Happy Happy Joy Joy

We get into trouble when we attempt to measure unmeasurable concepts. Yes, we can assess a nation’s economic strength by crunching the numbers, and such an assessment might lead us to conclude that America is on shaky ground.

But how do we measure a country’s capacity for love and hate and perseverance and creativity? Numbers cannot gauge the quality of a culture’s food and music and horror movies. OK, we don’t need to measure that last one, because we all know Japan is number one.

In any case, the list of the world’s happiest countries recently came out, and while we cannot say this ranking is definitive or precise, it does give us some insight into the quality of life for a nation’s residents.

To no one’s surprise, the place to be right now is Scandinavia. Five of the top six spots are in that cold (but very happy) slice of Northern Europe The only non-Nordic nation to crack the upper ranks of happiness is Costa Rica, so score one for my fellow Latinos.

According to the list, the happiest country in the world is Finland. Researchers and social scientists give numerous reasons for why Finns are in a constant good mood. These factors range from economic stability to cultural tenacity to institutional trust. 

The president of Finland says that when it comes to nation-wide happiness, ‘I do not think there is a magic potion, but it helps to have a society which strives towards freedom, equality and justice.”

That all sounds vaguely woke, doesn’t it?

In any case, what these factors have in common is that none of them are based upon the rugged individualism, hyper-religiosity, patriotic fervor, and narrow definition of “liberty” that our conservative friends insist are integral to a nation’s well-being. 

In fact, Scandinavia is far removed from the “small government” libertarianism that conservatives insist is necessary for prosperity. The region is pretty much the antithesis of every conservative value, and yet it’s citizens are among the world’s happiest, safest, and most productive.

I haven’t been to Finland, but I’m going to gamble here and assert that if a guy in Helsinki shrieked that the government is plotting against him and guns are necessary for liberty, the Finnish populace would think that guy was a fucking lunatic. Then they would offer him free healthcare, because that’s a real thing there. 

So what happens here in America year after year, when these rankings come out, and they show that democratic socialism is a huge success story? Do conservatives acknowledge that low taxes for the rich and a shredded social-safety net do not lead to national happiness? Do they look at Scandinavia’s high quality of life and say, “Maybe we’re wrong to mock the homeless and demand that our citizens die if their insurance lapses?”

No, they tend to have a very different reaction. It’s one that preserves the illusion that their worldview is correct, and it ignores the obvious truth that healthy nations have no interest in adopting their simplistic ideals.

What is this reaction? I will discuss it in my next post.