Pursuing happiness              追求幸福

Jun 29th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Pursuing happiness_追求幸福（1）
Pursuing happiness_追求幸福（2）
Pursuing happiness_追求幸福（3）
Pursuing happiness_追求幸福（4）

One criticism is that the pursuit is self-defeating. The more you pursue the illusion of happiness the more you sacrifice the real thing. The flip side of relentless mobility is turmoil and angst, broken marriages and unhappy children. Americans have less job security than ever before. They even report having fewer close friends than a couple of decades ago. And international studies of happiness suggest that people in certain poor countries, for instance Nigeria and Mexico, are apparently happier than people in America.

一种批评认为，这种追求会弄巧成拙。追求幸福的幻想越多，牺牲的现实事物越多。不断迁移的反面是混乱、焦虑、离婚和不幸的孩子。相对以前，美国人工作的安全感变得更少。有报道甚至称，与几十年前相比，人们拥有更少的知心朋友。关于幸福的全球研究表明，一些贫穷国家如尼日利亚和墨西哥的人民似乎比美国人更幸福。

Another criticism is that Americans have confused happiness with material possessions (it is notable that Thomas Jefferson's call echoes Adam Smith's phrase about “life, liberty and the pursuit of property”). Do all those pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes really make you happy? Or are they just a compensation for empty lives à la “Sex in the City”?

另外一种批评认为，美国人把物质财产误认为幸福（值得注意的是，托马斯·杰弗逊的号召和亚当·史密斯关于“生活、自由和追求财产”措辞的不谋而合。）拥有多双莫罗·伯拉尼克（设计师名字，世界著名贵族鞋商标）名牌鞋就能够使你真正幸福？或者它们只是如“欲望城市”这种空虚生活的一种补偿？

If opinion polls on such matters mean anything—and that is dubious—they suggest that both these criticisms are flawed.  A 2006 Pew Research Centre study, “Are we happy yet?” claims that 84% of Americans are either “very happy” (34%) or “pretty happy” (50%). The Harris Poll's 2004 “feel good index” found that 95% are pleased with their homes and 91% are pleased with their social lives. The Pew About sponsorship polls show that money does indeed go some way towards buying happiness: nearly half (49%) of Americans with annual incomes of more than $100,000 say they are very happy compared with just 24% of people with incomes of $30,000 or less. They also suggest that Americans' religiosity makes them happier still: 43% of Americans who attend religious services once a week or more report being very happy compared with 31% who attend once a month or less and 26% of people who attend seldom or never.

如果民意测验真有意义的话—当然有没有意义这不确定—那么以上这些批评是有缺陷的。皮尤研究中心的一份2006年关于“你还幸福吗？”的研究表明，84%的美国人认为他们“很幸福”（34%）或“非常幸福”（50%）。一份2004年的哈裏斯民意测验“感觉良好指数”发现，95%的美国人对他们的家庭感到满意，同时91%的美国人对他们的社会活动感到满意。皮尤研究中心的关于赞助者地位的民意测验表明，金钱确实能够在某种程度上购买到幸福：几乎半数（49%）年收入超过10万美元的美国人认为他们很幸福，而只有24%的年收入低于或等于3万美元的美国人认为他们很幸福。调查还发现美国人的宗教信仰也令他们感到更幸福：对于那些每周一次或多次参加宗教活动的美国人，43%的人认为他们很幸福；对于那些每月或多月才参加宗教活动的美国人，31%的人认为他们很幸福；而对于那些很少参加或几乎不参加宗教活动的美国人，只有26%的人认为他们很幸福。