Catholic Candle note: Recently, we published Part 1 of an article on the connection between virtue and happiness.  That article can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/11/26/the-connection-between-virtue-and-happiness-part-1/

Summary of What We Covered in Part One

In Part 1, we saw that happiness is the one thing everyone wants for its own sake and that everything else (e.g., money, power, pleasure, and fame) is only desired for the sake of happiness.

We saw that happiness requires virtue.  We saw that friendship is the crown of the virtuous life and is impossible without that virtuous life.  Most people do not have genuine, significant friendships because such friendship requires genuine, significant virtue and most people do not have such virtue.  For a friendship that is not only genuine and significant but which is even very great, there is required as a condition, virtue which is also very great.

We saw that most people are unhappy and that they try to distract themselves from their unhappiness (with things such as pleasures, travel, rock music, videos, video games, money, fast cars, fame, hallucinogenic drugs, abusing alcohol, etc.).

We saw that those who are somewhat more conservative and have some tendency toward being more virtuous, are happier or less unhappy than those persons who are more liberal and are more immersed in sin and vice.

Part 2

The Connection Between Virtue and Happiness

Concerning The Happiness of Virtuous Persons;
The “Somewhat Happiness” of the “Somewhat Virtuous”;
And the Unhappiness of the Rest of Mankind

A Look at Depression – the “Flip-side” of Happiness

Let us now look at the flip-side of this “happiness gap” between conservatives and liberals.   That is, which group tends to be more depressed?  Predictably, the answer is the mirror image of the happiness studies.  Whereas conservatives are happier, so liberals are more depressed, especially liberal women, as shown in the graph below:

This graph is taken from Gimbrone’s 2022 study, available here: https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-mental-health-of-liberal

Pew Research Center gives additional data which shows the greater unhappiness of liberals (compared to conservatives):  Pew researchers asked their respondents whether they had ever been diagnosed with a mental illness.  Similar to the depression question above (and constituting a mirror image of the results of the happiness survey), liberals, especially liberal women, are much more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental illness.  Most of all, this is true about young liberal women.  See the graph below, where more than 50% of young liberal women responded that they were diagnosed with a mental illness.

Figure 1.  Data from Pew Research, American Trends Panel Wave 64. The survey was fielded March 19–24, 2020. Graphed by Jon Haidt.  This graph is available here: https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-mental-health-of-liberal

Keeping in mind the happiness research we reviewed earlier in this article, it is no surprise that liberals would be more depressed and be more likely to have “mental” problems because “mental” problems and depression are roughly the opposite of happiness, just like liberal doctrine is roughly the opposite of conservative doctrine.  But why are these problems worse in liberal women as compared to liberal men?  

One answer appears to be that young women are more liberal than young men.  So, it makes sense that just as liberalism correlates with unhappiness, and young women tend to be more liberal than young men, that young women would be more unhappy and depressed than young men.  See the Gallup poll data below.This Gallup poll data is from the Gallup Poll Social Series and it available here: https://www.americansurveycenter.org/featured_data/the-growing-political-divide-between-young-men-and-women/

Also, just as it is consistent with young women tending to be more liberal, they also tend as a group to be more godless and irreligious.  So, whereas conservatives make a larger place in their lives for God and are happier, so young liberal women, especially, are less likely to make room for God in their lives and are more depressed and more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental illness.[1]  See the graph of Gallup poll data below.

The data from this Gallup poll is available at this link: https://storylines.substack.com/p/the-political-gender-gap-is-exploding?s=w

What we have seen in the article above not only fits with what Aristotle proves in the Nicomachean Ethics, Bk.10, ch.6, but also fits with the rest of what we know.  For example, there is the old French proverb: “A sad saint is a sad saint indeed”, (which is a pun equivocating on the meaning of “sad”) meaning that a saint who is unhappy is a poor excuse for a real saint.

Comparing the Happiness of Young Liberal Women to the Happiness of Young Conservative Women

How good God is, that the more we do His Will on earth, the more He prepares us for the perfect happiness of heaven while making us happy on earth!  Of course, the happiness God gives on earth is genuine but does not necessarily mean greater pleasure or riches.

Having just seen that young liberal women (as a group) are more depressed and more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness than any other group, even more likely than young, liberal men, now let us compare young liberal women – who are the most unhappy group – with their opposites: young conservative women.  How do they compare? 

Before looking at the survey research, let us first of all reason about this question and see if we already know the answer that the survey will show us. 

Young Liberal Women are – as a Group – Farthest from the Life that God and Nature Intended for Them.

We know that happiness requires that we live in conformity with our nature and our highest faculty (reason).  And we know that the happy life is the virtuous life.  Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk.10, ch.6.

What does this mean more particularly?  One thing is that we must live the role in life that God created us to live.  So, the great work of a woman’s life – for which God made her – is usually to be (and to dedicate her life to being) a wife and mother[2] although God also can call her to be a spiritual wife (Bride of Christ) and mother in the religious life.  To take merely one of the proofs by which we infallibly know this truth, St. Paul teaches us:

She [viz., a woman] shall be saved through childbearing; if she continues in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.” 

