Happiness and Community in modern society

KomradeBishop

I was reading this article earlier today, about how a significant proportion of people in modern reunited East Germany, look back positively at the sense of community in Communist East Germany, versus how it is now since the transition to a capitalist society:

...the happiness and life satisfaction data for East Germany showed a precipitous fall after unification, as it did in Russia after Communism fell there. (That drop has been made up since, but it was huge.)

I’m further not surprised because there were things that East Germany, in particular, did well. To start, it did community and civic association brilliantly: There were clubs for everything, people joined them, and they enjoyed them.

Happiness is strongly correlated to community: The sort of anomie which capitalist societies encourage, where you know hardly anyone well, destroys happiness.

http://www.ianwelsh.net/happiness-and-freedom-east-german-version/

The article mentions a few points, but particularly, the bit I'm focusing on is the sense of happiness/community and connectedness to other people; East Germany obviously had serious negatives (Stasi, economically it was a mess), but I want to focus solely on community/happiness here.

How do people feel about this, in the context of modern societies today? Do others feel that people are encouraged to be distant, e.g. through long work hours or to take life choices that demand a lot of time, thus limiting social time? Encouraged to be overly independent/isolated from community, and to only be open to a small number of deep connections with others? To be highly selective/judging socially? (even if only manifested in 'polite' ways, in adulthood)

This seem like it may be particularly encouraged through economic conditions as well - high unemployment, emigration, worse working conditions (which can contribute to increased demands on time), stress - even things like homelessness, drug addiction, lack of adequate services for those who need them (mental health in particular, even defunded public health services in general).

Also with some level of attitudes of judgement towards people who can be down on their luck, or to victim blame against them - even displaying similar (often unconscious) attitudes, justifying systematic societal/economic issues.
Some of this ties into System Justification, which I mentioned on another thread here - as well as a recent article I mentioned, where bad luck can be attributed to a personal failure of people, rather than just as bad luck.

Particularly, even just on a basic social level, it can feel this way too - that the cumulative effects of the society/politics/economy that we live in, can make social bonds and true connection, that much more difficult to achieve, and letting more of a small minority, be ignored to drop off the edge of society (mental health issues, drug addiction and homelessness - even unemployment - being notable manifestations of this) - with people being happy to fend for themselves and ignore wider (often quite fixable) societal problems, often insulating or tuning themselves out from such issues, and from others they are not directly socially involved (or do not want to be involved) with.


It's a hard thing to get perspective on and discuss, as there aren't that many societies that have been run on a different basis, to compare to (less again, that any of us have had direct experience of).

It is something I think I can sense to a degree though - but it doesn't seem to really ever be discussed that often (as if people would not be fully aware of it); is my perception here accurate? Have many philosophers (modern in particular) done good writing on this?

I'd like to live in a society that was less like this, or to find parts of it that are cognizant of issues like this (particularly on a basic social level), especially if trying to do something about it, even if just on a personal/social basis.

Torakx

I think this is a massive issue for "civilised" societies.
The example you gave of east Germany is a good one. I wonder if we look at this same dynamic on an international scale, would we see the same effects?

Every few weeks I have urges to walk around my estate and hand out information on current legal and political issues, try to start a community meet up or some form of gathering to get my local community together, so the older generation can get a chance to mingle with the younger generations. But honestly, I would fear being targeted by gardai and other corporations, trying to limit social unification without permission.
An extreme example I saw of this happening, was a few stories from the USA, where people were being arrested for feeding homeless people in public places.
It's pretty clear that anything that will help society heal itself in any meaningful way, is nearly immediately shut down or sabotaged. The conclusion I came to, was that it is not accidental or misguided legislation or enforcement, but a concentrated effort to separate society and exploit communities as individuals. An all out aggressive assault on the working and lower classes.

I see a lot of teenage issues within modern society possibly spawning from a separation with the older generations, within their communities. It then turns to mistrust and fear.
I really think that gap needs to be bridged within poor communities especially.
It is not enough to send teenagers and kids to community centres, where they only socialise with a few designated adults, but mostly with kids.
I would like to see people out of there homes on the greens, having barbecues, playing football, open free markets etc etc. Neighbours getting in touch. Older chatting with younger, bridging that 50 year gap.

The blame game is so much easier when they don't know the person at all.
Information also spreads like wild fire through these meet ups. New business ventures are more likely to come about, due to community trust forming a foundation to work from.
This is something our corporate lead government does not want to happen.
They cannot allow this to happen in any meaningful way, or they lose that iron grip they have on everyones pockets and support networks.

