History offers perspective on modern pursuit of happiness

Even though progress and happiness may not always go hand in hand, the Global Dialogue on Happiness and the World Government Summit are ushering in a new era that could lead to a happiness revolution, said Professor Darrin McMahon. His comments were part of a talk entitled 'A Brief History of Happiness' during the Global Dialogue on Happiness ahead of the fifth edition of the World Government Summit 2017.
Professor McMahon, Mary Brinsmead Wheelock Professor at Dartmouth College, a member of the Ivy League, and a renowned author and historian, attempted to measure happiness in different eras while delivering a brief overview of the history of human progress.
Starting off with the example of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, he noted that they were "not miserable or ecstatic but pretty happy" before comparing their simple existence and healthy diet with an era of settled society ushered in by the first agricultural revolution around 10,000 BC.
He continued: "While this was technologically an advance, the developments worked against human happiness. This first revolution was not a happy one overall. It brought private property and inequality, slavery and other servitude. There was a far less varied diet, which exposed humans to the prospect of crop failure, starvation, famine and plague."
According to Professor McMahon, humanity has struggled with the concept of happiness ever since. It was not until the age of the Enlightenment and the rise of a commercial society that we started to see change. Even then, he says, the turbulent times and ideology of modern history show how progress has not always gone hand in hand with happiness.
However, Professor McMahon remains optimistic, to a great extent owing to events like the Global Dialogue for Happiness. He said: "I take heart at the work of the people in this room, which can usher in a whole happiness revolution. We have learned a great deal, and we are gathering knowledge about the causes of people's happiness - not the fleeting kind, but the one that lasts. In a way, we see modern truth in ancient wisdom - we are confirming in the lab what was first discovered in the field thousands of years ago."
He added: "Happiness and progress do not always go hand in hand. Eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau never believed humans could return to innocence. But he did believe they could establish the institutions that could make up for what they lost. That remains our challenge and our task."
Professor McMahon is author of Enemies of the Enlightenment: The French Counter-Enlightenment and Making of Modernity, Happiness: A History, and Divine Fury: A History of Genius. His work on happiness has been translated into 12 languages.
The World Government Summit (WGS) 2017 has drawn the participation of more than 4,000 personalities from 139 countries around the world, reflecting the leading stature of the summit on regional and international levels and the high interest from governments, global organizations, private and public sector entities, decision makers, entrepreneurs, academics and university students as well as scientists and innovators. WGS 2017 features 150 speakers across 114 sessions that highlight the world's most pressing challenges and showcase best practices and cutting-edge solutions to deal with them.