Where Life Has Meaning: Poor, Religious Countries

[cbayer]

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/where-life-has-meaning-poor-religious-countries/282949/

An absence of religion seems to account for wealthy countries' lack of meaning in life — in ways that education, individualism, and social support differences do not.
JULIE BECKJAN 10 2014, 9:00 AM ET


Sunrise in Ban Phonsavon, Laos. (thomaswanhoff/flickr)

Much ink, film, and many ones and zeros have been spilled on the topic of how to be happy lately. Science has given us some clues, often subdividing "happiness" into smaller parts: the importance of relationships and social connection, the positive effects of optimism. This sort of research gets a lot of attention when it comes out, as unhappy or even just vaguely dissatisfied people clamor for a fix. Maybe if we can unravel all the threads of happiness’s snarled tapestry and see how they fit together, we’ll finally be able to weave our own lives into a reasonable facsimile thereof.

We’ve seen before that perhaps the most important thread—more important than diet or exercise or the easy but often-unfulfilling happiness of a booze-soaked evening—is the feeling that your life means something, that you have purpose. How to get that, of course, is another knot to untangle.

The presence of religion largely accounted for the gap between money and meaning.
A recent study in Psychological Science takes a global look at the quest for meaning, analyzing data from the Gallup World Poll to determine where people feel meaning, and how they found it. The survey data comes from 132 countries in 2007—the researchers specifically looked at self-reported meaning in life, religiosity, fertility rates, GDP, and suicide rates (from the World Health Organization).

Previous research has shown that wealthy countries typically rank higher on life satisfaction, which is not the same as meaning. Satisfaction has to do with “objective living conditions,” the researchers say, which is why wealthy countries with relatively stable economies and political conditions rank higher. But meaning is more subjective.

more at link

[NoOneMan]

1. My life is beyond meaningless

And as I age, I find myself overcome with more moments of contentment, euphoria and bliss. In fact, the less meaning I've had (religious and otherwise), the happier I get. Just an anecdote.

[cbayer]

2. What provides you with your moments of euphoria and bliss?

[NoOneMan]

4. I don't know to be precise. I don't want to know

I refuse to define it. I just let it be. Maybe its simply self-edifying. In any case its irrelevant to anyone who isn't me, provided I can't help anyone feel it. Sometimes I can close me eyes, while aside of a river, and hear the sounds of the forest and feel the wind and sun on my face, and get lost in the moment of simply 'being' (and euphoria is an apt description of such moments).

I don't try and celebrate life. I just live, and that becomes in itself a celebration. I don't look for a reason to smile anymore. I just smile. Its really odd, as I've spent my former life in a very opposing state. Sometimes I just randomly feel like I am in the waning hours of a psilocybin trip, and its mostly when I am outside among nature, practicing my place as a human on this earth, of this earth.

My reason to be here doesn't exist. I don't need to look for it. I know I am here. I know there is beauty and pleasure that I've evolved to enjoy. I don't need a purpose to guide my actions. I instinctively just want to revel more in that nature beauty, universal truth be damned (but yet, that is just a manifestation of the universe caused through chain reactions and billions of years). Without reason, I have awoken as an artist in this universe, enjoying the masterpieces of reality and painting beauty for posterity and beyond with each and every act.

[trotsky]

3. What condescending claptrap.

Meaning is indeed "more subjective." In fact, it's entirely subjective. This article sounds like it could have come right out of the libertarian/right-wing playbook trying to convince the poor serfs that they are much better off without money, so we should stop complaining about income inequality.

[pinto]

5. Of course it's subjective. Meaning in one's life is subjective, well-being overall is objective.

Both, imo, are vital. I don't think they are mutually exclusive. Well-being in one's life - adequate, satisfactory living standards - are well measured. Income inequality is part of that picture. Meaning, being more subjective, is much less quantifiable. I've never seen an attempt to define it in "measurable" terms.

The brief article is interesting, yet seems little more than an overview. I haven't read the embedded links - they seem to be the more detailed basis for the piece.

[trotsky]

6. Well I'm glad you agree with me that meaning is subjective. n/t

[rug]

7. How can he agree with you if it's subjective?

A person who speaks Lithuanian nodding to a person who speaks Tamil is not necessarily agreeing.