1 Timothy, 2:15.

The anti-feminist author, Mrs. Donna Steichen,[3]  describes a man’s vocation and role in the family in the following words:

A father’s role is of great importance … [b]ut normally he must be engaged elsewhere much of the time, dealing with the world, providing for his family’s material needs.[4]

So, a liberal, young woman is farther from the natural role in life for which God created her, than is the young liberal man.  This is because God made her to be creating a happy home for her husband and children and to spend her days caring for her children and her home.[5]  Instead, a liberal, young woman is out in the workplace, competing with men, earning a paycheck, trying to advance in the career world.  She cannot entirely escape realizing the emptiness of her life which she lives in opposition to the way she was created to live.  Often, she even murders her (unborn) babies rather than cherishing and nurturing them, as God intended and as He put into the very “fabric” of her being.

By contrast, even though most young, liberal men are not getting married (and so are rejecting the calls of their vocations) their lives are still largely spent “dealing with the world” outside the home as married men also do.  Thus, they are not as far from the life for which God created them as are those liberal women.  Of course, the work those men do is devoid of the greater significance which that work would have had, if they had been married and were doing that work for the sake of devotedly providing for their families’ material needs. 

Here is how Mrs. Steichen states this reality of the importance of a husband’s work being primarily in its final cause (goal) of supporting his family as a necessary part of fulfilling the vocation of his life:

Only a fortunate minority of men find work significant in itself.  For most, the knowledge that they are supporting their families is all that gives their labor meaning.[6]

Therefore, the young liberal man’s work has a large element of emptiness in it, because it lacks its familial purpose which “gives their labor meaning” (as Mrs. Steichen observes).  There is much greater satisfaction and meaning in the work of a man who is providing for the material needs of those whom he loves, compared to merely providing for himself.  We might say that providing for himself alone is much more a situation of focusing on himself and partaking more of a me-first and me-centered selfishness.  That never makes a person happy.

 

So, we see that the life and circumstances of young, liberal women are even more a cause of unhappiness than those of the liberal young man.  Like his work, her work is empty because it lacks God’s intended goal of that work and it is me-centric.  But in addition to that, her work is not centered on the type of activities that God gave her to do with her life, which constitute the happy life of a woman.  Thus, it makes sense that with a greater “distance” between her and the life she was created to live, there is also a greater “distance” between her and happiness (as compared to even a liberal young man).

By contrast, look how there is virtually no difference between the depression scores of conservative men and women:

This graph is taken from Gimbrone’s 2022 study, available here: https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-mental-health-of-liberal

That makes sense because conservative men and women are both living more the lives God created them to live.  Conservatives are more likely to be married.  The husband/father is more likely to be supporting his family, with his wife more likely to be a homemaker raising children and living the life of the heart of the home.  Thus, although conservatives are not nearly as conservative and as virtuous as they should be, nonetheless, compared to liberals, they are happier and are living more the life God created them to live.  Since young conservative men and women are both living more the life that God, Nature, and reason direct them to live, they are both (roughly) equally happy – and happier than liberals.

Reasoning about Why a Woman Might Choose the Feminist Life

As we consider how young, liberal women – who are shown to be the most unhappy group – compare with their philosophical opposites: young, conservative women, let us pause before looking at the polling data to do some “Aristotelean” reasoning.  Let us consider this:

These unhappy liberal young women were not told that the feminist life they chose would make them unhappy.  (People don’t choose a course of conduct because they believe it will make them unhappy.)  So, what were these women told that the feminist lifestyle would accomplish for them? 

Isn’t the answer that they were told (at least implicitly) that feminism would make them happier, rather than unhappy and depressed?  They were told (really, lied to) that having a career would make them more “fulfilled”, right?  Isn’t this another way of being told they would be more satisfied and happier? 

But Aristotle and St. Thomas prove that happiness is caused by living according to our rational nature.  Further, the rational life is the life of virtue, as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas prove because virtue is acting (and living) according to reason (our highest faculty).  For example, temperance is eating the amount of food that reason – not our passions – tell us is the correct amount.

 

Does the Feminist Life make a Woman Happier Because It Makes Her Richer?

So, when women are lied to that the feminist life will make them feel more “fulfilled”, what does that really mean?  One possibility is that these young women suppose that being “fulfilled” means making more money.  As we saw above, money does not cause happiness.  Having a larger “number” in your bank account does not cause a person to live better the life of reason and virtue.  Thus, being richer does not cause happiness. 

Further, focusing on acquiring money is an empty life, not a meaningful life.  Consider the man in the Gospel who gloried in his riches and exalted himself with having so much grain that he had to tear down his barns to build bigger ones.  This is what Our Lord declared to him:

Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?  So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.

St. Luke’s Gospel, 12:20-21.

If money were to buy happiness, then rich people, (e.g., the lottery winners quoted earlier in this article), would be happier than other people – but they’re not.  In fact, the opposite is true: lottery jackpot winners are more unhappy than most people.

If money were to buy happiness, then having lots of money would help us to live more the life of reason, but it does not.  So, if being a career woman would make a woman richer, then this would not cause greater happiness because those riches would not be the cause of greater virtue and living a more rational life. 

Of course, by our Catholic Faith we know that money is not of great importance but the real problem is the desire for money (i.e., the lack of poverty of spirit).  So, the young liberal women would be led to unhappiness to the extent that they choose the life they do for the purpose of acquiring lots of money. 

