Estrada 1

Cesar Estrada

Professor Martin

English 101

12 February 2023

Materials are Not a Necessity

Many Enlightenment thinkers came to the same conclusion that one of the fundamental

conclusions is that the pursuit of happiness supports the basis of both individual motivation and

social well-being. This ideology ensures this philosophy where human sciences try to influence

the assumed things that increase pleasure and happiness. They test all types of things to see how

they correlate with materialistic things and happiness. As people gain more and more

materialistic things they become less interested in socialistic behavior. They even go as far as

testing drugs and their influence on the state of happiness. The chemicals by themselves don’t

help them gain happiness but there are ways to feel satisfied normally like controlling thoughts

and feelings with techniques of shutting out anything negative.

John Locke condensed many of the ideas that enlightened thinkers into one statement

which is “that we call good which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain, whereas

evil is the reverse it is what causes or increases pain and diminishes pleasure (Csik 1).” The

focus on happiness as the cornerstone of private and public life is of post-reform Europe. As it

was already present in the writings of the Greeks for instance “Aristotle noted they although

humankind values a great many things such as health, fame, possessions because we think they

will make us happy(Csik 1), ” as we value happiness itself. The popular view holds that pleasure

and material comforts should be grasped whenever they can and that these alone will improve

the quality of one's life. While technology advances and hope for a better material would bring a
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sense of a better life. However, as time passes, it becomes clear that the solution isn’t that simple.

Wealthy individuals in the Western Nations are living in luxurious conditions and are living

twice as long as their ancestors however the end goal did not help them feel any more happy or

satisfied.

Those of us living in the U.S. today are not happier than our ancestors because the figures

show double to triple violent crimes, family breakdowns, and psychosomatic complaints since

half the century. Studies in Japan and Germany compare wealth and happiness and it shows that

they gain twice the amount of gross income while having lower levels of happiness compared to

people from Ireland who make much less. While comparing countries shows a weaker

relationship between material and happiness. However, another study shows the social class of

teenagers reports being much happier despite having less material. “Children of the lowest

socioeconomic strata generally report the highest happiness” despite having the least amount of

materials(Csik 3). Despite evidence that the relationship between material wealth and happiness

is tenuous at best most people still cling to the notion that their problems would be resolved if

they had more money.

Material rewards do not necessarily provide the happiness expected through them. The

first reason is people strive for a certain level of affluence thinking it will make them happy

however they find that on reaching it they become accustomed to the point where they start

obsessing with the next bracket of income. Another reason is when resources are unevenly

distributed, people evaluate their possessions as extremely wealthy and conclude at they are not

happy because their goals keep getting pushed farther away. Thus, the relatively affluent feel

poor in comparison with the very rich and are unhappy as a result(Csik 3).” A third reason is that

even though being rich and famous might be rewarding, nobody has ever claimed that material
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rewards alone are sufficient to make us happy. This leads to the point where material advantages

do not translate into social or emotional benefits. One's energy becomes heavily invested in

material goals that their sensitivity towards one another becomes dull. Things like friendship, art,

literature, natural beauty, religion, and philosophy become less and less interesting to that

individual. Data suggests that a person would be valued and admired by personality or

characteristics but now the worth of a person and or a person's accomplishments are determined

by the price they fetch in the marketplace.

The alternative to the materialistic approach has always been something that used to be

called spiritual and but now we may call it a psychological solution. This approach is based on a

premise that happiness is a mental state people should be able to control through cognitive means

like pharmaceutically. Every culture has developed drugs ranging from peyote to herion to

alcohol in a effort to improve the quality of experience by direct chemical means. However,

chemically induced well-being lacks a vital ingredient of happiness: the knowledge that one is

responsible for having achieved it. Happiness is not something that happens for people but

something that they make happen. In some cultures drugs ingested in a ritual, ceremonial context

appear to have lasting beneficial effects, but in such cases the benefits most likely the result

primarily from performing the ritual, rather than the chemicals per se. Some psychological

approaches to happiness exclusively onn the process in which human consiousness uses its

self-organizing ability to achieve a positive internal state through its own efforts with minimal

reliance on external manipulation of the nervous system. Yoga and Zen have developed complex

techniques for controlling the steam of thoughts and feelings, thereby providing the means for

shutting out negative content from consciousness.

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The pursuit of happiness both supports motivation and social well being and the amount

of materials does not change or affect the amount of happiness one has. Additionally, all of these

tests came to the conclusions that although materials or substances can alter ones happiness

temportarily the best way to achieve happiness is by developing complex techniques used by

buddhas and spiritual leaders to help controls ones thoughts and emotions by shutting off

negative content.

Works Cited

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly “If We Are So Rich, Why Aren’t We Happy”,Claremont Graduate

Univeristy, October 1999