That seems plausible, because they find more ways to entertain themselves in the absence of television. But on the other hand you have to be dumb to be happy , otherwise you'd know how grim things really are. If we follow the gist of the message in the greatest philosophers of happiness, Aristotle and Spinoza, we'll conclude that we are most likely to be happy insofar as we are active in a natural way . Perverted pleasures, we're often told, give no lasting satisfaction, don't really make you happy, and so forth. Don't seek far and wide, but cultivate your garden, follow nature.
Nothing is more contrived than the natural.
In fact, the only plausible test of whether something is a natural or a perverted pleasure is whether it gives us lasting satisfaction. That doesn't mean the definition is useless, since it can usefully replace all pretense of talking of what is natural. If that's so, then the test of happiness does remain in experience, but it doesn't lie in present experience, and therefore doesn't invalidate my second paradox. 6.Happiness, Pleasure and Pain. Yet for many people happiness is linked to satisfying work, which often isn't describable as bringing pleasure.