happiness and politics
wall street journal reviewed a book yesterday: how to be of good cheer by arthur c. brooks. wsj: "Those who identify themselves as conservative or very conservative, [brooks] says, are twice as likely to say that they're very happy as those who identify themselves as liberal or very liberal."
while there may be other reasons, may i just point out that this is based on 2004 data?!?!
as eric says, being in the middle of gwb's administration may not have made conservatives happy, but it did make liberals pretty miserable.
that aside, are conservatives happier? if so, are there reasons which i can believe? hmmm.
what i'd really like to know is this: is there a relationship between happiness and the tendency toward complex analysis (vs. black/white thinking, or clarity, depending on your viewpoint). seems to me that's one of the things that differentiates liberals and conservatives. we liberals generally find it impossible to put our positions into 5-word bumper stickers. and it makes some sense to me that this tendency to analyze might make us more aware of what's wrong.
does this make logical sense? what else?
while there may be other reasons, may i just point out that this is based on 2004 data?!?!
as eric says, being in the middle of gwb's administration may not have made conservatives happy, but it did make liberals pretty miserable.
that aside, are conservatives happier? if so, are there reasons which i can believe? hmmm.
what i'd really like to know is this: is there a relationship between happiness and the tendency toward complex analysis (vs. black/white thinking, or clarity, depending on your viewpoint). seems to me that's one of the things that differentiates liberals and conservatives. we liberals generally find it impossible to put our positions into 5-word bumper stickers. and it makes some sense to me that this tendency to analyze might make us more aware of what's wrong.
does this make logical sense? what else?
Labels: living well, politics
posted by kath at
08:24
1 Comments:
Hmmm... I think there are some salient point here, but I have to admit my perception that we liberals have more of a propensity to plaster our cars with bumper stickers than the conservatives do, no?
Also, our stickers may be wordier, but what does that say about our concern for traffic safety?
;-)
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