Mark Vernon has his doubts about positive psychology and its inventor, Martin Seligman, who has a new book out, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding Of Happiness And Well-being:
Has Seligman now got a decent account of the role of pain in life, which is to say it can't always be mitigated as it's the flipside of love? Has he got deeper understandings of qualities like hope, which is more about gritty courage than mere optimism; or friendship, which is not just about camaraderie but the relatively rare experience of truly knowing someone and being known by them? And what about meaning: will any old meaning do, so long as it delivers purpose (despots have that in spades), or will he engage in some moral philosophy and admirable struggle with the ambiguities? Aristotle also didn't shirk from the fact that life is tragic. The individual who flourishes is, sooner or later, still the individual who dies – though with luck, or blessing, dies well.
The Dish 