Incidentally, it actually happens that single career women are usually not richer than women who live more the traditional life that God created them to live.  For example, in a Newsweek article, citing U.S. Census data, it states:

Married mothers ages 18-55 have a mean household income of $133,000, compared to $79,000 for childless, single women 18-55 ….[7]

In any event, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to pursue money, that would explain their greater depression and unhappiness: money cannot buy happiness, and their feminist choices apparently do not lead to more money anyway. 

But let’s look at other possible motives for why young women live the feminist life.

Does the Feminist Life Make a Woman Happier by Giving Her a Life of Greater Pleasure?

Perhaps young liberal women gullibly believe that feminism would make them happier by increasing the amount of bodily pleasure in which they can indulge.[8]  But that cannot lead to happiness because living the life of pleasure makes it harder to live the life of reason because it increases passion and this passion obscures reason and promotes a life of slavery to one’s passions.  Thus, living the life which is focused on pleasure tends to decrease virtue and, therefore, also decrease happiness. 

Further, the life of pleasure is the life shared in common with the brute (irrational) beasts.  If (contrary to fact) the life of bodily pleasure were the cause of the happy life, then those who indulged most extremely in bodily pleasures would be the most extremely happy.  There are countless greatly-indulgent people who show this theory is false by their misery amidst their continual pleasures.  Those people tend to use pleasure as a distraction to help them forget their unhappiness.

Also, reflecting on our own experience and those of others, people who have lost a loved one know by experience that the hurt of that loss is not cured by pleasures and that those people in the midst of their loss don’t “feel like” indulging in pleasures because they know it won’t help their sorrow.

Moreover, if pleasure were the cause of happiness, why is it true throughout history, that there have been many poor people who did not have much bodily pleasure, yet were very happy and lacked nothing of happiness despite the austerity of their lives?  Consider the  saints and holy religious.

Lastly, focusing life on pleasure-seeking is recognized as low and empty.  People pity other people who have a pleasure-focused life.  People who live for pleasure try to hide this fact because this life is one of addiction (or something similar to an addiction).

In any event, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to focus on pleasure, that would explain their greater depression and unhappiness.

Let’s look at other possible motives for why young women live the feminist life.

Does the feminist life make a woman happier by making her feel “empowered” and “honored”?  

Suppose a young liberal woman pursues the feminist lifestyle because she seeks and loves power, desires to be the boss, feels important because she receives business honors, or because she is the "first woman to reach such-and-such a height", etc.

Living dedicated to such goals, is to live according to the Pride of Life, one of the three causes of sin mentioned in St. John the Evangelist’s first epistle, 2: 16.  See also, Summa, Ia IIae, Q.77, a.5.  This life is caused by pride, which is the “inordinate desire of one’s own excellence”.  Summa, IIa IIae, Q.162, a.2, respondeo.

This is a life lived in a way which is the opposite of the way Our Lord commands us to live:

Learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart. 

St. Matthew’s Gospel, 11:29. 

Because this life fosters the root of all evil, which is pride, this life does not foster virtue and so it cannot bring happiness.  Instead, this life to promotes unhappiness both in those who achieve the pinnacles of worldly human respect and in those who are disappointed and fail in their goal. 

In any event, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to focus on the accolades of the world, this would explain their greater depression and unhappiness.

Does the Feminist Life Make a Woman Happier by Giving Her a Life Where She can Focus More on Herself?

Perhaps those young women gullibly believe that feminism would make them happier by increasing their ability to focus on themselves.  But such a me-first focus is a program of an emptier, more meaningless life.  By contrast, a life of loving, self-forgetful service to others (especially to God and family) is a satisfying life of purpose and accomplishment. 

God made woman to be generous and giving.  He made her to serve Him in her womanly vocation.  Here is one way St. Paul makes that connection:

She [viz., a woman] shall be saved through childbearing; if she continues in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety. 

1 Timothy, 2:15.

When a woman has spent her life that way, she can look back at her life with true contentment.  This is because this life is devoted to the Good and to the love of this Good.

The current fad and modern jargon emphasize the importance of “self-care”.  In practice, such “self-care” is a “justification” for persons to eschew the responsibilities of selfless dedication to vocational responsibilities in order to have more time to focus on themselves.  In other words, this is an excuse for a more selfish, me-centered life.  One secular feminist leader used the following words to declare her own refusal of her vocational responsibilities so that she could free her time for whatever she would prefer to do instead:

I don’t particularly like babies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding . . . time-sucking monsters with their constant neediness ….  Nothing will make me want a baby ….[9]

But let us ask ourselves:

Does this type of a more self-absorbed life result in greater happiness? 

We can rhetorically answer that question by asking another question:

When a person lives a more self-centered life, does that foster a life of reason and virtue, and therefore also greater happiness ? 

When a young liberal woman focuses on herself, this increases vice (e.g., pride and self-love), decreases her use of reason and weakens or destroys virtue.  Thus, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to focus more on “self-care” and to have more time for themselves, that would explain their greater depression and unhappiness, as shown in the happiness polls earlier in this article (including part 1). 

Further, if self-centeredness were the cause of happiness, then the most self-centered people would be the happiest.  But we see they are not.  In fact, we observe the opposite: viz., the people who are the most self-centered are among the unhappiest people.

