This house believes that happiness can be bought - third round

Third Proposing Speech

The first real problem of this debate is clearly the definition of the term “happiness”, considering the mess of the four previous speeches. On the one hand Juliana defines it as a permanent state of mind while Nicolas thinks it’s a very brief feeling, much more intense. I will try not to impose my own definition, but I will still try to prove you that whatever the definition, happiness can be bought...

Third Opposing Speech

This week we are debating the motion: “this house believes happiness can be bought”. The goal of our team is to show you with valid arguments that money does not bring happiness and that you cannot buy happiness! I will show you first that having huge amounts doesn’t imply being able to be happy. Then I will prove that happiness is not necessarily short-lasting. Assuming this we reject the definition of happiness given by the prime minister and his second...

Third Proposing Speech

The first real problem of this debate is clearly the definition of the term “happiness”, considering the mess of the four previous speeches. On the one hand Juliana defines it as a permanent state of mind while Nicolas thinks it’s a very brief feeling, much more intense. I will try not to impose my own definition, but I will still try to prove you that whatever the definition, happiness can be bought.

According to the two first teams, meeting new people, having fun with friends or having the feeling that our family lives a nice life brings you happiness. But in any of these situations, money has its importance. Let me explain with the example of the family. Franck said that older people feel happiness through the happiness of their children for instance. But how can your children be happy if you can’t even fulfill their primary needs, as eating, having occupations outside school, and if you can’t pay for the studies they dream about and that would promise them a great future? All I would feel if my children couldn’t eat their fill would be shame and sadness. But if you can buy them food, presents for their birthday, a week end in Disneyland or studies in Harvard, you will feel happiness in return.

Let’s now talk about love. What a better example of happiness than the fact of hanging out with your sweetheart, making him/her presents, having a pleasant dinner at a restaurant, and so on? But all these things have a price, and spending your money in them clearly gives you happiness. From here I already hear some Beatles from the opposing team telling me that you can’t buy love, but that’s not my point. It’s your part of the work to find a girl or a boy and to seduce her/him, but when it’s done, money will give you all the happiness you want. I’m not talking about the fact of almost “buying” a girlfriend, using a car or a heavy purse as a girl magnet, but some guys would totally feel happiness from it.

On the other hand, and I think it’s very easy to understand, many occupations can give you happiness. They can be simply leisure like attending to a football game; they can be the practice of a sport or a hobby, etc. To me skiing brings me huge happiness, a friend of mine will tell you he’s never happier than when flying in small aircrafts. There are tons of these expensive activities that make you happy, fitting to any human being as soon as he finds the good one. And the only thing you have to do in order to experience them is to take a few bills out of your pocket. Can you still tell me that money can’t buy happiness?

I’m not even talking about the fact of buying ultra expensive stuff like a Ferrari or a private Yacht, Nicolas already did it, even though I personally think I would totally feel happiness parking my Lambo in the garage of my 600 square meter house in the Bahamas.

In conclusion, if you think that money can help you take care of your family, your friends, your honey, and thus make you happy; or if you simply think - like I do – that with money you can have any of the great stuff the earth is full of, and that it would make you happy then you have to vote for us!

Paul D.

Third Opposing Speech

This week we are debating the motion: “this house believes happiness can be bought”. The goal of our team is to show you with valid arguments that money does not bring happiness and that you cannot buy happiness! I will show you first that having huge amounts doesn’t imply being able to be happy. Then I will prove that happiness is not necessarily short-lasting. Assuming this we reject the definition of happiness given by the prime minister and his second.

But first let me draw your attention on dreadful contradictions in the government speeches. I don’t understand your point when you say “the first time you heard you were admitted to the Ecole Centrale Paris […] without any doubts you felt happiness”. Are you acknowledging you can be happy without buying anything? Indeed, it is very troublesome that you can be happy for free whereas your entire speech is trying to prove that you can’t be happy without money! Then you’re also quoting Schopenhauer:” The philosopher Schopenhauer describes [happiness] as our state of mind during the transition from a desire to the satisfaction of that particular desire, which makes from happiness a very brief and intense feeling”. First of all, readers should know that Schopenhauer is, of course a very pessimistic person, someone who doesn’t really split satisfaction and happiness. Platon, Spinoza for example set a clear distinction between those two assuming that happiness is a “Souverain Bien”(lit. sovereign good) that cannot be compared to satisfaction. What is not said here is the extent of Schopenhauer definition of satisfaction: satisfaction is the ephemeral result of a desire’s fulfillment. Nevertheless, the mere existence of a desire is dued to the fact that there is a void for you that need to be filled. Still, when that void is filled you are again in the state of mind before you experienced that void and therefore, for him, the next thing you’re experiencing is an “absolute pain”(The World as Will and Representation). That is why you must “deny any material presents and any goods because they are causing you more harm than good” which cannot be a sustainable experimentation of happiness. In this optic how can you still believe that money can buy happiness? But Schopenhauer is Schopenhauer and I forgive the fact you may not know that Schopenhauer is against the motion. Finally, I also want to comment on the prime minister speech. According to you sir, poor people cannot really say they are happy, everyone would prefer live in a nice flat in Neuilly. That is a dreadful thought… First in your narrow-minded capitalistic perspective you are denying to any society who doesn’t have money and any poor person the right to happiness which is not tolerable. You would be surprised to know that Pygmies and rain forest societies are actually probably happier society than our. And as you like arguments such as I do not need to elaborate any further on this topic I will do the same here, still I would advise you a really good book written by the ethnologist Jean Cazeneuve in “Bonheur et Civilisation”. Now let me prove you that having a lot of money is probably at the source of an inner unhappiness rather than the contrary.

