhappy. The man whose resignation is based on unconquerable hope acts in quite a different way.  Hope which is to be unconquerable hope must be large and impersonal.

What should people do who are unhappy because of one of the following:  feel sinful, self-pity, or fearful?  

So long as a man continues to think about the causes of his unhappiness, he continues to be self-centered and therefore does not get outside the vicious circle; if he is to get outside it, it must be genuine interests, not by simulated interests adopted merely as a medicine.  

Are you a moralist or hedonist when it pertains to proposing marriage to someone?

“I have written this book as a hedonist, that is to say, as one who regards happiness as the good, but the acts to be recommended from the point of view of the hedonist are, on the whole the same as those to be recommended by the sane moralist.  The moralist, however, is too apt, though this is not, of course, universally true, to stress the act rather then the state of mind at the moment.  The traditional moralist, for example, will say that love should be unselfish.”