<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.3132" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>
<H1 class=articleTitle style="MARGIN: 0px">Please Don't Have a Nice Day</H1>
<DIV
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; FONT: bold 12px times new roman, times, serif; PADDING-TOP: 12px"><SPAN
id=byl style="FONT: bold 12px times new roman, times, serif">By <B>COLIN
MCGINN</B><BR><SPAN class=aTime><EM><FONT color=#666666 size=2>February 8,
2008; Page W5</FONT></EM></SPAN></SPAN><BR></DIV>
<P class=times>Utilitarianism is the philosophical doctrine according to which
happiness is the sole intrinsic value -- the only thing that is good in itself.
Although invented by 19th-century Britons, notably Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill,
utilitarianism has some claim to be the official philosophy of the U.S.A. or, as
a philosopher might have it, the "Utilitarian States of America." In America,
happiness is what makes life good, and unhappiness is what makes it bad. We must
therefore seize the former and avoid the latter.</P>
<P class=times>Eric G. Wilson, a professor of English at Wake Forest University,
disagrees, contending that utilitarianism has it the wrong way around. The
"happy types," as he calls them, are apt to be bland, superficial, static,
hollow, one-sided, bovine, acquisitive, deluded and foolish. Sold on the ideal
of the happy smile and the cheerful salutation, they patrol the malls in dull
uniformity, zombie-like, searching for contentment and pleasure, locked inside
their own dreams of a secure and unblemished world, oblivious to objective
reality, cocooned in a protective layer of bemused well-being.</P>
<P class=times>These are the positive thinkers, in Mr. Wilson's taxonomy, the
see-no-evil optimists, the consumers and users of a world conceived
instrumentally. Deep down they are hurting, like the rest of us, but the
ideology of constant happiness has them in its grip. They pop pills, read
self-help manuals, gorge themselves on feel-good TV and comfort food -- all to
avoid the blues that are an inevitable part of the human condition.</P>
<P class=times>On the opposite side, Mr. Wilson says, we have the natural
sufferers, their somber faces downcast. Their traits are these: sadness,
dejection, questioning, restlessness, honesty, depth, pessimism, tragedy,
complexity, vitality and a grasp of reality. Confessing his own melancholic
temperament, Mr. Wilson hymns the virtues of misery, invoking such fellow sad
sacks as Keats, Melville, Coleridge, van Gogh, Beethoven, John Lennon, Rothko
and Cary Grant (who would have guessed?).</P>
<P class=times>In such figures he sees perceptiveness and creativity, nobility
and elevation. Mr. Wilson's basic thesis is that, without suffering, the human
soul becomes stagnant and empty. We can only reach our full potential through
pain -- not a pathological kind of pain but the kind that comes from a
recognition of death, decay and the bad day (or decade). We must live between
the poles of sadness and joy and not try to expunge misery from our
lives.</P></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=743033513-08022008><FONT
face=Arial><SNIP><BR><BR><BR>KT<BR>Joel
Rich</FONT></SPAN></DIV><br><br><table bgcolor=white style="color:black"><tr><td><br>THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE <br>
ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL <br>
INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, <br>
distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is <br>
strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us <br>
immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. <br>
Thank you.<br>
</td></tr></table></BODY></HTML>