First I invite you to consider the case of spoiled children. The definition we will consider here is the fact that spoiled children can have whatever they want. They can buy anything they want. So my fellow governments members to say they have everything to be happy. But if we look deeply into the family of those children it appears clearly that the parents are almost always away. The culprit feeling for being away strengthens the parents’ desire to counterbalance their absence with money. Henceforth spoiled children must convert a beloved father’s presence into an equivalent mass of money. Acknowledging this how can we consider those children are happy? Psychologists are unanimous, a child need his parents love and affection implying their presence. And presence is here is synonymous to happiness for the child. What can be better than a father-son activity? A Ferrari? You might still say, that children are happy with new toys every day, but I do think they’d rather spent their day with their parents than getting a substitute. Therefore in this case money deprives you from a “basic need” the love of your parents.

On another hand, having money is the boredom it generates rather than the keys to constant happiness. In fact, we read that people in favelas are fearing every day for their lives. And it is probably true but what is really relevant here is that they have a notion of how worth is life. If every moment might be the last then every moment should be cherished. This is exactly what causes money: you tend to forget what the basic needs are. Those people you speak as constantly unhappy people might be happier than us because the level of basic needs seems lower than our. Rain forest natives don’t really care about going at 100mph with a Ferrari into the Amazon forest . Science enabled us to move forward, always expecting more from it. Nowadays, crossing the Atlantic ocean by plane is much shorter and easier. It enables to enlarge the field of achievements that could lead us to happiness, but at the same time basic things just like walking in parks are no longer seen as potential source of happiness. I’m not saying we should go backward and that happiness is only reachable for underdeveloped civilization. This lead to my next point: money can’t buy happiness which requires wisdom and charisma.

My teammates gave some aspects of what surrounds the notion of happiness, I would like to add another one. Happiness is a state of personal full achievement. In fact, wisdom is the only feature that enables people to measure your “worthiness”. In fact, people are not equal, studies are the tools of your personal development. You will probably wonder what does it have to do with happiness? Well, basically how do you felt when you were accepted in our prestigious school? How do you feel if I tell you that getting from “class prépa” enables you to have a knowledge of 15% of the total knowledge in math whereas this rate hardly reach(in average) 5% in our society? You experience personal pride, pleasure: this is not really happiness but the first steps toward a state of happiness. Knowledge is power, it’s a much more powerful one than money because knowledge is permanent whereas the money fluctuate. You can rely on your knowledge whereas relying on your money always presents a risk. Let’s assume you have spent your entire life buying whatever you wanted without cultivating your mind. When comes the time to assesses your life you would probably set a critical point of view over your previous life because everything you bought was to be ephemeral, house, cars…a long list of common things in fact, nothing to shake the earth. What a dreadful thought…therefore studying, learning, trying to arouse your spirit is the path toward real happiness. But, you will object me two things: first that you need money to be educated and to cultivate your mind, secondly that “brainy” are not overwhelmed by happiness when the end of their lives come. To the first objection, I will reply that it is not because you buy good shoes that you are a good runner or a good footballer. Therefore, money appears just as a mean to give you tools: you obviously don’t need it to gather information and it is up to you to manage your own tools in order to take advantage of them. And usually wisdom and wealth are split because money can make loose one’s mind and therefore if money seems to be able to prepare you to receive wisdom at the very end it’s the last obstacle that needs to be bridged. That is why money is in the end a brake to happiness. To the second objection I will answer that knowledge and wisdom are the final steps toward freedom. When the wise overlook his past years, what he finds his the meaning of his life and this is the most precious gift we can have, understanding why we are here: and this his real happiness, long-lasting happiness. The most inner wish of a man is probably to cross the ages, not to be forgotten in the torrent of History. How can your name be written in History with only money?

I assume I’m a bit long so I stop here. But what must remain in your mind is that the real lasting happiness can be reached in our civilization but it supposes personal involvement and not money only. Poor can be happy too because they know the worth of life whereas we tend to focus only on progress.

Finally for all those reasons I beg you to vote for us.

Martin L