Denmark, Finland, and the 'Secrets' of the Happiest Countries - The Atlantic - 0 views
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Wanting to copy the happiest people in the world is an understandable impulse, but it distracts from a key message of the happiness rankings—that equitable, balanced societies make for happier residents.
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In the process, a research-heavy, policy-oriented document gets mistaken, through a terrible global game of telephone, for a trove of self-help advice.
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the list implies “a social understanding of happiness—something that happens between people,” which is a welcome alternative to the default assumption that individual people are responsible for their own misery. He also thinks it can show people which policies to vote for if they want to nudge their society in a happier direction.
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The UN first took an interest in people’s imaginary life-ladders 10 years ago, after Bhutan’s prime minister at the time, Jigme Thinley, encouraged the organization’s member countries to better incorporate well-being into measurements of social and economic development. His recommendation inspired the first World Happiness Report, released in 2012.
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the lessons of the report are not shocking: People are more satisfied with their lives when they have a comfortable standard of living, a supportive social network, good health, the latitude to choose their course in life, and a government they trust. The highest echelon of happy countries also tends to have universal health care, ample paid vacation time, and affordable child care.
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A central takeaway from nine years of happiness reports is that a wealthier country is not always a happier country.
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In the U.S., “we are living with such incredibly frayed social trust and bad vibes and addictions and so many other things, and still [people say] ‘Don't tax me,’ ‘Don’t tax the rich,’” Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University and an editor of the report, told me. “This is part of our politics that I think is all wrong, and that I think is what puts us well behind countries that are not quite as rich as the United States but in my view are much more balanced in their lives.”
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Sachs, of the World Happiness Report, doesn’t think that interest in the happiest countries’ customs is entirely misplaced. Denmark and other happy countries embody “a different kind of prosperity, a more equal and shared prosperity, and I think things like hygge are a reflection of that norm,” he told me. “I think it’s something to emulate at an individual level, and something to propound at a political level.”
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Taking forest walks and foraging for berries do sound delightful, but a focus on activities and habits reduces entire cultures to individual lifestyle trends and obscures the structural forces that make people satisfied with their lives.
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No quantity of blankets or candles is going to make up for living in an unequal society with a weak social safety net.
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Bear in mind, though, that happiness isn’t found only at the top of the rankings. Sebastian Modak, a freelance travel writer, told me that when he was The New York Times’ 52 Places Traveler in 2019, he met people at every destination who seemed truly happy and had habits that brought them pleasure
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n the Nordic countries themselves have a lesser-known cultural ideal that probably brings happiness more reliably than hygge. Jukka Savolainen, a Finnish American sociology professor at Wayne State University, in Michigan, argued in Slate that the essence of his happy home region is best captured by lagom, a Swedish and Norwegian word meaning “just the right amount.”
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Savolainen even theorizes that this inclination toward moderation shapes residents’ responses to the happiness ranking’s central question. “The Nordic countries are united in their embrace of curbed aspirations for the best possible life,” he writes. “In these societies, the imaginary 10-step ladder is not so tall.”