Why Are Conservatives Happier?
Arthur Brooks probably made many readers of the New York Times even unhappier than they already are with his op-ed there yesterday headlined "Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals." The piece is full of interesting information about conservatives reporting they are happier than their liberal counterparts. He says that many conservatives like to chalk it up to differences in marriage and religion.
Some 53 percent of conservatives are married compared to only 33 percent of liberals and if two people are otherwise demographically the same, the married person is 18 percentage points more likely to report happiness.
Conservatives who practice their religion outnumber liberals nearly four to one and 43 percent of religious participants say they're very happy about their lives compared to 23 percent of secularists.
Whether religion and marriage should make people happy is a question you have to answer for yourself. But consider this: Fifty-two percent of married, religious, politically conservative people (with kids) are very happy — versus only 14 percent of single, secular, liberal people without kids.
Liberals, he says, prefer the explanation that conservatives are ignorant of inequality and the problems it causes. He pooh-poohs that explanation.
But there's one thing conservatives and liberals have in common. Both are happier than political moderates:
What explains this odd pattern? One possibility is that extremists have the whole world figured out, and sorted into good guys and bad guys. They have the security of knowing what’s wrong, and whom to fight. They are the happy warriors.
Whatever the explanation, the implications are striking. The Occupy Wall Street protesters may have looked like a miserable mess. In truth, they were probably happier than the moderates making fun of them from the offices above. And none, it seems, are happier than the Tea Partiers, many of whom cling to guns and faith with great tenacity. Which some moderately liberal readers of this newspaper might find quite depressing.
Actually, the whole time I was reading about a failed Occupy Wall Street protest this weekend at a fundraiser the Kochs held for Romney, I could hear the Benny Hill music playing in my head.
Anyway, why do you think conservatives are happier?
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May '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
I didn't read Mr. Brooks NYT piece, but I bet he didn't make a lot of friends with his WSJ op ed either. The truth can be most inconvenient.
Mar '11
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
It's really pretty simple. A conservative is going to resort to his own devices when trouble arises, rather than waiting for someone else to ride to the rescue. The confidence that brings translates into a more optimistic view, and hence more happiness and satisfaction with our lot.
May '10
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
The key understanding of conservatives is that we EXPECT the country, its institutions, our jobs, people, the environment -- heck, life, the world, the universe -- to be imperfect. Liberals see these imperfections as proof that all of the above suck.
Edited on July 9, 2012 at 3:24pmJan '11
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
Maybe it's the inverse. Maybe people who are happy in the first place are conservatives.
Mar '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
Regarding the marriage connection, I'd suggest that happy people are more attractive to others, more likely to find a mate and more likely to be married. While I also think being married enhances happiness, it's less clear to me which is cause and which is effect. On the overall finding that conservatives are happier than liberals or moderates, perhaps happiness correlates with how well one's worldview comports with reality.
Jun '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
You may have something there, my friend.
I've recently started calling lefties "Neo-Puritanical Progressives," because they're people who seem to be forever haunted by the fact that someone, somewhere is having fun, and they make it their life's work to keep that fun from happening.
This, to me, indicates a generally sour disposition, which may be what draws them to leftism.
Mar '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
We don't live politics in the way that liberals live politics. Our lives don't depend on winning the next election, the next budget battle, the creation of a new definition of rights for some group or other, or of denying some group of human beings the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Liberalism is a religion, and a rather empty and demanding one at that, which posits its end in the here and now. If the here and now is unsatisfactory, then the liberal won't be happy. (Of course, if they are successful, when they realize the end that they have managed to bring themselves too (without considering what they have done to the rest of us), they'll be even more unhappy. (A history of the Soviet Union would be a good start on this particular examination.)
Liberalism is unhappiness. How could its adherents be otherwise?
Mar '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
So, why would both liberals and conservatives be happier than moderates? Perhaps because they have each found something worthy of pursuit, or at least of interest?
Mar '11
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
I'm with you. A liberal says "Somebody ought to do something!" Conservatives worry more about tending their own back yard.
I would also wager that the happy liberals are people applying their principles to their own back yards as well.
Mar '11
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
Casey
I would also wager that the happy liberals are people applying their principles to their own back yards as well. · 1 minute ago
...while working to apply those principles to everyone else's back yard, as well.
Feb '10
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
Conservatives are happier because our worldview is more consistent with reality.
Jun '10
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
Here are a few thoughts, some of which echo earlier comments:
Apr '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
I thought this would be a no brainer. The Left rolls out the red carpet for angry, bitter, malcontents. The whole hope & change thing appeals to the hopeless and the unhappy. This is not to say that all Leftists are unhappy, just that they do tend to attract and embrace the self perceived victims in life.
But they do have a cure, it's hatred for conservatives - it makes them feel better about themselves. I wonder what would happen to them if they couldn't exploit this important common ground.
May '10
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
Yes. Less cognitive dissonance.
Jul '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
I do agree very much with Donald Todd that Liberalism is a religion. It's like Christianity except that paradise is earthly not transcendent and the means to it is politics not faith. I know some hard-core liberals. They can't stop grinding their teeth.
Feb '11
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
I've always felt that the conservative adherence to personal responsibility contributes to our happiness. Liberals tend to see some kind of external injustice as the root of their problems, while conservatives understand that ones level of success or failure is a product of the choices one makes.
May '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
I would not say that I am happier than my liberal friends. I would say I am less unhappy, less inclined to be pessimistic, less inclined to feel disappointed in the state of things now.
I see as much encouraging news as bad news, and am Content that things can work themselves out.
Imagine if you could Empathically read the mood of everyone in a Grand Central Station. There would be some very unhappy people, some very happy people, and a lot of people somewhere in between. Overall, it would be a wash.
That's how I feel right now. Because I don't expect perfection, and am not looking for The One to make all things right and good. I look to myself to be the best person I can be, and try to be around like-minded people.
Jun '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
A liberal fighting to right his perceived wrongs lives a frustrated existence. I've talked with one on the state of affairs in the US and he was quite vigorous, almost desperate, in his arguments; speaking as if there wasn't presently a liberal in the Whitehouse.
Fighting for the poor in the USA who only own one car and one TV is a thankless job. Getting up to two-car status, as every citizen has a right to, is a long trek. No wonder liberals are unhappier. Their goals and concepts of utopia are unrealistic so they will naturally be unhappy.
As a conservative I feel like I sit in a warm cabin and must just keep the wolves away. Liberals are trying to break in demanding I spread the wealth of my cabin to others. They have it harder.
Feb '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
If one has a worldview that comports closer to reality, it is more of a “kick” to interact with it. This is doubly true if one believes in God, and that God is the author of the cosmos with which we interact, and that the mystery of forgiveness and redemption is very much a part of it.
Mar '12
Re: Why Are Conservatives Happier?
That's an interesting thought. If you build a machine that has a particular function, it's more rewarding (more fun, more of a kick) if that machine performs as it was intended to. The same goes for worldviews, I suppose. We're happier when things work.