Contemporary society seems undaunted in its efforts to outline and
author a recipe for human happiness--whether it be by avant garde
meditative means, diet and exercise, psycho and psychiatric intervention
or a dizzying array of pharmacological inventions. Indeed, most analysts
of modern life and modern culture would be hard pressed to deny the
clamor for happiness and contentment in a complex, relative and
technologically alienating world. Happiness books and recipes are all
the rage at bookstores while seminar programs and other self-improvement
and self-awareness initiatives find their way into counselling and
public television venues. And those plans for the happy life can and are
often the product of celebrity, entertainment gurus and other public
personality whose background and depth of understanding cannot possibly
deliver the goods necessary for a happy life. In other words, Oprah or
Dr. Oz lack any true understanding of what human happiness truly is and
benignly engage in a sort of snake oil charming to convince their
readers and adherents that they actually understand the nature of real
happiness. This lack of substantiality shows up at every corner of a
beleaguered modern society where human interaction and human intimacy
appear to be faltering, where distressing levels of suicide and
depression trap both the young and old, where teenagers end their lives
in alarming numbers and where drugs and other unnatural substances, like
the opioid supply, are swallowed in staggering numbers. Today's legions
of drug-addicted citizens tell us much about our crumbling concept of
true happiness and contentment.
By contrast, the perennial philosophical system of Aristotle and Aquinas
delivers a most meaningful path to human happiness in all aspects of
moral, ethical and social operations. In this way, "Living in Happiness
in a Complex World," offers a choice between our contemporary approach
to happiness and that posed by Aristotle and Aquinas and does so in both
a general and a specific sense. The choice of these two philosophical
figures is completely intentional since both are bound together by a
virtue theory that is fully connected to human happiness; both are
perpetually concerned with the aim and end for human existence and both
are driven by identifying the "good" for human life and at the same time
discovering the "ultimate good" that is life's real purpose. Despite
their obvious difference in theological outlooks, both thinkers are
astoundingly entwined--so much so that the claim that Aquinas simply
"Christianizes" Aristotle is well founded.
