More than once I have wondered if Putin would be a happy person if he had invaded Ukraine. I understand that the idea may seem absurd. Individual happiness and political power inhabit different universes. But, despite this, the president is also a person attached to his circumstances. When he has to make a decision in the solitude of his office, his emotional state has weight, as does the information that will lead him to act in one direction or another. I think this is very evident in autocracies, where there are no checks on the executive, but in parliamentary democracies the happiness of the prime minister is also important.
At first, it seems that the politician cannot be happy. The nature of his profession prevents him from doing so. Any intern in the corridors of power in the United States knows, for example, that if they want to have a friend in Washington they have to buy a dog.
The US Constitution mentions the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable human aspiration. The political ecosystem, however, barely leaves room for happiness. The struggle for power is so merciless, failures weigh so much more than successes, that the politician can only aspire to occasional moments of happiness.
Churchill smoked havans and drank whiskey. Stalin watched Western films and dined with friends whom he later ordered executed. Kennedy seduced women he used as sex objects. Clinton did more or less the same thing. Hollande left the Elysée early to buy croissants for his lover. Berlusconi filled the gardens of his mansion in Sardinia with vellums. Trump plays golf, often alone, at clubs named after him. Putin no longer steps on the mat or the ice rink. Judo and hockey have been left behind.
We know that life is much more than happiness and that the latter is subjective. Because it does not depend on money, we can find it in the suburbs of Calcutta and Port-au-Prince. Being happy with what you have, getting rid of what is superfluous, are paths explored since the time of the ascetics to rise above the world and achieve happiness, that is, the absence of pain.
Happiness, however, in the hands of a president is something else. To begin with, it is a political tool. It is impossible for a candidate to win an election today if he does not promise to lead us to a happier world.
Hubert Humphrey, Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States in 1968, campaigned on the pedestal of happiness. His “politics of happiness” was a strategy to present himself as the candidate of unity and hope. “I am happy for the opportunity I have to do something for my country”, he said. His rival Eugene McCarthy copied the idea. He spoke of the need for “public happiness”, as if it were a pillar of society as basic as education and healthcare. The elections of that year, however, were narrowly won by the unhappy Richard Nixon. His pessimistic realism was more in line with the humor of a society broken by the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers.
Finland is another example that happiness, by itself, does not guarantee anything. It’s been six years since the United Nations report on world happiness says that it is the happiest country of all. The classification is not based on GDP or other economic indicators, but on personal interviews. Gallup asks respondents if they laughed, learned something interesting or felt respected the previous day. Finns are the ones who most often answer yes. However, this collective happiness has not prevented the gradual expansion of populism, which culminated in June with the entry of the extreme right into the Government.
I don’t think there can be happiness outside of an ethical framework. No one should be happy in violence, betrayal and deception, but this is precisely what often happens at the top of power. These are the most common scenarios.
Psychologist Yona Kifer, from Tel-Aviv University, claims that power gives happiness. He has shown this in a study he published in January. The powerful are happier because they have the feeling of being more authentic, of living “in tune with their innermost desires and inclinations”, of being more themselves.
Their happiness, in any case, is subject to hierarchy: it plummets when they stop being on top of everything. Many even become depressed and friends are of no help to them, because friendship is not based on hierarchy, but on equality.
Democracy is a community of equals and therefore has the potential to be a network of friends. If we abolished hierarchies, all politicians could be happy, because the more horizontal a management system is, the more happiness it radiates.
Autocracies, on the contrary, concentrate power and happiness in the hands of the leader. While most of humanity is happy with love, beauty and virtue, Putin is, waging war from the solitude of the Kremlin.
It’s a shame that Berlusconi didn’t invite him more often to the summer parties he organized in Sardinia.
