'Most of the unhappiness in the world comes from people thinking about themselves too much.'
-- C.S. Lewis
On the heels of Christmas Day, a day when many people love to celebrate the spirit of giving, even if they don't celebrate the religious component of the holiday, it seems appropriate to share this quote from one of the greatest Christian writers of the 20th century. We achieve far more happiness by thinking of others before ourselves. Not exclusively, of course, but as a healthy part of a balanced approach to life.
With that in mind, it will come as no surprise to anyone that Harvard professor Arthur Brooks has found that, overall, liberal men and women tend to be overwhelmingly far more unhappy than their conservative counterparts and far more susceptible to mental illness.
We know, we know. Thank you, Captain Obvious. But even though this is something we see with our own eyes every day (especially on Twitter), it is even more revealing to hear it from someone who has dedicated his professional life to the study of happiness and written several books on the subject. Watch:
Harvard professor Arthur Brooks explains how data shows that the unhappiest people and the most mentally ill people are mostly on the political left while the happiest are largely on the right.
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) December 26, 2024
Liberal women 18 to 30 have a 60% chance of being diagnosed as mentally ill. Discuss. pic.twitter.com/ZH8eOBzB7e
Brooks didn't delve deeply into the reasons that only 20 percent of liberal men consider themselves happy and more than 60 percent of liberal women are likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness, but Twitter had plenty of ideas about that causality and most of them make a lot of sense.
Radical leftism attracts and creates unhappiness
— Kaizen D. Asiedu (@thatsKAIZEN) December 26, 2024
It celebrates abortion and denigrates stay at home moms
It demonizes billionaires and valorizes victims
It rejects religion and worships Wokeism
It promotes national guilt, not pride
It helps people feel right, not happy https://t.co/fagYe82heS
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These concepts are all true and they are all roads to being unhappy if not worse.
Happiness requires serenity, internal locus of control, discerning what is yours to change, knowing your responsibility, and fulfilling it.
— Walter Hudson (@WalterHudson) December 26, 2024
An external locus of control puts your happiness in others' hands. It is held by children, criminals, the insane, and the political Left. https://t.co/tzi43c6cRJ
Liberalism in America has not-so-slowly devolved into cultural Marxism in recent years. In other words, everything in the world can -- and should -- be seen through the lens of oppressor versus oppressed. And the left is always on the side of the oppressed.
In other words, it is a culture of victimization and you can never be happy if you perpetually feel that you are a victim. Or worse, if -- like young, white, liberal women -- you feel like a victim AND that you are an oppressor of different races of people.
My theory is that constantly viewing yourself as a victim in life leads to an external locus of control, causing frustration, helplessness and depression.
— Tom Heston (@tomhestonmd) December 26, 2024
Exactly.
And where do they learn this toxic philosophy? Well, we all know the answer to that one.
Given the fact that conservative women and men are the happiest, shouldn't our educational system teach the values make a society happy, rather than miserable and jealous? We need a radical change in our teaching, and it starts by ending the Dept. of Education. https://t.co/0zVjSP8TuY
— Better Maine (@MaineLogic) December 26, 2024
Instead of teaching personal responsibility, being proud of who you are (and your country), and how to think independently, schools teach critical theory and professors demand adherence to that ideology.
That's not education, it's indoctrination. And we are seeing the result in how miserable liberals are today.
Very interesting and confirmatory. https://t.co/YnLqHqmhDl
— Robert W Malone, MD (@RWMaloneMD) December 26, 2024
As we mentioned above, none of this comes as a shock. Brooks' data is just validating what we see and hear with our own eyes and ears.
Would someone who is genuinely, personally happy shave her head because her candidate lost an election?
And Brooks' data does not seem to be an outlier as recent polling has also confirmed his findings.
Polling has showed this to be true also pic.twitter.com/2eVjwUVZe2
— Donnie Detroit (@DonnieDetroit19) December 26, 2024
And that poll is from 2020. We can't imagine what the liberal graph would look like today. Scary.
There were plenty of other ideas as well.
I suspect that it's not being a conservative that makes you happy but that happy people tend to be conservative. The same people tend to get married young, have children, etc. Things which bring happiness.
— Ellie A (@EllieGAnders) December 26, 2024
This is a fair point. Liberals, especially women, have bought into the idea that you don't need a partner and that children are bad. This will lead a lot of people to unhappiness, no matter what Chelsea Handler says about it.
It's stressful to hate something for no reason, believe something with no evidence, and justify your positions with no merit.
— DougMD (@Doug__MD) December 26, 2024
That's pretty much the entire Biden-Harris administration in a nutshell. How can you be happy if you wake up every day and lie to yourself that Joe Biden is mentally competent or that Kamala Harris is 'brat'?
And the media doesn't help by continuing to push their gaslighting on the only audience that still might pay any attention to them.
I would love to see this stat further split to show how many of the unhappy liberal women are also vegan. I bet it’s a very large cohort
— Ginger (@HandyGingerGal) December 26, 2024
HA.
Well, that's a theory worth exploring as well. Most vegan food is gross and tastes awful. Can anyone possibly be happy if that's all they eat every day?
I don't think this would have been true a few decades ago. However, if it is true, it is further proof that the political left has lost its way. https://t.co/U438eynEtf
— Tom Filsinger (@tomfilsinger) December 26, 2024
It would be interesting to see data from the '60s and '70s if it was available. We're not sure that conservatives would be higher on the unhappiness scale, but we're positive that the left would be lower. This was long before they were commanded to believe that men can have babies and that gender is a 'social construct.'
Maybe it’s not as satisfying as one would think to live solely for oneself? https://t.co/t8Vf6KoUHD
— Reese🇺🇸🐊 (@reeseonable) December 26, 2024
And that brings us back to the C.S. Lewis quote at the top of this article.
Conservative writer, filmmaker, and podcast host Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire often says that the real problem with liberalism -- or at least what liberalism has become in recent decades -- is that it is a cult of narcissism.
How else do you explain a man who believes that all women should have to give up their privacy and right to fair play so that he can beat them in a swimming pool? That's pure narcissism run amok. Not just the obsession with and celebration of self over all others, but the demand that everyone else affirm and celebrate the lie as well.
As long as liberals succumb to such an obvious fiction -- not to mention the lies that abortion is 'health care,' masculinity is 'toxic,' and the color of your skin counts far more than the content of your character, among many others -- the happiness index for the left is only going to get worse. Far worse.
That may sound great for the future of conservative politics in America, sure, but from a societal standpoint, it is very dangerous. As we have also seen in recent years, the left has no problem turning to violence when their unhappiness goes off the deep end.
If there is not a course correction soon, things could get very ugly indeed.
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