[pinto]

9. I agree that it's subjective. Individual. Yet I feel that the Lithuanian and the Tamil can recognize

each other's meaning and acknowledge them beyond the obvious differences.

pinto probably over-thinking all of this. My bottom line - we are much more similar, subjectively, than we are objectively.

[pinto]

8. Yeah I agree, it's subjective. And I can't discount it in anyone's experience.

What brings meaning to your life? That subjective value, subjective or reflective sense of self? Or how do you see meaning in your life? It's totally personal, imo.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. I don't know about Julie Beck, but she links to an earlier Atlantic article

Meaning Is Healthier Than Happiness by 'the managing editor of the Hoover Institution's Defining Ideas, and the editor of Acculturated.' Acculturated is a 'culture' blog that is so like a parody of RWers that the estimable Roy Edroso at alicublog spent ages trying to decide if it's a spoof - his eventual conclusion was that they're serious, but idiots:

I am grateful to Will Sommer -- who's doing fun things with the Washington City Paper blog, by the way -- for luring me back to Acculturated, the rightwing kulturkampf factory where I had previously found an essay about how feminists kept us all from living in Downton Abbey and saying "jolly good" or something.

http://alicublog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/annals-of-culture-war-cont.html

Then I looked at the Acculturated TOC and found an essay called, "One Way to Resurrect Manliness: Everyone, Dress Better!"

I'm genuinely flummoxed. I want to keep making fun of them, but I begin to suspect Acculturated is really an epic internet fraud like Christwire. I'm afraid I'll look silly when they rip the mask off and turn out to be a bunch of Vassar students having a laugh. Come to think of it, I've seen few besides the very dumbest conservatives ever linking to them...

Another bad sign: They do podcasts at Ricochet, an obvious parody site.

Does anyone have the inside story? Thanks in advance.

http://alicublog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/poes-law-wins-again.html

We've had a lot of fun with Mark "Gavreau" Judge here in recent weeks, so on a whim I dropped by the rightwing culture mag that employs him to see how he was passing his days. Behold:

Can the Hollywood reboot of The Fantastic Four, now in the works, succeed where the original movies failed? It all depends on whether producer Matthew Vaughn and director Josh Trank have the guts to do one thing: To make The Fantastic Four about the family versus communism.

Don't ever change, fella.

http://alicublog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/looking-in-on-old-friends.html

[dimbear]

10. This seems to be gathering answers to questions resembling "does your life have meaning?"

If the respondents have been catechized to say yes, it would explain the whole thing rather simply.

[cbayer]

11. That's a valid point.

Unfortunately the actual study is behind a paywall, so it's not possible to assess what kinds of questions they asked that led them to these conclusions.

[el_bryanto]

13. I think that's probably accurate. nt

[Fumesucker]

14. I disagree that satisfaction is based on objective living conditions

I think it's almost as subjective as meaning.

I'm thinking of the "big fish in a small pond" syndrome here, the person having power and prestige in a poor community may well have more satisfaction in their life than a person objectively better off materially who lacks power and prestige in a far wealthier community.

So much in life is relative, I have a relative who was a teenager during the Depression and she tells me that they didn't know they were poor despite the fact they lived in a place one step up from a dirt floored shanty and had to grow their own food, even down to sugar cane they got processed at the local mill on a barter basis.

It's one thing to be poor when everyone around you is poor, it's entirely another to be poor when it appears everyone else is wealthy.

I thought I was unfortunate I had no shoes until I met a man with no feet.

[uriel1972]

15. A strong sense of community can be a source of happiness

It doesn't need to be religious. OTOH as someone who has been ostracised in the past it is unpleasant to be at the wrong end of a sense of community.

As with all things human YMMV.

It smacks of the "Noble Savage" myth which is in fact as racist as the opposite, it denies the suffering and the triumphs of people. It idealises and therefore dehumanises them.

More to the point, it says, "Don't help them, they're perfectly happy now, you'll just spoil them." A way for others to not feel guilty about letting people suffer in poverty.

[trotsky]

16. That's it!

"Noble Savage" - that's what I was thinking of but couldn't remember the term. Thank you, yes, this piece definitely has that ring to it.

[Act_of_Reparation]

17. +1000

Absolutely correct. Spot on.