343 - Achieving Happiness in a Troubled World: Benevolence Provides an Answer

The peoples of these United States are much less happy than they were a year ago, and over the entire last decade. That is what the latest version of the World Happiness Report declares. Finland, as last year, is the place to travel to or to move permanently to if readers wish to be among the happiest persons in the world. Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and the Netherlands follow Finland in the list, but Costa Rica (a surprise) is noted as the sixth happiest country, just ahead of Norway, Israel (!), Luxembourg, and Mexico. (Aside from Mexico, all are small countries in terms of population, with Sweden the largest at 10 million. Mexico has 131 million people.)

Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland are the next three happy nations, reasonably enough. Canada is in 18th place, the United Arab Emirates ranks 21st, and Germany 22nd. Bhutan, which often claims to be the happiest place on earth, is not listed at all.

The U.S. has fallen from 17th to 24th place in this year's happiness ranking, just behind Great Britain, and just ahead of Belize and Poland. Nations such as Russia (66th) and China (68th) fall even lower on this year's index. The most unhappy places are Turkey (94th), South Africa (95th), Iran (99th), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (100th). There are no surprises there and, indeed, much of the troubled countries of the world are ranked toward the bottom of this listing or, in the case of ninety other nations, not listed at all.

Given the damage done to every part of American life by the Trump administration, and his long 2024 campaign against President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, it should surprise no one that Americans are beaten down, repressed, angry, feeling powerless in the face of relentless Trumpism, and deeply depressed. I feel confident that each reader of this Newsletter has experienced the kinds of distress and stress that consume almost every day (even every hour) and cannot easily be relieved until either the American judicial system curtails Trump's obedience to Project 2025 or he and his team are sent packing after the 2026 Congressional elections.

The World Happiness Report relies on data embedded in answers to the most recent Gallup World Report, a survey of much of the world's peoples by the Gallup polling organization. The preparation of the Happiness Report is, in turn, supervised by economists and psychologists affiliated with the University of Oxford, Columbia University, the University of British Columbia, the London School of Economics, Liverpool University, and a number of other distinguished academic centers.

Although it nowhere explicitly defines "happiness," the report equates that human achievement with benevolence -- the giving to and sharing with others, with societal levels of trust, and high levels of caring for others.

The opposite of happiness is despair. Deaths by suicide or substance abuse, the report says, can result from unhappiness. Moreover, "deaths of despair are significantly lower" in countries where more people donate, volunteer, or help strangers. the Report says that deaths of despair fell in 2024 across the world -- except in the U. S. and South Korea.

The U.S. is becoming more bitterly divided, which contributes meaningfully to unhappiness and to enormous societal anxieties. As the Report indicates: "In Europe and the United States, the decline in happiness and social trust explains a large share of the rise in political polarization and votes against ‘the system.’"

On the other hand, “happiness is more equally distributed in countries with higher levels of expected benevolence." In other words, where citizens believe in the good faith of their compatriots, and expect reasonable levels of mutual caring and reciprocal trust, they are happier.

In the political realm everywhere, but especially now within these United States, "The decline in life satisfaction explains the overall rise in anti-system votes, but trust in others then comes into play. Among unhappy people attracted by the extremes of the political spectrum, low-trust people are more often found on the far right, whereas high-trust people are more inclined to vote for the far left."

To a meaningful extent, those last two sentences explain why our country is so fractured. Trump exacerbates such feelings, but it is very likely that his election also reflects the resentments and expressed antagonisms of the 30 to 40 percent of Americans who are his die-hard supporters, even now after the debacle of his first two months as president.

The Finnish ambassador to the United States said last week that her country's highest ranking reflected the fact that Finns take frequent saunas. That may be, but the Report did not say. A main conclusion, however, is that people in happier countries rarely dine alone. They dine with others. They socialize. As Professor Robert Putnam has explored so meaningfully, they bowl in groups, not alone. The Report suggests that 19 percent of young people are lonely, having "no one they could count on for social support." Instead, they sit in front of computer screens -- hardly a recipe for happiness. The Report indicates that "happiness rises with household size up to four people, but above that happiness declines. Notably, people living alone are much less happy than people who live with others."

It is possible to quibble with the Report's methodology and to question some of its country rankings. But it provides an important message to political leaders everywhere: build trust, show that you care and that you are looking after your constituents. Build benevolence, and then build it some more. Remember that Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis liked to collect Thanksgiving turkey carcasses so that he could make soup to distribute to homeless persons. And always dine with others, never alone.

PS Continuing from a previous column, yesterday Trump slashed funding for malaria treatments and vaccines worldwide, terminating financial support for GAVI, an NGO that for more than twenty years has worked to improve the health of Africans and Asians. He also stopped helping to finance the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s work on animal diseases and the surveillance of bird flu. Some benevolence!

Two days ago, in another burst of compassion, Trump decimated an obscure but immensely valuable (and very inexpensive) federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, thus cutting funding to your local library in state after state. His actions are an attack on the notion that the U.S. should have an educated electorate. Or a happy one!