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Debating Human Happiness

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from: Martin Seligman
to: Steve Pinker

Knowing the Nature of the Beast

Posted Thursday, Oct. 17, 2002, at 1:57 PM ET

Who are these people?

Not only is acknowledging our biological limitations important in the organization of political life, as you persuasively argue in The Blank Slate, Steve, but in the organization of mental life as well. Clinical psychology and psychiatry, like Stalinism, has been pervaded by a Lysenko-type myth that all the "disorders" are treatable and all equally so. We just need to find the treatment that works.

Indeed there are treatments that do work but only for some problems. Panic disorder and blood phobia are almost curable by specific psychotherapies. Manic-depression is eminently containable by specific drugs. But schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and unipolar depression are only modestly relievable. Overweight is only slightly and temporarily treatable (except by gastric bypass). Transsexualism is untreatable (except by changing the genitals). When I think of all the dollars and heartache that have been thrown away on the scam of dieting, I think about class-action lawsuits. (See What You Can Change ... And What You Can't.) I think these impasses tell us about the nature of the beast more than they do about what new therapies are just waiting to be discovered.

The premise of the therapeutic century just passed—that the primary job of the therapist is to rid the patient of bad feelings—was largely misplaced. The best therapists can do with sadness, anger, and anxiety is to help patients live in the more comfortable part of their set range. Evolution stamped dysphoria pretty indelibly into the psyche of the human species. It was the dysphoric hominids that survived the bad weather of the Pleistocene, not the blithe ones.

There is an additional premise that both talk therapy and drug therapy now need to adopt. I call this premise "Dealing With It."

Steve, do you know how the training of snipers is done?

It often takes about 24 hours to get into position and another 36 hours of motionlessness before the sniper can get his (or her) shot off. The sniper is usually very sleepy when he finally shoots. The therapeutic approach to sniper training would be to teach snipers various anti-fatigue tricks or give them wakefulness drugs. That's not what's done. Snipers are kept up for days in training, and they practice shooting while they are falling-over sleepy, until they get very good at sleepy sniping.

What does this "nature of the beast" argument suggest about therapy? That therapists, in the knowledge that the best they can do with many troubles is to move people into a somewhat more comfortable part of their set range, should help teach patients to deal with it. We need to discover the best methods of helping people to function well even when feeling bad—to do end runs around their problems. This is a theme of my translation of the Good Life—using your signature strengths, rather than correcting your weakness, to bring gratification. There are an enormous number of superbly functioning people who work, love, and play effectively even when depressed or anxious. Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln were prime examples. The goal of a life free of dysphoria is a snare and a delusion. A better goal is of good commerce with the world. Authentic happiness, astonishingly, can occur even in the presence of authentic sadness.

dialogues
entries
123456789
from: Martin Seligman
to: Steve Pinker

Knowing the Nature of the Beast

Posted Thursday, Oct. 17, 2002, at 1:57 PM ET
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Steven Pinker is Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard and author of The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, and The Language Instinct. Martin Seligman is Fox Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, former president of the American Psychological Association, and the author of Authentic Happiness. Robert Wright, a visiting fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, runs the Web site meaningoflife.tv and is the author of The Moral Animal and Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.
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Remarks From The Fray, Day 1:

[The Dialogue] seems to be operating on two different levels already. Pinker is a scientist...he is interested in how things work (especially the brain) and does his best to make very few assumptions that are not backed up by empirical observation. To him, the unknown is close at hand...we don't even fully understand how a human brain recognizes its mother. For Seligman, however, it's no big deal to treat "The Pleasant Life" as an empirically validated REAL THING, and go on from there to discuss it …

Pinker's point is that "positive emotions" (I'm not sure what THAT means, either, since "positive" and "negative" don't usually mean "good" and "bad" in science) are as much adaptations as "negative" ones. They show themselves in specific situations. You can manipulate your environment to emulate those specific situations to a degree, given. However, the fact that Seligman still has clients in a "Sisyphean struggle" means that he has not come up with a reliable and communicable method for infinitely increasing happiness levels. I'm sure he would respond to such criticism by stating that a person's degree of happiness depends on how well they understand or agree with his point of view. Anyone who is still depressed "just doesn't get it". I hope everyone recognizes such arguments from discussions about ESP.

I'm sorry...I think I'm taking this from an unfairly scientific perspective. If Seligman's framework seems to be helpful for his clients, then it is as validated as it needs to be for its purpose. However, if we're going to allow for that kind of validation, then Pinker's more constrained discussion of human mental activity seems to be a poor fit for the discussion.

-- Mangar

(To reply, click here.)


I completely agree! What is he talking about? Even parts of his response that momentarily corresponded with external reality were soon obfuscated by a retreat to meaningless catch phrases. For instance he describes the meaningful life, wherein I might use my "signature skills" to accomplish something larger than myself. I agree, that sounds pretty meaningful. But then he goes on to say that he can`t see how "unfortunate and double-edged genes could compromise that?" Well, he might also give some evidence that he tried, or that at least has some idea what Pinker is talking about. First of all, Pinker isn`t saying that genes are double-edged, but that genetically programmed behaviors are. It`s not like genes are marching around the body saying "stop all of this meaningfulness, it`s just gone too far," although I wonder if Seligman might think so.

-- John

(To reply, click here.)


Seligman says something astonishing:

No one has yet discovered genetic constraints on the Good Life. Everyone has signature strengths and everyone is capable of recrafting their lives to use them more.

Surely this can't be true. No genetic constraints on one's willingness and ability to implement the program of change that you prescribe? Someone genetically cursed to live a life of major depression is as capable of implementing this program of change as someone who is genetically blessed with high levels of energy and competence? I may be missing something, but this seems implausible to me.

-- Engram

(To reply, click here.)

(10/16)

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