30 | New Scientist | 31 August 2019
Book
Manufacturing Happy
Citizens: How the science
and industry of happiness
control our lives
Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz
PolityTHEY say money can’t buy
happiness. But that doesn’t stop
people from selling it. Day passes
to Goop’s wellness summit in
London in June cost £1000, with
weekend tickets (two nights in a
hotel, a VIP Sunday workout and
Goop-favourite meals) going for
an eye-watering £4500.
From mindfulness to detox
to the nine crystals you should
keep on your desk, actor Gwyneth
Paltrow’s multi-million dollar
business has it covered. There
are so many ways you can pay
to feel better about yourself.
I closed Goop’s website soon
after learning about shock-wave
therapy for my penis.
Happiness has become a
commodity that needs to be
topped up as often as possible.
What do we want? To be happy.
When do we want it? Now.
At some point, our happiness
became other people’s business.
“Most of what we do on behalf
of our happiness... is first and
foremost favourable and
beneficial to those who claim
to hold its truths,” write Edgar
Cabanas and Eva Illouz in the
excellent Manufacturing
Happy Citizens.
Educational psychologist
Cabanas and sociologist Illouz
explain how happiness became
not only a commodity, but also
one that society has decided it is
our civic duty to pursue. Happy
people are better citizens. The
book is a clear-sighted critique
of capitalism’s current obsessionThe selling of happiness
Fuelled by government and corporate dollars, being happy has become near
mandatory. Douglas Heaven lifts the lid on an industry worth billionswith happiness and of the shaky
science allowing a well-meaning
ideal to be so easily subverted by
governments and companies.
It is surprising that happiness
(at least, as we know it today) has
an origin story. In this tale, the
prime mover is Martin Seligman,
a behaviourist and cognitivescientist. In 1998, he was elected
president of the American
Psychological Association, the
largest professional body for
psychologists in the US. He had
come to believe that psychology
was too negative, focusing on
pathologies, not betterment.
Seligman wanted to make
happiness the focus: what was
it and how could we achieve it?
It was a real calling. In his jointViews Culture
IRABERGER
/ALAMYScience at least 150 years earlier.
The enterprise might have
fallen flat if the money hadn’t
poured in. Cabanas and Illouz
quote Seligman saying that
“grey-hair, grey-suited lawyers”
from “anonymous foundations”
that only picked “winners”
would call him for meetings
in fancy buildings in New
York to ask what positive
psychology was and request
“ten-minute explanations”
and “three-pager” proposals.
Within two years of his paper,
the field had attracted some
$37 million. The John Templeton
Foundation gave Seligman
$2.2 million to set up the
Positive Psychology Center at
the University of Pennsylvania.
The 2002 preface to the Handbook
of Positive Psychology, which
declared the field’s independence,
was written by Templeton himself,2000 paper “Positive Psychology:
An introduction”, published in
American Psychologist, Seligman
wrote that “Positive psychology
called to me just as the burning
bush called Moses.” But according
to Cabanas and Illouz, “as is often
the case with revelations, the
picture of positive psychology
presented in the inaugural
manifesto was vague”. They say
that Seligman cherry-picked ideas
from a grab bag of disciplines
he felt said something about
the human condition, including
evolutionary biology, psychology,
neuroscience and philosophy.
Seligman was clear about one
thing, however: happiness studies
shouldn’t be part of psychology
but a new field.
The authors argue that it wasn’t
entirely new: positive psychology
sounded a lot like the self-esteem
movements of the 1980s and 90s,
the humanist psychology of the
1950s and 60s, and the think-
yourself-well and mind cures
promoted by the likes of ChristianThe impact of happiness
research has been huge –
just not on science“ In his paper, Seligman
wrote that positive
psychology called to
him just as the burning
bush called Moses”