It is obvious to everyone that being more self-centered is connected to the vice of pride (and other vices), not to a life of reason and virtue.  Even the worldlings see self-centeredness as bad (at least in other people, even if they themselves are also self-centered).  Whenever someone is told “you are becoming more focused on yourself”, he never says “Oh, thank you!  That is so kind of you!”  Because everyone knows being me-focused is bad and shameful, people who are like that try to hide this fact.

But let’s now look at another possible motive for why young women might choose to live the feminist life.

Does such a Young Woman Suppose that the Feminist Life will Make Her Happier by Giving Her More Time in Which to Focus on Her Social Life?

Perhaps such a young woman naïvely believes that feminism would make her happier by increasing her opportunity to focus on her social life.  For example, she might think that instead of making dinner for her family, she can have dinner in a restaurant with her “friends” from her workplace.

But as Aristotle proves in his Nicomachean Ethics, a person cannot have a true friendship without true virtue.[10]  So whatever feminists suppose they will obtain, the truth is that they will fail to achieve real friendship without real virtue.

Let us ask ourselves:

Does this greater amount of social life result in greater happiness? 

We can rhetorically answer that question by asking another question:

When a person lives a more social life, does that foster a life of reason and
virtue? 

The answer, of course, is that if a more social life does not foster a life of reason and virtue, then it does not foster happiness.

By contrast, those traditional family responsibilities (which a feminist rejects) are great opportunities for acquiring (and increasing) virtue.  These maternal responsibilities are the fertile seedbed in which virtue and friendship can grow.  In her traditional role – for which her womanly nature has prepared her – this young woman could be spending her days and the focus of her thoughts upon doing as much good as possible to those she loves the most (her husband and children), as well as aging parents, etc..  Such a young woman lives in a partnership aimed at this very important work.  She teams up in this enterprise with her best friend and partner: her husband.

Of course, this family life is not a guaranty of virtue, friendship, or happiness.  Nor does family life mean that those great Goods always come, or come without effort.  Rather, this family life is a pathway which disposes the members of the family to attain these great Goods.  This is like a school disposing its students to knowledge but some students learn very little (i.e., get very little good out of the school) because they are unwilling and rebellious.

Further, just as a student can commit the further wrong by separating himself from his school (i.e., being a truant), so likewise a spouse can not only do a bad job fulfilling his family responsibilities, but even abandon those responsibilities entirely, through abandoning his family.  However, such bad conduct does not change the fact that a school and a family can be places of great Good, although that Good is not realized by ill-disposed persons. 

It is neither the “fault” of matrimony nor a school that some people are ill-disposed.  Nor does it mean that there is a better way to achieve those Goods than the way provided by those institutions.

So even though the feminists seek happiness like everyone else, they do not take the path which God and Nature intend for them – that is, the path which leads to happiness.  So, the feminists do not have true and deep friendships.  Often, they foolishly seek happiness by having more time to spend in shallow social interactions and transitory liaisons.  Perhaps the feminist young woman watches movies with her “friends” or has “health club buddies” with whom she spends time and money dining at restaurants, etc.  Any such “friendships” of pleasure are shallow and do not really satisfy the heart because those acquaintances lack the real virtue which is essential for real friendship.  The unsatisfying shallowness of these “friendships” is a crucial reason why young liberal women have a greater incidence of unhappiness and depression. 

As reported in an article in Newsweek on the subject, “single, childless women are about 60 percent more likely to report feelings of loneliness compared to married mothers.”[11]  The reason is obvious: it is not a greater amount of social time or a larger number of supposed “friends” – but only the excellence of true friendships – which satisfies the heart and contributes to happiness and a satisfying life.  A person who lacks deep friendships and instead substitutes shallow (so-called) “friendships” is sometimes described as a person “being alone even in a crowd”.

So, the feminists find themselves with more social time but with an inability to be a real friend and to possess (and enjoy) real, true friendships.  Thus, the feminists spend their greater social time on emptier and more meaningless activities.  They often spend lots of time on “social media”.  They might have a great number of Facebook “friends” and foolishly follow their peers’ example of supposing that, the larger the number of Facebook “friends” they have, the happier and more popular they will be.  The truth is that this number of such “friends” is virtually irrelevant, even detrimental.

On Facebook, the use of the term “friend” is misleading.  The term “contact” would be more accurate.  The Facebook software prods each “friend” to “react” to the new pictures posted since the previous day by various “friends” and so, the more such “friends” a person has, the more time he needs to “keep up” with all of the “friends” and so it is a burden and time-drain to “have to” go through all of the usually-banal photos to tell each “friend” how “awesome” or “amazing” the photo is and try to find some witty words or insightful comment by which he can receive the attention of the rest of the ”friends” of that mutual “friend”.

The concept of Facebook “friends” turns true friendship on its head and exalts numbers (quantity) over quality, in direct contradiction to the truth.  Thus, a person might be thrilled by receiving approving responses from a thousand of his Facebook “friends”, but overlook the fact that, if he had one genuine, deep friend in his entire lifetime, that would be worth far more than twenty thousand of those so-called “friends”.

The emptiness of this “social” life is obvious to any sensible person.  This empty, feminist life with a greater amount of social time simply results in a greater incidence of unhappiness (and depression).    

If more time for a social life were the cause of happiness, then those persons who had the greatest time for socializing would be the happiest.  But they are not.  And those people who had the least amount of social time would be the least happy.  But they are not.

