By Francis X. Maier
Pascal Bruckner, the political philosopher, is a classic French intellectual. Raised Catholic and educated in Jesuit schools, his adult thinking is deeply secular. But he possesses a sharp intellect, a witty pen, and a lively skepticism. And, to his credit, he applies them vigorously to a wide range of sacred cows, including the godless modernity of which he himself is a creature.
One of Bruckner’s key targets is the cult of falsified happiness that, in his view, governs our era. On one hand, he argues that religious faith infantilizes its followers. «It is typical of Christianity,» he writes, «to have overdramatized our existence by subjecting it to the alternative between hell and paradise… To approve or suspend: paradise is structured like a school.»
Can the miserable sins of our little world—Bruckner asks with sarcasm—deserve an infinitely disproportionate torment in the afterlife? And yet, at the same time, he observes that man’s repudiation of God has not produced freedom, but a vulgar universe of advertising. Indeed, what was liberated by humanity’s supposed psychic and sexual maturity «was less our libido than our appetite for unlimited shopping.»
For Bruckner, we have become little more than «slave rowers of pleasure.» Each new distraction, gadget, and technological wonder sinks our hedonism deeper into its own exhausted punishment.
Past cultures accepted suffering as a normal, often meaningful, element of life. Happiness was seen as fragile and transitory. True joy was exceptional. For Bruckner, our era, especially in the West, has turned this thinking upside down. We are expected—and indeed ordered by 24/7 marketing—to be happy with the flood of options presented to us.
When we are not, we are failures; or worse, deviants. The «Happy Honda Days» become a sacrament of the holiday consumption season. As a result, despite mountains of contrary evidence in the real world, we insist on a spirit of mandatory optimism; we are «the first societies in the world that make people unhappy for not being happy.»
In the end, modernity has «raised human hopes so high that it can only disappoint us.» And this provides a bitter revenge for the religions: «They may be in bad shape, but what succeeded them is not doing very well either.»
True. Bruckner is strong medicine. No one will mistake him for Mr. Happy Pants. His lack of religious faith seems suspiciously like a case of self-inflicted blindness. And despite (or perhaps because of) his Jesuit training, his understanding of Christianity seems barely adolescent.
But on the last day of an old year and on the edge of a new one, Bruckner’s thoughts deserve, nonetheless, to be considered. Around the world tonight, people will be wishing each other a happy new year. However, in the Maier house, the lights will be off at ten o’clock. The idea of celebrating a giant electric ball dropping at midnight in Manhattan to welcome another January hangover simply does not stir the heart.
So, what can «happiness» exactly mean in an era of noise and manufactured excitement, an era—not by chance—rich in anxiety and conflict? And what about joy? We are still in the Christmas season, the very reason for «joy to the world.»
For C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, happiness and joy are related, but in the end, they are very different things. This becomes evident throughout their fiction and other writings. In Tolkien, happiness is always, in some sense, disinterested. It springs from doing the right thing, even at great cost. It is tied to sacrifice, friendship, faithful service, the fulfillment of one’s assigned purpose, and the enjoyment of the simple pleasures of the natural world. Lewis, similarly, saw happiness as a matter of earthly satisfaction, the fruit of success, camaraderie, innocent pleasures, and basic comforts.
Note that none of the above survives easily in a culture of constantly stimulated and escalating appetites. In fact, a society’s happiness—consider the state of ours—seems inversely proportional to the egocentrism and possessiveness of its members. Which, of course, confirms Pascal Bruckner’s thesis: the happiness we pursue so often and with so much anxiety is falsified.
And as with happiness, so, more deeply, with joy.
Tolkien described human history as a «eucatastrophe»: a drama of disaster redeemed by the decisive and undeserved intervention of God’s love. Once fully understood by the human soul, the gift of that drama is joy, the overwhelming and unexpected «catch of the breath, a lift and a deepening of the heart, close (or even accompanied) by tears,» that comes with an experience of the transcendent.
For Lewis, Tolkien’s friend, joy is a kind of precious pain and longing; «the unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.» Joy lifts our heart toward something beyond our world and holy, and it cannot be captured or repeated at will. Lewis wrote that «if we find in ourselves a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.» The heart yearns for the beauty of that other world: such is the nature of joy.
Today is the seventh day of Christmas. All too soon we put Bethlehem in the rearview mirror as we head toward 2026. Valentine’s Day decorations are already creeping into the stores. In the process, we pass by the Incarnation and what it means for our purpose in this life and our joy in the next. The true happiness of any new year has nothing to do with the things we can buy. We will only find it in the Child Jesus and in the woman who gave birth to him: Mary, Theotokos; Mary, Mother of God, whose solemnity we celebrate on New Year’s.
She is also our mother. And we should turn to her.
About the author
Francis X. Maier is a senior research fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church.