Isn’t the world today too evil for one to be happy?

The denial of the possibility of happiness seems to have been influenced by the concept of the world and mankind as being fundamentally evil. This belief stems largely from the notion of original sin, which Freud, according to psychologist Martin Seligman, “dragged… into twentieth-century psychology, defining all of civilization (including modern morality, science, religion, and technological progress) as just an elaborate defense against basic conflicts over infantile sexuality and aggression.” This kind of interpretation has led a great many contemporary intellectuals to conclude absurdly that any act of generosity or kindness comes from a negative impulse. Seligman quotes Doris Kearns Goodwin, the biographer of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, according to whom the first lady devoted a great portion of her life to helping people of color because she was compensating for her mother’s narcissism and her father’s alcoholism. Goodwin, says Seligman, never even considers the possibility that Eleanor Roosevelt was simply acting out of pure kindness! For Seligman and his colleagues in the field of positive psychology, “there is not a shred of evidence that strength and virtue are derived from negative motivation.”

We also know that our constant bombardment with bad news by the media and the presentation of violence as the ultimate solution to any conflict encourages what sociologists call the “wicked world syndrome.” One simple illustration of this was at the 1999 Visa pour l’Image, an international photo-journalism festival in Perpignan, France, in which I participated as an exhibitor. Of the thirty-six exhibits mounted there, only two were devoted to subjects that put a constructive spin on human nature. The thirty-four others were about war, Mafia crimes in Palermo, drug dens in New York City, and other negative aspects of the world.

The “wicked world syndrome” calls into question the very possibility of actualizing happiness. The battle would appear to be lost before it’s engaged. The belief that human nature is essentially corrupt taints our vision of life with pessimism and makes us question the very basis of the search for happiness, that is, every human being’s potential for perfection. Trying to purify something that is fundamentally bad would be as pointless as trying to bleach a lump of coal.

Conversely, the development of our deep human potential is like polishing a gold nugget to bring out its shine. Once we have come to that conclusion, our goal becomes to determine levelheadedly the causes of unhappiness and to correct them. Since true happiness is not limited to momentary relief from life’s ups and downs, it requires us to eliminate the major causes of unhappiness, which, as we have seen, are ignorance and mental toxins. If happiness is indeed a way of being, a state of consciousness and inner freedom, there is essentially nothing to prevent us from achieving it.

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