The fact that feminists are not the only ones who have rejected the life of virtue and reason (a life which causes happiness) does not change the fact that feminists do reject this life.  In any event, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to focus on having more time for their social life, that would explain their greater incidence of depression and unhappiness.

Feminism Involves Hatred of the Feminine “Nature”

Feminism is an attack on the feminine nature of women and girls by Our Lord’s enemies.  Ultimately, this is the program of Satan, and his tools, the Marxists.  Feminism is the “gospel” that preaches that women are worthless (or worth less) unless they are like men.  This feminist “gospel” pushes women to live like men, dress like men, and try to be like men.  It is the “gospel” pushing women to be aggressive, manly, “business savvy”, powerful, un-maternal, un-nurturing, not homemakers – in short: un-womanly.

Instead of being glad for the feminine nature God gave to them, feminism tells young women that they should strive to be just like a man (although they do not phrase it that way).  Young women come to understand that, if they hope to be approved and to have their lives approved, they must try to be like a man.

Some of these young women try even harder than the others to be approved, by choosing the more extreme version of feminism, which is “transitioning” to “become” a “man”.  You can see why “transgenderism” is feminism taken to a more extreme level since it is a more extreme way for a young woman to follow the feminist “gospel”  to be like a man. 

“Transgenderism” is feminism which includes surgical mutilation and permanent chemically-induced ruining of their bodies, in order to try even harder to be like a man.  But this delusion merely causes more extreme unhappiness and even more depression because it is a more extreme rejection of God’s Will and of their feminine nature.

Although it is true that the leftists attack the whole population by promoting this gender dysphoria (“transgenderism”), the leftists especially prey upon young women.  According to one Wall Street Journal article, this “transgender” delusion “overwhelmingly afflicts girls”.[12] 

As compared to other groups, young women are most likely to declare themselves “transgender” – that is, to declare that they are really men.  These pitiable young women have been betrayed by their fathers who have neglected their paternal duties to guide and defend their daughters.  These young women have been tricked by society more broadly, e.g., by the media, academia, the entertainment industry, etc.  These young women are also betrayed by others such as their mothers.  But most of all, the corruption of society (including the “transgender” absurdity) is the fault of the men who did not do their duty to those under their care in their households.

So, feminism causes young women to be unhappy and have a higher incidence of depression.  For those who are deceived into declaring themselves to be men, this unhappiness and depression increases all the more.

Polling Data Comparing the Happiness of Liberal Women and Conservative Women

So, now let us look a little more at the polling data about the happiness of conservative young women, as compared to liberal young women.

❖  Conservative women are more likely to be married than liberal women.  Thirty-three percent of married mothers ages 18-55 say they are "completely satisfied" with their lives, compared to 15 percent of childless women in the same age range.[13] 

 

❖  Liberal women are more likely to be single and childless.  These women are about 60 percent more likely to report feelings of loneliness compared to married mothers.[14]
 

❖  Conservative women have a fifteen percentage-point advantage over liberal women in being “completely satisfied” with their lives.  Specifically, thirty-one percent of conservative women (18-55) are completely satisfied with their lives, versus sixteen percent of liberal women.  And this advantage can largely be explained by the fact that conservative women are 26 percentage points more likely to be married and 24 percentage points more likely to be happy with their family life.[15]

In the case of women, God’s purpose is inherently that women be wives and mothers (or spiritual wives – viz., religious sisters who are Brides of Christ; and spiritual mothers, such as teaching sisters, etc.)  

In other words, the happiest women in America today are those least likely to be following the profoundly self-centered and anti-family lifestyle promoted by the leftist establishment.

Conclusion

God made us to know, love, and serve Him in this life so that we can be happy with Him in the next.  That is our purpose.  We find our deepest satisfaction when living according to our purpose.  By contrast, we cannot find true satisfaction or happiness in rejecting God’s Plan for us. 

The more we strive for virtue and holiness, the more we will be happy.  If we are saintly, we will be extraordinarily happy.

Because the more we live the way God intended, the happier we will be, a woman’s happiness requires that she live the womanly life that God created for her to live.

Friendship is the crown of the virtuous life, and is incompatible with a life of sin and vice.  So, in this life virtue causes happiness and friendship which disposes us to the life of complete happiness and Divine friendship in heaven for all Eternity.

 

Catholic Candle note: The article below is part one of an examination of the connection of virtue and happiness.

Concerning The Happiness of Virtuous Persons;
The “Somewhat Happiness” of the “Somewhat Virtuous”;
And the Unhappiness of the Rest of Mankind

We would like to point out some interesting, attention-grabbing research about happiness.  It is something we already know (or should know), if we think about it – but perhaps we have not thought about it for a long time.  

As we know, our society is segmented and polarized.  So, this research examines different parts of society and seeks to discover in which part of society the people are happier, by their own description.

Usually, if someone says he is unhappy, he would not say this unless it were true, since people find it embarrassing to admit they are unhappy.  On the other hand, if a person says that he is happy, it is possible that he is lying in order to look better and more successful or to impress the people he knows. 

We see people put on a show of being happy, e.g., people who post photos of themselves in fancy or exotic surroundings, trying to convince themselves and their “Facebook friends” that they are happy and enviable.  There is a great deal of research showing this but that is not the subject we consider now.