I look at peoples comments online, in places where a majority of extraverts are more active. I have chats with strangers and I watch the same crap hollywood and tv comedies. I can clearly see a massive gap between what is actually going on in the media and entertainment and what people are understanding. It is a little scary and lonely to have everyone around you oblivious to this malicious content, unable to understand the culture and underlying themes they are letting into their minds, without enough education to realize what they are accepting unconsciously.
This seems to be giving rise to many social issues.

If the dominant theme or story of a program was likened to a carrot held on a string in front of a horse and the underlying theme was pointed out, it would take less than 20 seconds for alpha waves to kick in again and the hypnosis to return the person back to looking at the carrot.
How do you compete with that kind of programming? Wear bells and whistles? lol
Maybe I will invent a hat that slaps your face every 15 seconds, so you don't go into a TV trance ^^

All through no fault of their own of course. A large majority now, have always had a tv in the house growing up. It is almost traditional for a "good" family to sit together in front of the tele-vision to get their evening programming. Like some dystopian movie, I actually live inside one and I can't escape haha!

I suppose many people feel the same way and it is most likely a result of being isolated from each other. When we finally start to see things going wrong, it is in isolation that we come to see it and in isolation we suffer and wrap ourselves tighter with protection. "flee from the markets"...hmmm a good tip for discovery maybe, in this day and age. But I think there is also a time to return and overturn the stalls.
Was Nietzsches call to flee, an instinctive knee jerk reaction he has to this situation?
Hmm... jesus, I mean mohammed, I mean zarathustra, probably would have done such a thing(Tipping stalls).

To sum it up.. everywhere I look in society, I see distorted programming of culture and opinion, force fed to the average person and swallowed gladly.
Even distortion in language, like legalese(language of law).
As long as it is pointed at someone else, it can be a tasty treat for the ego. A separation or distancing from that thing in us we hate, by pushing it away and hating it openly.
Society is being played like puppets and it is to me, a clear concerted effort by globalists to undermine soceities worldwide, to pillage land and power.
It keeps coming back to this issue, no matter how hard I try to vere away.

To a point now, where I don't even consider spending my energy fighting for many of the current social issues. I don't see these little battles as a good enough solution to the overall manipulation that is obviously bringing these issues about, purposefully in my view.
That leads into conspiracy theory, to the average person most times. So I will leave my oppinion at that for now.

Oh one last thing. I myself have been hit pretty hard with the economic crash and also the austerity measures. Combined with several health issues, I have had the experience of isolation in the extreme and an awakening to societies issues, with an "outside" view.
Something I did not see and would not see if i had stillbeen employed and kept working 40-50 hours a week and out drinking to relief stress the legal way.
I got kicked to the kerb and being constantly ill has given me a lot of time to obsessively research all this. I just wish I knew how to share all that info in a concise and efficient way.
A solution to the problem of society in general being oblivious to it's condition, may be to crash the whole system and cause everyone to jolt awake and get into action.

Apologies for the long post. It's late... in the morning and I tend to do my thinking before sleep..

zeffabelli

I don't know how we assess and measure happiness or what it really means.

Joe1919

I gone a bit rusty on this but I think Hegel's philosophy was based on mans alienation ( or separation) from himself, others and the totality of consciousness.(Geist) Man consciousness is always evolving in response to this 'unhappy consciousness'.
Hegel had a huge influence on Marx and Kierkegaard, and also on some more recent philosophers such as Rhinhold Niebuhr (Obama's favourite), Fukuyama (who favours liberal democracy) Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor (who favours some type of communitarianism.
To some extent (imo), man is destined to be unhappy as it is this unhappiness that drives him onwards. Man never rests. There is also this idea of the hedonic treadmill and happiness thermostat. i.e. We adjust our expectations (the more we have, the more we want etc.)

zeffabelli

I don't agree with a lot in that article. I don't necessarily think equality means happiness, and I find it hard to believe in soviet states there was much equality, you had a ruling class and then everyone else.

As for community, I'd blame a lot on divorce, which is often a product of people fantasising about happiness elsewhere.

The idea of happiness is a distraction, we are obsessed with alternative lives and in pursuing happiness end up creating much unhappiness. An awful human double bind.

