Republicans Are Happier
A recent study has shown the happiest people are old, Republican, and male.
Before you go saying, "Republicans are usually rich, greedy, and selfish. Of course they're happier. They have all that money..." Check out this excerpt from the study:
If you're thinking that Republicans are happy just because they perhaps make more money, that does not seem to be the case. The study that found Republicans to be happier than Democrats also showed that it held true even after adjusting for income.
Which goes to show that if you believe in taking responsibility for your choices, protecting the country from domestic and foreign enemies, and not murdering babies, you are probably going to be happier than people who think we need to attack the achievers and loot their possessions.
This is a large part of the project here at conservative earnest. The "earnest" part is about living a genuine life where people do not make the buffoon error of waiting for the government to inject meaning into their lives.
Ultimately I believe happiness comes from knowing Jesus and finding reconciliation with God. I believe conservative folks are more inclined to do this for real (with a few exceptions, like Tony Campolo perhaps). There's more false religion among the democrats: Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, the Episcopalian church, etc.
If the Republicans can find meaning and happiness even while they are out of power, people should abandon the Democrat party immediately because whatever they have to offer is not worth it if you lose your happiness over it.
posted by Matthew Canonicus at
2:53 PM
6 Comments:
That's an interesting survey, but I think happiness surveys are one of the most pointless statistical experiments. What kind of happiness are people feeling when they respond yes? It could be blissful ignorance, or it could be happiness that is linked to where they stand relative to other people (I think the books status anxiety and Affluenza convincingly show how fixation with status in society can lead to short-term happiness but ultimately a hollow existence). You interpreted this data to mean that Republicans are more mentally stable and earnest, but I could just as easily interpret the results to mean that Democrats are more passionate about social justice/inequality and therefore are sadder due to their concern and love for their fellow humanity who are facing incredibly hard times (especially in third world countries now that food prices have been increasing).
I'm not claiming that is definitively true, just showing that you can make a whole heap of equally valid (or invalid) interpretations from one set of data.
Also interesting is the finding that people who worship regularly (whatever religion) are in general happier than people who don't. There are so many possible explanations and implications I wish statisticians would spend some more time researching that in depth. Is it because there is less anxiety associated with dying, or because worshipping regularly eases the mind from stress, or because their religious belief have given them a worldview that is more positive? If the survey widened its questions to ascertain why people feel certain emotions, it would be more meaningful.
Also, I forgot to mention that you have to be very careful when looking at a bunch of statistics not to make the leap from association to causation. So, more Republicans said they were happier than Democrats, but is it actually being Republican that increases the likelihood that you are going to be happy?
The survey mentioned that even adjusted for income more republicans are happier. But what about race? By far more Republicans are white, and white people are in general happier than other races. Over 50% of males are white, and males in many societies are happier than females statistically. There are many different other factors that could be causing this increase in happiness. Just because being a republican has a higher association with being happy does not necessarily mean that being a republican is causing (or even contributing) to that increase in happiness.
Sorry I mean over 50% of males are Republican, not white, hehe.
Hi Tim,
I'm surprised that a Kierkegaardian such as yourself would criticize me for taking leaps. At one level I am reporting a news event, and at another level I am throwing myself into a way I choose to interpret it. I am open to hearing other suggestions, but I feel no obligation speak the opinions of other people (unless I see a good teaching point for how other people's opinions might be disingenuous).
I have no inclination to believe happiness is caused in anyway by race. To me, that smacks of a justification for eugenics or SCOTUS nominee Sotomayor. Happiness has to do with the perspective you decide to have, and the people who believe government holds the power to put meaning into people's lives are peddling false happiness, and as far as I can tell the surveys reflect this.
Hi Matt,
Your response floored me as I was even considering bringing Kierkegaard into my own argument! In the sickness unto death Kierkegaard often references how the people who have no concept of their despair are often on the surface happy, but on the other hand have no possibility to discover and defeat that despair and so unless they are flung into self-awareness are doomed to meaninglessness and despair.
I know you were just throwing your interpretation out there, and I didn't intend to tell you that for some reason you aren't allowed to. What I meant was statistics need to be handelled very carefully before any meaningful conclusion whatsoever can be made regarding them. You've often heard the phrase that statistics can be used to prove anything. This isn't Kierkegaard's leap of faith where passion and conviction compel us to go beyond the limits of reason and grasp faith. This is a bunch of numbers that can mean a billion different things.
You do have a point regarding happiness, it's dependent on the outlook we decide to take. But in the land of statistics social groups are lumped together in a generalising way, and so subjective individual perspectives aren't taken into account very well. Just as people with more money tend to be happier (they don't have to go without dinner, they have a nice cosy bed to sleep in, they can afford some entertainment to ease stress, etc.), white people tend to be happier than other races. This is because there are no third world country full of white people, there are no cases (in recent times) of racism causing tens of thousands of white people immense pain and suffering. In statistics it's all a matter of probabilities and averages, individual earnest (if you will) aren't represented.
"You do have a point regarding happiness, it's dependent on the outlook we decide to take. But in the land of statistics social groups are lumped together in a generalising way, and so subjective individual perspectives aren't taken into account very well." Tim
That's very true. To put it into statistical language, Kierkegaard expects people to be outliers. This reflects God's desire for people to be set apart. You are also correct that statistics can be taken in a million different ways, but I don't think it needs to be sterilized in the analysis. Our interpretation of data needs to be based on our inner values and convictions and not the other way around (correspondence theory). People who say their views are based on empirical evidence are necessarily living in bad faith because the evidence is always inconclusive.
Perhaps a better example is the way more people commit suicide in countries with larger governments, which I have talked about at length in other posts. As Camus said in the Myth of Sysaphus, people can pretend to be a lot of things, but a suicide attempt confesses something that is hard to explain away. The way I see it, people aren't killing themselves because they see so much "injustice" in the world, the suicidal see in their own heart as they store it up within.
As for the poverty issue and going without dinner, I think that is not really an issue in this country. The only person I know who starved to death did it on purpose because he decided life wasn't worth the trouble. The central issue is not getting food and materials to people, but getting people to find life deep within. Something the government cannot provide.
Sorry for the excessively long response.
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