So, although a person’s description of his state (happiness or unhappiness) can possibly be false, this research was interesting nonetheless and is consistent with the strong proofs that Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas give, showing that virtue causes happiness.

Happiness is the One Thing We Seek for Itself.  Other Things We Seek for the Sake of Happiness.

In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, happiness is shown to be the Final End of all of our actions and is the reason for which all men desire everything else.  In other words, although we value other things such as pleasure, health, and honor, we only value them to the extent we suppose they will increase our happiness.

If a hermit lives in poverty (with poor food, wearing a rough and uncomfortable habit, and living in an unheated cell), yet, if he is extremely happy, then he lacks nothing.  Soft clothes or pampering food (or whatever similar goods) are irrelevant if those things do not add to his happiness.  Similarly, if a poor peasant family lives in deep mutual love and is exceedingly happy, what indeed do they lack or need?

Along the same line of thought, of what good are soft clothes or pampering food if a person is unhappy?  A good example of this is a person who has lost his best friend (e.g., to death).  A person who has lost such a best friend, or otherwise has great sorrow, cares nothing about pleasures and honors. 

Here is how St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, before his own conversion, describes his loss of a friend:

My heart was black with grief.  Whatever I looked upon had the air of death.  My native place was a prison-house and my home a strange unhappiness.  The things we had done together became sheer torment without him.  My eyes were restless looking for him, but he was not there.  I hated all places because he was not in them.  They could not say “He will come soon,” as they would in his life when he was absent. I became a great enigma to myself and I was forever asking my soul why it was sad and why it disquieted me so sorely.

Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 4, chapter 4.

So, again, happiness is what all men want.  All other goods they could possess (pleasure, health, honor, etc.) don’t matter unless they add in some way to happiness.  For example, a pleasurable dinner is a good thing when one is happily sharing it with his true friend.

Happiness Requires Virtue.

As Aristotle shows in the Nicomachean Ethics, friendship is the crown of the virtuous life and is impossible without that virtuous life.[1]  Most people do not have genuine, significant friendships because such friendship requires genuine, significant virtue and most people do not have such virtue.  For a friendship that is not only genuine and significant but which is even very great, there is required as a condition, virtue which is also very great.

In his sermon in praise of the man who is living a virtuous life, St. John Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church, teaches that the virtuous life is the happy life.  Here are his words: the virtuous man is “the most blessed of men, even in this life as well as in that to come”.  Sermon #12 on Philippians, 3:17.

When people are unhappy, they try to distract themselves from their unhappiness (with things such as pleasures, travel, rock music, videos, video games, money, fast cars, fame, hallucinogenic drugs, abusing alcohol, etc.).

Money does not necessarily add to a person’s happiness and, on the “flip side”, if he is happy, he does not covet money.  As one investigation into lottery winners stated: “You would be blown away to see how many winners wish they’d never won ….”[2]  A news article quotes one lottery winner as follows: “Before committing suicide, he said, ‘Winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me.’ ”[3] 

Why did those unhappy people wish they never won the money?  Because it made them unhappy (or more unhappy).  Money is undesirable if/when it makes a person unhappy (or more unhappy) – because happiness is what we all seek. 

The most senior member of the Catholic Candle Team unwaveringly told his children (when he was raising them) that if someone would offer him a million dollars, he would refuse it.  He wisely knew that money is not happiness and does not cause happiness.

Further, many people know very little about what happiness is (just as they know so little about what friendship is).  So, they suppose pleasure or money brings happiness (just like they suppose that “friendship of pleasure” or “friendship of utility” is real friendship).[4]

A Person’s Tendency Toward Being a Conservative is in Some Way a Tendency Toward the Person Being Happy.

Having recalled these truths to our minds, we begin now to examine how those truths connect the happiness (or unhappiness) of a person to his political affiliation.  Is there any reason that we would expect that political conservatives would be happier than political liberals?

We know that the saints are the happiest people and that, as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas prove, the virtuous life is the happy life.  This is also the teaching of St. John Chrysostom, as quoted above. 

So, to the extent that conservatives have any general tendency – even a slight one – to be more virtuous than liberals, then we would expect that there would be some tendency – at least a slight one – that conservatives would be happier than liberals.

Certainly, those who are labeled as political conservatives are usually not truly very conservative.  For example, President Ronald Reagan – who was perhaps the most conservative U.S. president in modern times – was divorced from his wife (Jane Wyman) and was “re-married” to First Lady Nancy Reagan.  True conservatives preserve the true traditional Catholic teaching on all subjects, including her teaching on morals and in the Church’s “social” encyclicals such as Pope Pius XI’s Quas Primas.

But although conservatives are usually not really very conservative or greatly virtuous, it does seem that they are relatively more conservative and comparatively more virtuous than liberals.  Thus, we would expect that most conservatives are not greatly happy because they are not greatly virtuous.  But we would expect that they are comparatively happier than liberals because they are relatively more virtuous.

Conservatives are More Likely to give some Role (or a Greater Role) to God in their Lives.

Most political conservatives are confused on matters of religion.  Most of them do not belong to the true Catholic religion.  Further, among even those conservatives (Republicans) who are Catholics, none (or almost none) of them practice the full traditions of the Catholic Church.  However, as compared to political liberals, it is more likely that God has some role in the lives of conservatives.  Granted, this is a low threshold for conservatives (viz., that they pay more attention to God than the liberals do).  But to the extent this is true, we would expect that this would result in a tendency toward greater happiness (or less unhappiness) than is true of liberals.

