Cheerfulness
Cheerfulness gets a different reception from different individuals. Most individuals believe that cheerfulness is the best thing to create a conducive survival environment. However, a diverse group exists that believes that cheerfulness creates an avenue for exaggeration. People have been blamed for hiding emotions and feelings behind cheerfulness. One member of individuals against cheerfulness is Marianna Alessandri. Alessandri holds on to the Greek customs of wisdom and courage in an environment where American cultures call for cheerfulness to create a welcoming environment for each individual. The American advocacy for cheerfulness might appear to go against the spirit of individualism that dominates the region, but Americans seem to be obsessed with the desire to remain cheerful. As a philosopher, Alessandri learned that cheerfulness was a foreign ideology brought to America from Britain and was based on the impression that an individual created on people and not what they felt.
Cheerfulness fails to appear in the list of ancient virtues of the philosophical sources known to Alessandri. The fact that Alessandri was coming from Greece made her question ideologies that were not in the ancient Greek recordings and monuments. For example, Alessandri recognized four virtues in Greek ancient writings: temperance, wisdom, courage, and justice. Also, Alessandri failed to find an explanation of the importance of cheerfulness after going through the records of Aristotle. A philosopher would expect Aristotle to have exhausted all the ideologies significant to human life. Besides, Aristotle’s works were based on Greek culture and are considered to be one of the most useful sources of philosophical information. According to Alessandri, cheerfulness is concerned with how people act irrespective of how they feel. Although positive actions were associated with positive results in ancient Greece, the pleasure was not ranked as a necessity for good deeds.
Alessandri is confident that attempts by Roman Stoics were not aimed at upholding cheerfulness as a virtue. American translators, however, attempted to give a different picture from what the Roman stoics had proposed. According to Alessandri, Roman stoics advised people to pay attention to feelings but did not specify whether cheerfulness was part of the feelings addressed. The argument that cheerfulness is necessary was brought forward by translators, who added information that was not given by the Stoics. Generally, the main reason for the call to pay attention to feelings was that emotions could control human beings.
American cultures are mainly based on Christianity, and most people believe that cheerfulness is a virtue. However, Christianity does not explicitly advocate for cheerfulness. According to Alessandri, Christianity advocates for faith, love, and love, which are gifts given by God. The relationship between the three Christian values does not, however, mention the need for cheerfulness. The Christian writings do not record Jesus insisting on the importance of being cheerful and instead bases his ministry on grace. For example, faith involves the belief that God can help in every situation. On the other side, hope grows when a person takes the risk of living everything in the hands of God. Moreover, love entails the desire to go to any extent to stand for faith and hope.
The extent to which Christianity goes in the advocacy for cheerfulness is agreeing that cheerfulness was a choice. No one is forced by Christianity to be cheerful. In the first instance, Jesus tells his disciples the importance of being cheerful to hide sadness whenever they fasted. Also, God encouraged His people to give cheerfully. However, cheerfulness is not insisted, and Christians are given the freedom to choose whether or not to be cheerful. Generally, cheerfulness is a choice and should not be treated as a virtue.
Alessandri views cheerfulness as a compromise to faith and honesty. Cheerfulness comes as a way of justifying the lack of courage to show the natural expressions of feelings. Also, cheerfulness can easily be used as a dishonest way of showing that an individual is happy. Therefore, cheerfulness should not be taken as a virtue. Instead, individuals should be allowed to be cheerful only when their actions support cheerfulness. Moreover, cheerfulness should not be used to judge people for not being ordinary. Instead, People should learn to share into the misery of others by providing real-time solutions instead of cheering them up and leaving them without solutions.
In sum, Alessandri learned that cheerfulness was a foreign ideology brought to America from Britain and was based on the impression that an individual created on people and not what they felt. Although positive actions were associated with positive results in ancient Greece, the pleasure was not ranked as a necessity for good deeds. American translators, however, attempted to give a different picture from what the Roman stoics had proposed. According to Alessandri, Christianity advocates for faith, love, and love, which are gifts given by God. Cheerfulness comes as a way of justifying the lack of courage to show the natural expressions of feelings. People should learn to share into the misery of others by providing real-time solutions instead of cheering them up and leaving them without solutions.
References
Alessandri, Mariana. “Against Cheerfulness.” Practising the Greek virtues of wisdom and courage is one thing. But being cheerful the American way borders on psychosis. (2019).