Ancient Wisdom

Aristotle (NY Times)

There are innumerable contemporary books on happiness. Classics professor Edith Hall of King's College says that a philosopher who lived 2,300 years ago has something meaningful to say about the subject.

What is happiness? [bold added]

Aristotle didn’t equate happiness with wealth, pleasure or fame. For him, happiness was an internal state of mind—a felicity or contentment that we can acquire only by living life in the best way possible.

How do we become happy?

In his treatises, Aristotle analyzed a wide range of traits of character—in Greek, ethos, from which we derive the word “ethics.” These included libido, courage, anger, how we treat other people and how we regard money. All of us possess these properties, and happiness comes from cultivating each one in the correct amount, so that it is a virtue (arete) rather than a vice.

The golden mean is a term associated with Aristotle:

It is in this notion of the “mean” that Aristotelian ethics differs from other ancient moral systems. Aristotle does not teach, for instance, that anger is a vice and patience a virtue. Rather, he believes that when we feel anger in the right amount, at the right time and toward the right people, it is virtuous. Without it, we wouldn’t stand up for ourselves or for important principles. Failing to feel anger when we are wronged is a vice, but then so is excessive, misplaced or gratuitous anger.

And the same goes for every other quality. Fiscal responsibility, to take another example, is the virtue lying between the vices of parsimony—which Aristotle despised, especially in the rich—and reckless spending.

From the anger on display in the public square, I get the feeling that there are many people who are not happy, even though their side is "winning."