A review by eb00kie
The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell

4.0

One self-help to rule them all...

Besides, Russell has the unfair advantage of being pleasant to listen to, whatever he's saying; here it is with a frank and mellow manner that he raises a couple of pertinent points. For example, he points out that in the USA leisure is regarded as pointless, as long as it does not increase status or income. I found that seldom disproven. He then proceeds to reassure us that these "dinosaurs" have fewer and fewer children due to their lack of love of life and will die out.

He also discusses boredom, excitement and the so-called "simple pleasures", subjects often ignored or treated superficially, fatigue, which I have never found elsewhere, as if from a mild superstition against lack of pep, envy, persecution mania and so on.

As usual, I don't care for hyperbola, stereotype and extremes and, to be fair, Russell seldom turns to either. Unto the "more pleasant" sources of happiness, Russell places the "man of science" upon a pedestal as a person who finds it easiest to achieve happiness, but his "man of science" is a vague notion. Some do get lonely, especially in our days of specialization, some do have "coterie"s, like Russell's unhappiest, the artist, and, may I say, some never seemed particularly happy either. When I studied mathematics 30 hours weekly, I used to think the philosophers were the "happiest". I guess it goes to show that envy appears in all sorts of environments, irrationally.