Ordinangst is fascinated by Richard Layard’s launch this morning of his Action for Happiness campaign. The cynic in Ordinangst notes that an organisation that already boasts 4,500 members (wooh – a mass movement!) managed to garner more airtime on Radio 4 this morning than any Church could reasonably expect. That’s obviously because the idea plays safely into the secular liberal agenda that seems to be everywhere at the moment (cf Big Society, Anthony Seldon on Trust etc etc) Here's a link to Layards’s website which contains some interesting material.
Layard’s idea is simple – provide a blueprint of ten steps (none of them involving faith by the way) for how to achieve happiness - because happiness leads to a better sense of wellbeing and is also infectious. Bingo! in C21st, happiness becomes the Opiate of the Masses. Layard was at pains this morning to emphasise that his movement has nothing whatsoever to do with any religious organisation – and Ordinangst finds this need to distance his ideas (which have to be well-intentioned) from faith rather depressing.
The Today programme put Layard’s ideas into action with a simple experiment in a coffee shop. An individual commits an act of spontaneous generosity to a stranger – the next person in the queue – by offering to buy them a cup of coffee. This offer is accepted (and, interestingly is then spontaneously repeated to the next person – Ordinangst wonders if this was because the BBC was listening) down the line until it comes to a grinding halt from some poor soul who doesn’t play ball. The participants are then interviewed and, Lo and behold! The giving and receiving of generosity makes people feel happy.
Ordinangst hopes this news won’t come as a revelation to his (largely) Christian readership. “A gift freely given” models (in a tiny Starbuckian way) God’s grace to us. Ordinangst subscribes to the “God Shaped Hole” theory and believes that all people have a yearning for God in their lives and because of this they will nearly always respond to acts of grace positively. What worries him is that initiatives like Layard’s – which encourage Christ-like behaviour without introducing Jesus into the equation - are filling the gap with behaviours that lead ultimately to a dead end (literally). And the problem is that, as we all know, following Jesus doesn't lead to happiness all the time. In fact it can be very tough - with as many lows as there are highs.
Ordinangst is sorry to sound grumpy, but an initiative aimed at making people happy all the time is, inane. Anyone who claims to be happy constantly is either living in some soma-induced haze or is on some spectrum or another. If we are encouraged to measure our life on some inane happy-ometer we are going to end up feeling worse than ever.
Couldn't agree more! In my rather fuzzy morning state when listening to R4 I couldn't help feeling that what was being suggested sounded a lot like Christianity but without Christ, and without the hope that comes when reality hits hard and all you have to fall back on is 'faith' and 'belief'.
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