Forum Post: What? Me Worry?
Posted 8 years ago on June 16, 2016, 3:41 p.m. EST by agkaiser
(2555)
from Fredericksburg, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
In the land where individuality, private property and competition rule, we all make our own choices and are responsible for our happiness - or un - that is thereby acquired. We all know that, don't we?
Of course your employers may make some choices that make some of yours more possible than others. And now that neuro scientists have given them a "happiness index" to help measure your pschological fitness to be a reflection of the righteousness of corporate people, the probability that you'll be in a position to make those good choices will be more than ever dependent on your "good" attitude.
from:"The Happiness Industry" by William Davies (Verso, 2016)
"... Neuroscientists identify how happiness and unhappiness are physically inscribed in the brain, as the researchers in Wisconsin did with Matthieu Ricard, and seek out neural explanations for why singing and greenery seem to improve our mental well-being. They claim to have found the precise parts of the brain which generate positive and negative emotions, including an area that provokes ‘bliss’ when stimulated, and a 'pain dimmer switch'....
"... A growing number of corporations employ 'chief happiness officers', while Google has an in-house 'jolly good fellow' to spread mindfulness and empathy. Specialist happiness consultants advise employers on how to cheer up their employees, the unemployed on how to restore their enthusiasm to work, and - in one case in London - those being forcibly displaced from their homes on how to move on emotionally...."
https://www.versobooks.com/books/1901-the-happiness-industry
"Oh brave new world ..." Neither W.S. nor A.H. imagined such a magical or proscription minded world as we live in.
It is often within the ego that weakness is found, we forget we are animals and as such can be trained.
We must create a society that provides for the basic needs for all so that we can stop acting out of fear and anger.
There are studies showing the "enforced service smile" can shorten one's life something about being dishonest all the time.
the Happiness officer at the company I work for asked us working folks what we can do to make ourselves happy. Obviously, many of us are not sufficiently happy he noted because of the high turnover rate the company is experiencing. I noted, there is nothing more we can do, as the things we are doing is not what is making us unhappy, but there are something he can tell management to do. "Tell me what", he asked. I answered " how about giving us back our retirement plan, and our old "Pre-Obama" health care plan, and maybe a little pay raise to keep up with inflation." Now that would make us working folks really happy.
"Employment at Will" needs to go. Just look at your boss the wrong way and you can be fired. In fact, you can be fired for no reason at all. Inhumane and immoral.
How can any human being be happy who has no control over their own life?
Are you happy enough to please your master? You'd better watch out! You'd better be nice!
Those of us who Robots can't replace ... will be made into robots, with perma-smiles & maybe drugs?!!! A "Brave New World?!! OR ... ''blue pill, pod-born ''Matrix'' hyper-cyber-reality?! + fyi, re. the present day:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/36404-minimum-wage-workers-can-t-afford-to-live-anywhere-in-the-us & with more immediate things in mind, consider:
https://medium.com/@abowersock/bernie-endured-the-full-power-of-the-political-establishment-and-trained-us-in-the-process-db3105aab683#.nwcop29yz
respice; adspice; prospice ...