What is the good life? Philosopher have investigated this vexing question for millennia. Now, thanks to the advances of biomedical and social
science, the conundrum has been solved. All you need is to become top dog in any area - if not in any social, professional or political area, at least among friends or in a romantic relationships. This is the main finding
of a new study completed by a team of psychologists: “Power Helps You Live the Good Life by Bringing You Closer to Your True Self.” They “predicted that because the powerful are able to ‘navigate their lives in congruence
with their internal desires and inclinations,’ they feel as if they are acting more authentically - more ‘themselves’ - and thus are more content.” This hypothesis which was borne out by a few clever experiments. So
the researchers were able to disprove the romantic (or self-serving) “stereotype that power leads to unhappiness and loneliness.”
I guess the Victorian gripe about the corrupting effect of power is not even worth mentioning. So I will point to other research which has
demonstrated that power can sometimes have less benigh psychological effects. For example, it can potentially make you more detached, unempathetic, callous, overconfident, and impervious to alternative viewpoints. It can
even whet your sexual appetite and make you oblivious to the consequences of pursuing socially unacceptable venues for sexual gratification. In a word, power can help you become a narcissistic jerk. But hey - maybe this is
the true self, buried deep down under layers of obfuscation and self-obfuscation, of many bent on securing positions of social dominance? In fact, there is other research suggesting that the rich and powerful often have sociopathic
traits. But once up their in the social pecking order, such strivers can be in touch with their deeper leanings, and indeed bask in an enhanced sense of subjective well-being?
If this is the case, “the culture of narcissism” Christopher Lasch once sought to expose may, in fact, work for some. Come to think of
it, it may have worked for Mr. Chang and for the OK Go musicians (of whom I wrote yesterday) - or at least for the selves “they” had developed through overwork and self-exposure to deafening music.
