Arthur Brooks at BYU

The intelligent and thoughtful Arthur Brooks visited BYU on Tuesday and talked to the Wheatley Institute. Mostly he talked to the students. I took notes and was going to post something on it, but you can read a good summary here.

Work and Happiness

The reliable Arthur Brooks has an article about what it takes to be happy: Faith, family, community, and work. Much of the article is devoted to the surprising presence of work on the list.

Brooks observed:

one survey recently made headlines by reporting that fewer than a third of American workers felt engaged; that is praised, encouraged, cared for and several other gauges seemingly aimed at measuring how transcendently fulfilled one is at work. 

His observation reminds me a recurrent theme in Elder Maxwell's writings, perhaps most fully explained in A More Excellent Way (1967), 91-92:

Superficial commendations generally leave the receiver flat, because he is not sure what is meant, if anything. A general or superficial compliment given in a ritualistic way not only may fail to help the receiver, but it also may hinder him or her, since general compliments may convey false reassurance as to the adequacy of the receiver's performance. General compliments may even be heard as a negative reaction to a performance—simply because they are not specific, leaving the receiver with the feeling that nothing specific was said, only because there was nothing worth specific praise. A performance or act sometimes deserves no praise, and the individual often knows in his heart that what he has said or done does not really deserve any praise. Phony or general praise can cause the receiver to lower his regard for the giver of such praise and perhaps lessen later receptivity when a deserved compliment is forthcoming. Most individuals—even though at first it is painful—would rather have honest relationships with other individuals. Most followers ultimately like a leader who makes reasonable demands of them, who expects performance and who praises and reproves accordingly. Of course, all of this must be done in the spirit of real love. Paul prescribed ours as the task of "speaking the truth in love." Jesus praised and reproved specifically as well as regularly.

No Comment

As I start blogging, I do so with some trepidation. Normally blogs have some sort of comment feature. The purpose behind such a feature is to have readers leave behind thoughtful comments. In reality, however, comments on most blogs that I have read are ignorant, hate-filled, and incoherent diatribes.

I am not the only one to notice the problem. Arthur Brooks in his book, Gross National Happiness, asks why ideologues are happy: “The most plausible reason is religion—not real religion, but rather, a secular substitute in which they believe with perfect certainty in the correctness of their political dogmas. . . . True political believers are martyrs after a fashion, willing to shout slogans in public for causes they are sure are good, or against causes they are convinced are evil. They are happy because—unlike you, probably—they are positive they are right.”[1] Brooks notes that true political believers tend to consider themselves happy but they delight in making those around them unhappy. “The unhappiness created by happy people with extreme political views extends far beyond those stuck behind them in traffic and exposed to their bumper stickers. There is evidence that people with extreme views affect everybody adversely, because they are less compassionate than average, less honest, and less concerned for others.”[2] They want to stir like-minded people to action. “In the extremist’s mind, it’s good if you get angry.”[3] But is it?

The Book of Mormon, as usual, has some interesting commentary on the subject. The letter of Mormon to his son Moroni preserved in Moroni 9 contains some of the most depressing passages in scripture: descriptions of the barbarous practices of the Nephites who “only a few years” previously had been “a civil and a delightsome people” (Moroni 9:12). One cause of the depravity was that “Satan stirreth them up continually to anger one with another” (Moroni 9:3). This is one reason why I am not overly enthusiastic about comments.

---

[1] Arthur C. Brooks, Gross National Happiness (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 34.

[2] Brooks, Gross National Happiness, 37.

[3] Brooks, Gross National Happiness, 35.