Torakx

I strongly believe a constant striving for happiness creates a polar opposite of it, in the current situation. While happiness is "over there" it means unhappiness is "over here" and so people become overly sensitive to their current woes and become more unhappy, pushing that dream further out of their grasp.
I keep trying to tell people to stop trying to be happy. If anything to try and become unhappy on occasions to get perspective.
If asked about my needs for happiness, I always respond by saying I would prefer to be content overall. The midway point, while now and then dipping into sad and happy to get perspective.

But on the topic of community, I dothink it is one of the basic things we need to feel fullfilled in ourselves, as a reflection of our humanity and place in a society. A true belonging in a "spiritual" sense, where memberships and secular ID's have no ground to stand on.

KomradeBishop

I guess there's a risk of being too caught up in the definition of happiness - in the context of this thread, I was considering happiness/contentment within a community, i.e. peoples ability to develop meaningful and lasting connections with others in their community and overall society.

In modern society, particularly during times of economic hardship, I think that this is more difficult to achieve - and that quite a lot of people get left to drop off the edge of society, without others really caring enough to do anything about it - often being too busy trying to manage their own affairs socially, personally and professionally, or just outright not caring (though typically shielding/obscuring this, with enough layers of plausible excuses - especially if solving a particular problem might be complex, it is common to avoid the effort of thinking it through, e.g. a lot of people finding political/economic issues 'boring' and just not wanting to know about it, when they can be critical to resolving problems that cause a huge number of people great harm).

Torakx

I think the mechanic we are considering here is security, with a by product of happiness in certain circumstances.
If we surveyed a group suffering from stockholm syndrome, would we find the same results? That being, they were happy with their captors where they became accustomed to routine, where the freedom offered later, might bring a feeling of being lost in a massive ocean. Having to make choices and experience fast changes in your environment(fuel for the insecure).

In the large post I wrote above, I mentioned feelings of wanting to go into my own community and bring people together. Much of the reason I would chose my local community is due to a natural selfishness. Tobring security to my environment, by pulling local protection and networks of support and movement towards pushing back attacks thatare brought against all communities consistently.

When the Berlin wall fell, and with the above in mind, I would think there would obviously be a massive dropin security. It seems inevitable in hindsight. That space opened up and people mixed, new people, possibly threats, changes, new laws etc. The foundations of that society(that big wall and those on the other side) was a stable feature in the environment. A feature that most likley was imposing and reassuring with it's firmness.
Secure.
I guess I seem to be heading towards the idea that the happiness and security those people felt was a result of the conflict that the wall appeared to hold back. An assumed happiness, as a by product of a secure social separation.
How does communist Russia compare? Was there a similar separation that can be attributed to a feeling of securing, only there because of a comparison to the alternative presented?
And again, with democracy, are we all feeling secure now, because at least it isn't communism? I think at least to some extent that is the case.
I still do think local communities losing touch, presents insecurity in those communities and this is one of the major game plans for globalists. Most legislation thatcomes out over the last 50years at least, has been "accidently" splitting up communities and impoverishing the working class.
The social experiment that was comunist Russia must have given the elite families and conglomerates somuch useful information to split societies around the world. China has been perfecting this model ever since. The west have their own experiments and argueably it has been very sucessful in determining just how to enslave an "educated" nation of mixed races and nationalities, cultures etc.
The China experiment with a form of communism, seems sensible. I can hardly imagine that form of enslavement would have been easy to use in America.

zeffabelli

KomradeBishop wrote: »

I guess there's a risk of being too caught up in the definition of happiness - in the context of this thread, I was considering happiness/contentment within a community, i.e. peoples ability to develop meaningful and lasting connections with others in their community and overall society.

In modern society, particularly during times of economic hardship, I think that this is more difficult to achieve - and that quite a lot of people get left to drop off the edge of society, without others really caring enough to do anything about it - often being too busy trying to manage their own affairs socially, personally and professionally, or just outright not caring (though typically shielding/obscuring this, with enough layers of plausible excuses - especially if solving a particular problem might be complex, it is common to avoid the effort of thinking it through, e.g. a lot of people finding political/economic issues 'boring' and just not wanting to know about it, when they can be critical to resolving problems that cause a huge number of people great harm).

There are a lot of things affecting community, one is the breakdown of the family, which is the core of community, and then the mobility expected of people, job relocations etc.

The internet as well is both creating and dissembling communities of another kind.

Sometimes, ironically, its hardship that forges communities. They say the strong sense of community in northeastern states in the US is down to the hard winters... it brings about collaboration...necessary to survive and thrive.

