THE GOODs LIFE

In the "old days" (and I mean since Aristotle and his Ethics) kids grew up thinking and wondering about how to live a "good life".  Apparently, everyone only gets one life and since it seems rather a waste to lay down in the end and say, "Well, that was a really rotten life!" and so we might ask: what can be done to have a good one?  That was the kind of question people used to talk about.

Lately (and I mean in the last 70 years or so) it seems everyone has finally agreed on the answer.  The consensus is so complete that almost everyone has entirely stopped asking the question, "How do you live a good life?" because there is no reason to talk about a question that everyone already knows the answer to.  It just isn't all that interesting anymore since everyone agrees on what the "good life" is and how to attain it.

Just ask yourself, "What is the one thing I need to have an awesome life?"

Your answer is probably something like, "Win the lottery!"  Of course, it isn't so much the money you'd be excited about, though for some people, the image of laying on piles of $100 bills as big as a mattress would be downright thrilling.  What you want to win the lottery for is the "stuff" you could get.  It would change your life for the better, wouldn't it?  There's no question!  Of course it would!

If we all know money can buy you the good life, then there's really nothing more to discuss about what the good life actually is or how one can go about living it.  The more important thing is to get busy making some money.

If the question of "How do I live a good life?" has the answer: "Buy it!" then we would talk about things like:

• Do you have a good job?
• What kind of phone do you have?
• How big is your house?
• What kind of car do you drive?
• What clothes do you wear?
• What school did you go to?

"How to help your child be successful" would be all about "How to help your kid get a good job" because, naturally, a better job is more money is more of the good life.

Now, we all would say we know that "money can't buy happiness" (or love for that matter) but when we think about what we actually spend ourselves on and how we measure each other, our actions tell a different story.  Our actions always betray our true beliefs.

The reason we don't talk about the good life is because we can no longer define "good" as a culture.  The word "good" is dangerous ground.  If there is "good" then there must be "bad" and now you're making some kind of moral statement and "Who are you to say your moral system is superior to mine?" becomes the immediate postmodern reaction.  

But that that leaves us with the best we can have is a "pleasureable life" and we're sold the marketing storyboard as the means to attain it.  We just need to put a few more dollars on our credit card and we can get that priceless moment that will truly make us happy and give us the good life, in the non-moral, un-philosophical, and rather un-satisfying sense.

We've given up pursuit of the "good life" for the "goods life".  But I don't think we got a very good deal.