Conservatives are More Likely to Consider Themselves Bound by Fixed Moral Principles.

Similarly, political conservatives are more likely (as compared to liberals) to hold that there are fixed moral principles (rules of conduct) to which they must conform, even when they don’t feel like conforming to those principles.  Some of those conservatives’ moral principles are false – viz., where they diverge from Catholic moral principles.  However, conservatives are more likely to at least have some true moral principles and to consider themselves bound by them.  Thus, we would expect that this would result in at least some tendency that conservatives would be happier (or less unhappy) than is true of liberals.

Conservatives are (at least Somewhat More) likely to Follow Reason in Matters of Conduct.

Further, political conservatives are more likely than liberals to follow their reason on matters of their conduct.  For example, liberals are more likely to accept the absurd and rationally-incoherent position that a man becomes a woman if he decides he is one.  Conservatives are more likely to reject this claim.

Another example is liberals deciding it is fine to murder their babies if they don’t want those babies, and to call them “pieces of tissue” and merely a part of the woman’s body if those babies are unwanted.  (One pro-abortion U.S. Representative whom we know, explicitly compares an unborn baby to a gallbladder which needs to be removed.) 

But if liberals want to have a baby they speak differently and call him a preborn baby.  We see this in pro-abortion actresses when they want the baby that they are carrying, when (we are told) they post on social media that their baby will be due in six months (or whatever).

Reason is the highest power of the human soul.  Living in accordance with our highest faculty is the path of happiness (as Aristotle and St. Thomas prove).  So, although most conservatives are very far from living according to reason in every way, nonetheless, since political conservatives follow reason at least a little more than liberals do, we would expect that conservatives would generally be at least a little happier (or a little less unhappy) than liberals are.

Liberals are More Likely to Follow Some Version of Marxism.

The leftists are inexorably pushing Marxism, which is, essentially, a “gospel” of envy and hate, i.e., setting one group in society against another.[5]

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins.  The Marxists focus on issues such as income inequality – as if it is somehow wrong or unfair for someone else to have more money or possessions than we do.

Happiness both requires virtue as well as requires us to rid ourselves of vices (such as envy), which are the opposites of virtues.  Thus, the leftists/Marxists are essentially preaching a “gospel” which promotes vice and thus, we would expect that this would make liberals less happy (or more unhappy) than conservatives.

Liberals are More Likely to Follow some Version of Socialism.

The liberals are more likely to promote or accept socialism, which is promotion of the government redistributing wealth from those who earned it to those who did not.

Socialism strongly opposes justice, the Natural Law, and the teaching of the Catholic Church.  As St. Paul said:

If any man will not work, neither let him eat.

2 Thessalonians, 3:10.

While it is certainly not unjust (in fact, it is laudable) for a person to give alms to the needy from his own property, that is not socialism.  Rather, socialism is the system of voting or deciding that your neighbor (i.e., other people) must be compelled to give “alms” by confiscating his property through unjust taxes to give to those who the government decides are more deserving of the confiscated property.

So, although most conservatives are not truly and fully conservative, they at least see more clearly than liberals the evil of socialism.  In this way, such conservatives are at least comparatively more virtuous than liberals in these matters of justice.

Liberals are More Likely to Consider Themselves to be Victims.

Seeing that Marxism is, fundamentally, the “gospel of envy”,  the Democratic constituency are told that the unhappiness of their lives is due to being victims of other people, e.g., the rich.  This is effective for the Marxist leaders because unhappy people are more easily formed into protesters.  By contrast, happy people are disinclined to be agitated into protest and rioting.

But persons who consider themselves to be victims of other people’s greed and selfishness are more likely to feel discontented and unhappy.  This results in liberals considering themselves less happy (or more unhappy) because of their (so-called) “victimhood”.  This is obvious: if a man sees someone wearing a very nice coat, he is much more likely to feel discontented and unhappy about this if he thinks the coat should belong to him instead of the man who is wearing it.

Conservatives are More Likely to get Married and Remain Married – this Makes Them Happier.

Conservatives are more likely to marry and remain married.  Thus, their lives are happier and more stable.  This is because they are answering the calls of their vocations[6] which they have from God and by their human nature and the Natural Law.[7]  Marriage also allows for the lifetime best-friendship that God blesses spouses with. 

Here is how the Catholic Church traditionally expresses this truth in the marriage ceremony:

O God, by Whom Woman is joined to Man, and the partnership, ordained from the beginning, is endowed with such blessing that it alone was not withdrawn either by the punishment of original sin, nor by the sentence of the flood, graciously look upon this, Thy handmaid, who, about to be joined in wedlock, seeks Thy defense and protection.

Quoted from the nuptial blessing of the Rite of Holy Matrimony.

Research (Polling Data) about Happiness

Now let’s look at the polling data.  Every year in a poll, the Pew Research Center has asked the very same questions about happiness.  This started in 1972 and every year the results are substantially the same.  (As many Catholic Candle readers know, Pew is in no way a conservative organization.  Far from it!)

