Postcard 3/29

In "The Promise of Happiness", Sara Ahmed really talks about how happiness is something that may be controlled by those in power, and it might be a priviledge to have it. This concept of happiness has really been interesting to me after I learned about the field of positive psychology that is really becoming something prevalent in research. But the way that Ahmed presents it, she states that happiness is very rigidly controlled by society's norms and that the normal person really has to fight for that capital. In this class, we haven't really talked about happiness but I think that the underlying thing that exists beneath all of the healing and empowering is this idea of happiness. I think school boasts that success in the academic and professional world will lead you to happiness, and this course has reall brought forward the ideas of happiness in a different way. We've been focusing on allowing differences and diversity to thrive in the classroom and I think the ideas of happiness that Ahmed is introducing are really relevant in that.