The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (whom you may know as the author of Pygmalion) was famous for his one-liners. (Any quotation dictionary will feature hundreds of Shavian remarks.) Here's one that relates to what we've been discussing in class:
"You have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it."
Consider the language of this remark and comment on its implications and applications to daily life.
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Comparing happiness to wealth seems an appropriate comparison because sometimes wealth produces happiness, but happiness also makes one wealthier in a better lifestyle, despite pecuniary aspects.
The next part is assuming a right to happiness. Contitutionally, everyone in America in the modern day has the right to life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. However, this right is given to all people assuming that all people are productive, law abiding membes of society. In following the law and being producive, one is producing happiness for the community.
Consuming wealth without producing it assumes that the person does not produce a product or labor in society and does not deserve to get money and reap its benefits. Similarly, consuming happiness, only in self interest, and not producing any happiness or pleasure for the community means that that person does not deserve to selfishly enjoy personal happiness.
Consuming happiness is what Bentham tries to avoid and his calculus tries to produce as much happiness as possiblie for the community from one single action.
Shaw argues that you must produce an equal amount of happiness in order to consumer said amount of happiness. He justifies this by considering that you have no right to consume wealth than to produce it. However, is our happiness something we have a right to? In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". So in essence, in this society that we live in, do we not have a right to happiness, as it has somewhat been incorporated via the 14th amendment. Also, this logic is quite flawed, in essence, if someone gave enough happiness to a country, ie, saved them from destruction, he would have a right to that amount of happiness. So theoretically, he could cause enough unhappiness to one person and get away with ie, IE, murder/rape, because that wouldn't outweigh the amount of happiness he caused. So, can this really be a blank check in terms of happiness? I think not. Besides, this also ruins all parents, as they produce many troubles to teens, while offering very little happiness. This quote by nature is flawed.
The famous quote, by George Bernard Shaw, has a lot of meaning to it. The quote says “you have no more right to produce happiness without consuming it, than to consume wealth without producing it.” In order to be happy, you need to act upon it, and make yourself happy. You can’t just be happy all the time. You need to achieve happiness and therefore make it come upon you. If you don’t achieve wealth then you aren’t really making yourself happy. You can’t just naturally be happy nor have wealth, without doing something to achieve it. The quote states that really in order to have anything you want, you need to earn it, or gain it. To be happy isn’t something people have all the time. They need to work for it, as they do if they want to consume wealth.
This quote may be small but it certainly says a lot about how you should conduct yourself in everyday life. In my opinion this quote is saying that you shouldn't expect happiness in life unless you make the effort to install happiness into someone else's life. And by reading this quote, he is trying to get you to understand how the balance of nature works. By bringing happiness into someone else's life, whether its by performing a small task or a deed on a greater scale , it will inevitably make you happy. And because doing a good deed should be done in the soul interest of helping someone, you will be returned with the same amount of happiness. That is saying of course that you are making someone happy for the purpose to make yourself happy, but is that really whats important. The next part of the quote establishes that this is equally to sharing wealth. If you are wealthy( he doesn't specify if it is material wealth) then you got that way through someone else's wealth. In this process, your happyiness directly effects other people's life positively and if everyone followed this example, the world as a community would be a much happier place, not to have a hallmark ending but it is as simple as that.
I think that George Bernard Shaw, in the above quote, is trying to show us the importance of happiness. After reading the quote several times I realized that Bernard basically says that the relationship between happiness and the production of happiness is of equal importance as the relationship between money and the production of money. With today’s society, many people seem to take money as the number one priority in their life. Regardless of what comes due to us wanting to produce money, everybody knows that money is very important, and someone in each family must produce it in order for life to mover on. When George Bernard compares the consumption of happiness with the consumption of money, he shows us the importance of happiness in his point of view.
When reading this quote, It makes me think of the saying “money doesn’t buy happiness”. In today’s world, it is very often that money is paired with happiness, so I find it interesting and telling of our ways of life that Shaw chose to put these two subjects together. This can be applied because to have happiness you must produce it yourself. The fact that you have produced that feeling means that it is genuinely yours, and you can own that feeling. There would be no other way of getting that feeling and reaction unless you created it yourself. It would not be fair for you to just take and take and never give. You may get away with it your whole life, but in the long run, your can never say that I created this for myself. You would always obtain it from someone else’s accomplishments. Also, the language that Shaw uses is very telling of his feelings. The word “right” seems to be referring to your right as a human being, so not only is it cultural but can be applied to everyone anywhere in the world.
I completely agree with this statement. If a person is not doing anything for the betterment of the people around him or her or of the world in general, it is deplorable to expect very much in return. The happiness in the world functions like a bank, one must give to receive. If no one made the effort to make others happy, then there would be no happiness in the world at all. Additionally, it is not the responsibility of a specific person or group to create happiness in the world; it is the responsibility of all humankind. Furthermore, how can a person possibly comprehend what happiness is if he himself has never created it for another? True happiness can only come if one has helped others to find it as well.
When it comes to our daily life, we are jealous and angry of the type of people who are able to spend money without making it. For example, daughters and sons who are able to inherit their parents riches and stay unemployed recklessly spending the money are looked upon as selfish. Similarly, those who consume happiness without producing it are selfish. These are the type of people who only care about themselves. They take from others only to be happy without giving back and basically they only care about themselves.
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