discussion  -Humanities

Your reading this week focuses on “What Makes Us Happy?” The section provides a wide range of answers to that question. If you have been reading critically and annotating your reading, you have begun to articulate what makes you happy.Please read the articles attached and prepare discussion post. Please annotate the articles and provide their citations in the end
enjoyment.pdf

can_money_buy_happiness.pdf

howhappyareyou.pdf

ifwe_resorich.pdf

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Klein, Stefan
Enjoyment (Chapter 7) / from The Science of Happiness: How Our Brains Make Us Happy–and What
We Can Do to Get Happier
Translated by Stephen Lehmann.
New York: Marlowe, 2006. pp. 104-117.
NO FURTHER TRANSMISSION OR DISTRIBUTION OF THIS MATERIAL IS PERMITTED
… •
STEFAN KLEIN, PhD
THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
How Our Brains Make Us Happyand What We Can Do to Get Happier
TRANSLATED BY STEPHEN LEHMANN
DaCapo
CJ
LIFE
LONG
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Translation copyright© 2006 by Avalon Publishing Group, Inc.
Copyright © 2002 by Stefan Klein
First published in Germany in 2002 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Rheinbeck bei Hamburg.
The chart on page 237 appears courtesy of Ed Diener & Eunook M.
Suh, eds., Culture and Subjective Well-Being, published by MIT press.
Copyright © 2000 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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10 9 8 7 6
FOR ALEXANDRA
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ENJOYMENT
Mcinerney in his novel on smoking, “… a mix of ozone, blond
tobacco and early-evening angst on the tongue.” 1
In such moments a chain smoker begins to hate himself for
his dependency and weakness. He despises his cigarettes, and
yet he wants them-so much so that he runs to the store in the
7
ENJOYMENT
WANTING AND LIKING are two different matters. How
often do we go to a party, although we’re fairly sure that we won’t
feel comfortable? There’ll just be a lot of boring people clutching
their beer bottles, and, frankly, we’re not even close to the hosts.
Why bother? And yet we want to go, though we can’t really explain
why. It’s as if we’re afraid of missing something exciting. But as
usual, once we’re there, nothing happens, and for a few hours we
stand around in a kind of small-talk hell. We swear we’ll never
again waste an evening in this way … until the next time.
Smokers, too, know the difference between wanting and
liking. A cigarette can be wonderful. The smoke caresses the
nose and tickles the throat like a thousand tender feathers. On
its way down, its pleasant bite unfolds as it releases a flavor
that is both austere and soft. But by the day’s eighth or ninth
cigarette … ? “Difficult to describe precisely …” wrote Jay
pouring rain when his pack is empty.
We aren’t accustomed to distinguishing between wanting and
liking, for very often the two come to the same thing. You probably
won’t order something off a menu if you know you won’t like it.
But to confuse the two impulses can be a source of unhappiness, as
the bored partygoer and the desperate chain smoker demonstrate.
In the worst case, it can lead to serious addictions.
On the other hand, the opposite can happen as well: we can
like something without wanting it. After a seven-course meal,
you’d still like the dessert, but you wouldn’t want to order it.
Positive feelings come about in two different ways: when we
want something, or when we’ve gotten something that gives us
pleasure. The brain creates the two sets of impulses-wanting/
enjoyment, liking/anticipation-in different ways. The Harvard
neuroscientist Hans Breiter was even able show that they activate
different parts of the brain. Anticipation activates a center in the
forebrain-the nucleus accumbens, “the leaning center,” so called
because it is angled like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s controlled
by dopamine, the molecule of pleasure, and plays an important
role in remembering positive experiences. But when we enjoy
something, the areas of the cerebrum responsible for conscious
perception are also activated. 2 And the transmitter here isn’t dopamine, but opioids, natural substances that resemble opium.
THE TRANSMITTERS OF EUPHORIA
Every enjoyment is a kind of rush. Whether it’s a hot shower
on a winter morning, a massage, a good meal, or sex-the same
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THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
106
mechanism is at work, and the same synapses in the brain are
responsible. And they have the same chemistry: opioids are
involved in the creation of every experience of pleasure. At their
core all pleasures are the same. What distinguishes the delights
of a massage, therefore, from the enjoyment of a cold beer on a
hot summer day isn’t the melody in the brain, but the different
instruments on which it’s played. In the one case, signals come
from the pressure-sensitive sensors on the skin, in the other, from
the tongue and gums. Once the stimuli reach the brain, however,
the resulting pleasure is the same.
Maybe the French poet Charles Baudelaire suspected these
connections when he exhorted his readers: “You should always
be drunk. Everything depends on it. If you don’t want to feel
the awful burden of Time breaking your shoulders and pressing you to the ground, you must be ceaselessly drunk. But on
what? On wine, poetry, virtue … whatever you want. But get
drunk.” 3
The frenzy of enjoyment interrupts the flow of time-the
idea isn’t as odd as we might think, since opioids chemically
alter our experience of time. During orgasm, for example, the
clock seems to stop. Baudelaire recognized that all intoxicants
have the same effect and, what’s more, that we don’t even need
artificial stimulants to get intoxicated. The equation of “good”
and “bad” states of intoxication seemed a monstrous thought at
the time. Baudelaire’s volume of poetry Les Fleurs du Mal (The
