COVER STORY
in horror at the lives of doped-up
artists, when not collecting their
work for peanuts and pocket
change. My “right” to an all-night
rave is your right to call the police.
The pursuit of The Good Life may be
make it up as you go along or as planned as a
military campaign, ephemeral as the but-
terflies in the Schmetterlinghaus or as
stately as the 19th century Palmenhaus
that houses them. A German Zuckerbäcker
in her 30s, juggling a toddler and a
job at one of Vienna’s top patisseries, views
The Good Life very differently to the
20-something Russian I know who works
for an oligarch’s hedge fund. The single
mother would love a better work-life
balance, with just enough money to be
worry free. First on the young banker’s list
is more magic (and probably pricey)
moments; second is freedom. Vienna’s
laissez-faire attitude and respect forprivacy and personal space
offer a sense of this,
reflected in the city’s
organic hodgepodge of aes-
thetic influences – a grand Palais abutting
postwar council housing, with a modernist
topping of glass and steel – that are more
human scaled than the far heavier master
plans of megacities where history is regu-
larly rewritten with the swing of a crane.
Every age and culture has idealized some
form of The Good Life. What it comprises
has varied wildly, dependending on time,
place and personal circumstances. Humans
are constantly redefining what it means to
live la dolce vita, inspired by new technolo-
gies and ways of thinking. For the earliest
Trobriand Islanders, avoiding misery was
only possible as long as they maintained the
spirits’ natural order. The reward was a
guaranteed place in Tuma, the hardship
and pain-free island heaven on earth. Forthe Greeks, humans had individual souls
with reason and more responsibility over
their actions, and thus more options for
how to live well, but those came with equal-
ly fixed sets of principles and restrictions.
Dependending on which philosopher one
followed – Aristotle, Epictetus, Socrates or
Aristippus – Eudaimonia might be ethical,
virtuous, rational or hedonistic.
Modern philosophy, acknowledging
humans as complex creatures capable of
rational decisions but often controlled by
teenage-level hormones, offers two basic
options: Either live by the exacting moral
restrictions of Immanuel Kant (select the
most clearly good act, even against one’s
own better interests) or pursue the more
ambiguous and pleasure-maximizing utili-
tarian school, judging each moment ac-
cording to a cost/benefit analysis. How
much happiness can I get for myself, while
avoiding as much pain as possible?Chilling out at the
MuseumsQuartier feels
essentially like the good life
for many Viennese, never
mind the time of year.Greek philosophers like Aristotle, Epictetus, Socrates
and Aristippus had differing visions of The Good Life,
emphasizing ethics, virtue, rationality or hedonism.
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