In one copy of the annual poll (2006), roughly one third of people said that they are “very happy”.[8]  (The question is worded: “Generally, how would you say things are these days in your life – would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                     

As noted earlier in this article, most conservatives are not really very virtuous compared to the saints and so are not really very capable of much happiness.  However, this Pew polling data and this present Catholic Candle article focus on the relative happiness of one group of people in society, compared to a contrasting group.  Of this group (viz., the one-third of people who respond that they are “very happy”), what traits do they tend to have in common?

Comparing the Traits of Conservatives to the Traits of Those Persons Who Reported Being “Very Happy”

As discussed above, conservatives are more likely to give some role (or a greater role) to God in their lives.  Consistent with that, the Pew polling data shows that, one trait of those persons who report being “very happy”, is that they give God a greater role in their lives (as compared to those that answer that they are “not too happy”).  Although it is true that most people are confused in matters of religion nowadays, nonetheless it is relatively better for a person to give God a place in his life, even if practicing a false religion, as compared to giving God no place.  It is especially true that it is “the fool that said in his heart ‘there is no God.’”  Psalm, 52.

In our age of confusion and for the purpose of the polling questions, Pew attempts to make tangible the idea of people giving God a greater role in life by asking people how often they go to church.  This is not a perfect proxy but it does shed some light on this issue.

Religiosity

It turns out that those who describe themselves as “very happy” are also persons that attend church more frequently than those who say that they are “not too happy”.  Such “church-goers” are in a relatively less-bad situation (compared to those who hold that there is no God or, if there is, they own Him nothing) because regular “church-goers” appears to recognize at least their own Natural Law duty toward God.

So, in a very rough sort of way, this poll shows what we know infallibly by our Holy Catholic Faith, viz., “Happy is that people whose God is the Lord.”  Psalm, 143.

Married people, on Average, are Happier than Other Adults.

The polling data shows that, besides giving God a larger role in their lives, another trait that happier adults have in common is that they are married.  We see in the Pew Research poll (below) that 43% of married people say that they are “very happy” whereas only 24% of unmarried people say they are “very happy”.  Pew Research says that “this has been a consistent finding for many years and many surveys”.  2006 Study, p.7.

This greater happiness (enjoyed by married people) is the same in both men and women, as you see below.  2006 Study page 21.

 

Further, this greater happiness is not only among newly-weds.  Rather, it persists throughout the entire marriage.  Pew Research 2006 Study page 22.

Conservatives have a “Happiness Advantage” Because They are more Likely to get Married and Remain Married – this Tends to Make Them Happier.

Whereas the polling data shows that, typically, people who are more likely to marry and remain married, are happier, this characteristic describes those who are more conservative (as discussed above). 

This is another reason why conservatives tend to be happier than liberals.  Of course, the happiness of the married (and conservatives) would be far greater if they were far more virtuous, as Aristotle proves in Nichomachean Ethics, Bk.10, ch.6. 

The adjective “Republican” largely means that a person is somewhat conservative, even though not as conservative as a Traditional Catholic would know he needs to be.  Likewise, “Democrat” tends to mean that a person is more liberal, as compared to a Republican.  This label tends to reflect the happiness gap that we have already seen on the charts concerning religion and marriage.  See the chart below.

The graph immediately above is taken from: Are We Happy Yet?, page 5, Pew Research Center, results can be found here: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2006/02/13/are-we-happy-yet/

This is not surprising, since those party affiliations tend to serve as proxies for those habits of character regarding greater or lesser morality and use of reason.

As Pew Research Center explains:

Some 45% of all Republicans report being very happy, compared with just 30% of Democrats and 29% of independents.  This finding has also been around a long time; Republicans have been happier than Democrats every year since the General Social Survey began taking its measurements in 1972.[9]  See the graph below.

One would be mistaken to think that the greater happiness of conservatives is because conservatives tend to have more money, although it is true that they do tend to have more money.  Common sense would tell us that conservatives would tend to have more money because greater wealth is a fruit of habits that are associated with conservative principles, e.g., hard work, delayed gratification, stable families, following the rules (i.e., having a “law and order” outlook), etc.

But money is not why conservatives are happier than liberals.  If we compare conservatives and liberals even in the same income brackets, the conservatives in every income bracket are more likely to say they are very happy, compared to liberals, by roughly the same proportions.  See the graph below.

The graph immediately above is taken from: Are We Happy Yet?, page 14, Pew Research Center, results can be found here: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2006/02/13/are-we-happy-yet/

In our godless, feminist, Marxist times, a person could (wrongly) suppose that perhaps the gender of the poll respondent played a role in the result that conservatives are happier than liberals.  But this is false.  Those respondents who are “very happy” were about the same in each gender. 

The graph immediately above is taken from: Are We Happy Yet?, page 27, Pew Research Center, results can be found here: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2006/02/13/are-we-happy-yet/

This makes sense because the happiness of the conservative life and principles is the life of relatively more virtue and use of reason and that is what makes people happier – both men and women, as Aristotle shows in the Nicomachean Ethics, Bk.10, ch.6.

This poll showing that Republicans are happier than Democrats is merely coming to the same fact as does Aristotle’s Ethics, but from a different direction.  Republicans, although very far from perfect, holy, and virtuous, are relatively more likely to emphasize the importance of God, virtue, and marriage, as compared to Democrats.

(To be continued)