Flowers of Evil) caused a scandal when it was published in 1857.
And his collection of prose poems that includes “But get drunk”
wasn’t published until after his death.
More than a hundred years later, neuroscientists provided
the biological basis for Baudelaire’s bold claim. In 1973, three
research groups determined independently that neurons in the
human brain contain receptors-chemical docking stationsfor opiates, among them morphine and heroin. To what
ENJOYMENT
evolutionary purpose? Certainly not for people to yield to the
pleasures of the poppy!
Scientists searched feverishly for answers and discovered that
the brain can create morphinelike substances that fit exactly
onto the mysterious receptors: the first natural opiates-drugs
that the body itself creates-had been found. They were called
endorphins, a neologism forged from the Greek prefix “endo;’ for
“inner” and “morphine.” Soon more such substances were identified: the enkephalins. Finally dynorphins, which have exactly the
opposite effect from the endorphins, were discovered-instead of
pleasure, they stimulate repugnance. Today all these substances- ..
endorphins, enkephalins, and dynorphins-are brought together
under the term “opioids.” Opioids are neuropeptides, molecules
that are much bigger and have a more complicated structure
than dopamine.
After scientists discovered these chemicals in the human
brain, it didn’t take them long to find the transmitters for
pleasure in other animals as well. Opioids flow in the brains
of dogs, rodents, and insects, and even in the simple nervous
system of the rainworm. Does this mean that all of nature is
moved to search for happiness?
EMBRACING THE WHOLE WORLD
Without endorphins and enkephalins the world would be terribly gray. Just how gray we know in cases where medications
cause these transmitters to temporarily lose their effectiveness.
Naloxon is such a medication. It is taken to cure heroin addiction, but it also kills the taste for food, stifles laughter, and
transforms one’s perception of the environment into something
resembling soulless machinery, peopled by robots. Sex loses its
appeal entirely, although the body still has all the normal physiological responses to orgasm. Without opioids, people seem to
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ENJOYMENT
THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
108
be perfectly capable of copulating-they JUSt don’t experience
pleasure. 3
The situation gets even worse when the field is left to the
endorphins’ opponents, the dynorphins. The misery caused by
the resulting feelings are hard to describe. Experimental subjects
who have ingested substances related to dynorphins report
chills, insane thoughts, physical weakness, and a complete loss
of self-control. Some of them found the experience so terrible
that they wanted to jump out a window. 4
Rats reacted similarly when researchers removed the part of
the midbrain controlled by opioids. Everything disgusted them.
When they were given sweets that they had especially favored
before the operation, they spat them out. If they hadn’t been fed
intravenously, they would have starved. 5
But what joy we feel when the endorphins and enkephalins
are circulating in our heads! We suddenly notice an entire
fireworks display of flavors when eating a perfectly normal
dish. Our appetite grows and persists even when we’re actually
full-a reason why pleasure in eating can lead to overweight. 6
Everything seems bright and friendly. If we could, we’d embrace
the whole world. We beam when we encounter perfect strangers,
not only because we’re feeling so good, but because they really
seem nice. Our happiness is spilling over-would that we could
share itF
When people are under the influence of this substance, they
seem to be incapable of sadness. Even Helen of Troy knew after
the Trojan War that her relatives needed an intoxicating drink
to help ease their sense of loss. In the fourth book of the Odyssey
we read:
lnto the mixing-bowl from which they drank their wine
she slipped a drug, heart’s ease, dissolving anger,
magic to make us all forget our pains …
No one who drank it deeply, mulled in wine,
could let a tear roll down his cheeks that day,
not even if his mother should die, his father die .. .8
Neuropharmacologists today assume that this mixture contained opium,9 and, indeed, into the nineteenth century treating anxiety and depression with opium was considered best
medical practice. “For the relief of the psychic pains nothing
equals opium;’ wrote the author of an American rnedical textbook of the time. “It is almost as specific in its action in relieving the mental suffering and depression …”10
Given its addictiveness, no one today would advise us to smoke
opium to assuage our sadness. But the brain naturally creates a
substance, beta-endorphin, which is much more effective than
opium. As harmless as it is effective, it is produced by a gland
of the midbrain, the hypophysis cerebri. Sometimes all it takes
is a good meal.
TASTE, SOURCE OF PLEASURES
“The close relationship between happiness and roast turkey is a
marvel, as is the heart’s resilience when a bottle of Marcobrunn
parries its every beat;’ wrote the German novelist Theodor
Fontane. 11 Since Fontane wasn’t one to drown his sorrows
in liquor, and German white wine is not all that potent, the
explanation for this phenomenon lies in something other
than alcohol. Tasting roasted meat and wine releases betaendorphins, which scatter sadness to the winds.
But good feelings don’t come from opioids alone. The entire
body is set up for enjoyment. Nothing demonstrates this as clearly
as the pleasure we get from food. Nourishment is a necessity of
life, but eating is one of life’s great pleasures. And because our
enjoyment of food is such an elementary happiness, it is the best
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110
THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
ENJOYMENT
and also the best-researched example of all sensual pleasures. The