But also community can be dangerous...look at the Salem Witch Trials or the tale of Beowulf.

shaymus27

I think in East Germany there probably was a them and us situation. The majority of the population was us and the rulers them. This would lead to a sense of togetherness among the us.

In capitalist societies there is them and us. Only there is a lot more of them. Them can be people wealthier than us. It can be businesses who get grants while us get more and more taxed to indirectly give grants to them. Them can be the un-ending quangos who get bonuses while us get threatened with jail if us can't afford to buy a tv licence.

The various unfairnesses in capitalist societies leads to more unhappiness among the population.

I read something which suggested that when everyone has nothing then there is no envy and less perceived unfairnesses. Once we start to have something we start comparing ourselves to others who have more, then the unfairness and unhappiness comes in.

I think that one thing that makes capitalist societies more unhappy is the message that people get treated equally. That social welfare looks after those who need it. That if you are not successful then it is your fault. If you think it is your fault you are bound to be less happy. When you hear politicians speak you would think they care about people but in reality that does not seem to be the case. This sense of Society (the establishment) saying one thing while reality being different I think is unsettling for people. They know politicians are setting up society to always ensure they and their cronies advance while others struggle. The us aren't united in Ireland in the way the us were in East Germany with a sense of togetherness.

Russian people have spoke about how their lives were more predictable and secure during the old regime. Sounds crazy but security and predictability seem to be something they miss.

In Ireland in the past people believed they just had to put up with the way society was. When people got educated and started to see the inequalities and started to expect more, they became more unhappy with their lot as they saw how unfair it was the for example PAYE workers years ago were crucified for tax while farmers and businesses paid little or no tax. Things in Ireland seem to have gone back to this unfair way only grants are given these days to businesses when everyone else is being taxed more than they can afford.

countrynosebag

Loneliness is a huge issue.
I know that being terribly isolated (rurally) no bus or any services except with my odd lift when not ill -waiting to,go,to,hospital, (older than I so I dread the future).
People are not inclined to give a lift when attempting to hitch (obviously nowadays....) unable to walk as far as village by miles.
Bleak now, no sense of community nor likely to be one as far as I can tell. Suicides and people found weeks after death in isolated places. I suppose that will be me eventually.
Society is bleak and the future .... We'll, I am not expecting much. Sad really.

shaymus27

countrynosebag wrote: »

Loneliness is a huge issue.
I know that being terribly isolated (rurally) no bus or any services except with my odd lift when not ill -waiting to,go,to,hospital, (older than I so I dread the future).
People are not inclined to give a lift when attempting to hitch (obviously nowadays....) unable to walk as far as village by miles.
Bleak now, no sense of community nor likely to be one as far as I can tell. Suicides and people found weeks after death in isolated places. I suppose that will be me eventually.
Society is bleak and the future .... We'll, I am not expecting much. Sad really.

Loneliness and isolation have become a huge issue in modern societies which obviously detract from happiness and community in modern society.

You might get yourself a dog for company though it will be hard to walk it in winter when it gets dark.

Men in particular seem to be extremely lonely today. Separated men sometimes end up living alone in small dwellings.

Rural living without a support network can be very isolating. Even people living in towns who have moved far from where they grew up end up driving in to their homes in estates and sometimes only get to know their neighbours if they have kids and meet through leaving kids to school etc. They live far from family and their friends who are sometimes dispersed to where ever they could afford to live.

People being separated from where they grew up, leaving friends and family behind are isolated from their support networks. Some estates have had nothing but trouble with councils not taking them under control and you have had people moving to a house they could afford, miles from anyone they know having nothing but problems with plumbing, paper-thin walls, roads and community spaces not being taken under council control - problems from day 1 of moving there. Some regret moving but are stuck. All this can't help with their happiness. Having house problems and being stressed (along with commuting) can leave them not in a proper state of mind to feel part of a community.

The fact that county councils did not oversee properly the construction of so many houses and refuse to take control of estates means a lot of people feel the government don't care about them which leads to alienation and doesn't help build a sense of togetherness or community.

Maybe one indicator of the lack of happiness and community in modern society can be gauged by the amount of people feeling lonely and the number of suicides as the above poster alluded to.

A lot of social commentators have focused on women's issues over the years and the plight of males living in isolation and the number of male suicides gets little attention compared to the various issues women have faced over the years.

It's not all gloom and there a lot of people living with nearby support networks who are happy living with good schools and facilities near by. For a lot of people though, there isn't a sense of everyone being in this together, especially where Government and public services are concerned.