machinery of taste shows the extent to which human beings are
built for happiness and how useful enjoyment can be.
If, as many religions believe, the body is God’s temple, then the
mouth is its gateway. It is equipped with about three thousand
taste buds, tiny little nubs a few hundredths of a millimeter high,
mainly on the tongue. Each of these little bumps contains about
fifty sense cells that respond to the different tastes.
The taste sensors are the reason some people like spinach,
for example, while others don’t. A quarter of the population
consists of so-called supertasters, who perceive bitterness and
sweetness more intensely than the rest of us. Just what the
combination of genes is that ruins the taste for spinach we don’t
yet know. Two groups of scientists, however, have recently identified hereditary factors that are responsible for the sense of
sweetness. 12
release a nutrient solution that flowed through a tube directly
into their stomachs, completely bypassing the taste/pleasure
circuit. Although they could ingest as much as they wished,
after a few weeks they lost almost a third of their weight. The
Altogether, more than a hundred thousand nerve strands,
bundled into two cords, pass taste information from the tongue
to the brain. In addition, there are sensors that report heat
and cold, and others that identify texture-whether it’s soft or
crunchy, moist or dry. Cotton candy tastes different from caramel,
although both are made of sugar. Finally, there are those sensors
that register burning and thus respond to the spiciness of chilies.
Every bite and every movement of the tongue sets off an entire
firework display of electric signals.
But the signals don’t translate into pleasure until they’ve been
received in the brain. As I explained in the first chapter, nature
invented positive feelings to seduce us into useful behavior.
The pleasure we derive from taste serves to control our energy
supply, as experimental psychobiologists have demonstrated on
rats. If the rats-who’d been given nothing to eat-wanted to
receive nourishment, they had to press a lever, which would
13
pleasure that eating gives us is anything but a luxury.
There is another reason “a thousand things are indifferent
to touch, hearing and sight, but nothing is indifferent to taste;’
as Jean-Jacques Rousseau observed. As omnivores, humans are
not limited to a small menu-unlike dogs, for example, who
eat little except meat, or cows, which feed only on grass and
herbs. So humans are constantly having to try out unknown
foods, which we evaluate with our sense of taste. Pleasure and
distaste indicate what is likely to be good for us, and what not.
Taste, however, doesn’t always lead us to the correct conclusion.
Notorious counterexamples are the pleasing taste of the deadly
amanita mushroom, or the Japanese blowfish, on which more
than one gourmet has feasted to death.
Incidentally, humans do not recognize only four kinds of taste,
but in all likelihood five, as scientists have recently discovered:
sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, and savory, also known
by its Japanese name, umami. This signal is released by certain
amino acids, like glutamate, which are found in meat but also
14
in foods like mushrooms, cheese, and tomatoes.
Unsalted food tastes bland because the body needs salt to
function, just as it also needs protein. But we tolerate bitter
and sour tastes only moderately-a warning, for most poisons
are bitter, and many sour fruits aren’t ripe. Instead, we devour
anything sweet, for sugar is straight energy. Thus the dieter’s
dilemma: evolution hadn’t foreseen diets. It made its creatures
to absorb as much nourishment as possible-as a precaution
against bad times. The addiction to cake and ice cream is
inscribed in our brains.
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ENJOYMENT
THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
an otherwise so-so campfire meal tastes superb. Desperate
times, desperate measures-but these sometimes turn out to be
THE APPEAL OF MASSAGES
112
With the help of opioids, the brain evaluates everything that we
experience, just as it does with food. When something good happens to us, it releases endorphins. But when bad things happen,
it’s the dynorphins that give the signal. In this way evolution
gets its creatures to do what they should do, and to do it gladly.
Mammals have to care for their young. Because they’re under the
influence of opioids, mothers pursue this task with enthusiasm.
Endorphins and enkephalins sweeten responsibility: Reward
and pleasure are always better motivators than force and fear
of punishment. It is precisely those things that are most pleasant that are most necessary for the survival of the species. Sex
is a good example: since nature wants us to pass on our genetic
inheritance, opioids flow at orgasm.
People also like to be stroked. And not only humans, but
monkeys, cats, and guinea pigs are calmed by touch. 15 Even birds,
when touched, release opioids in their brain. 16 Interestingly, the
surge of opioids brought on by physical contact seems to be less
about creating desire than assuaging fear and calming individual
members of a group when they feel abandoned or frightened.
When young animals are touched, they immediately stop making
unhappy sounds. If they’re given opiates from an external source,
their need for physical contact is diminished. People who are
satisfied require less reassurance than those who aren’t. 17 And a
massage can do miracles when we feel lonely or depressed.

THE PATH TO HARMONY
Enjoyment is a signal that the organism is getting what it needs.
But what do we need? That depends. When we’re thirsty, water.
When we’re hungry, food. When we’re sad, solace. When we’re
thirsty, the first gulps taste the best, and after a strenuous hike,
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rather appealing.
Whenever life’s basic needs are missing, the body ascertains
a deficit. When we’re hungry, for exam …
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