We are exploring what “happiness scientist” Arthur Brooks has to say about why “sadness and anxiety are exploding”—especially among young adults in our culture today. He insists that meaning and happiness are related and technology cannot give us meaning. That’s not how the brain works. All the gadgets in the world do not give us meaning.
Yesterday we meditated on how he identified the right brain as important for a life of meaning and love and relationships, thus happiness. He talks about our left brains as “the how to, the engineering side, the analysis side, the sort out the problem side.” Education that ignores the right or intuitive/mystical brain fails us.
Larry Dossey, MD, responded to my most recent book on Meister Eckhart this way: Whether our species has a future on Earth does not depend on the development of more gee-whiz technologies, but on whether we are willing to move into the psycho-spiritual dimension proclaimed by Meister Eckhart and elucidated by Matthew Fox in this important book.
Brooks concurs when he says, “every philosophical and religious tradition [is] supposed to help us find meaning in our lives.” He says, “I have a real religion” and comes out of the closet as a practicing Roman Catholic who attends Mass daily. Why? To “transcend myself. I need to get away from myself” and “peace and perspective” follow.
We have to attend to our right brains, because neuroscience instructs us that “you can’t solve the right brain’s problems by getting more left-brain solutions.” When we try that, we make a mess of things. We should not “over-engineer” the parts of our lives that don’t need over-engineering. We should exercise the right hemisphere of our brains where mystery, meaning, love and happiness occur and not “pollute” them with left-hemispheric solutions.
This has everything to do with the passion I have for the mystics. I remember years ago teaching students my book, Meditations with Meister Eckhart. One student spoke up and said she had been sexually abused by her clergyman father, underwent many years of therapy and became a therapist herself. But reading Eckhart as we were doing accomplished a whole new level of healing!
Mystics heal. The mystic in us heals—heals self and heals others. The prophet “is the mystic in action” after all. The mystics heal and help us articulate our deep love experiences. The Four Paths of Creation Spirituality spell that out. There is meaning and love to be tasted in the Via Positiva, the Via Negativa (including silence as well as loss and grief), the Via Creativa and the Via Transformativa.
A life lived at the depths of the Four Paths is a life of meaning.
Brooks appreciates how many spiritual traditions speak in paradox and pose questions that cannot be answered—and for a reason—because this triggers the right brain. “To understand the nature of not knowing and how it actually is a kind of knowing which doesn’t make sense.” Yet “the right hemisphere of your brain says there is something in not knowing that it’s a deep form of knowing.”
This is part of the Via Negativa, of course, and Meister Eckhart (and other mystics including Estelle Frankel) speak in exactly those terms. So Brooks is bringing in the mystics, though he does not label them as such.
He confesses: I’ve been married 35 years. I will never solve my marriage. I never will. Which is why I love my marriage….There’s no algorithm. There’s no app for that. And that’s the thing with these big why questions of life. They’re complex. They’re mysterious. And that’s what makes them meaningful. And “scary and frustrating.” And demanding of the Via Creativa.
~To be continued next week.
Banner image: Arthur C. Brooks speaking at an event in Phoenix, Arizona titled “The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America.” Photo by Gage Skidmore on Flickr
Queries for Contemplation
How do you transcend yourself, get away from yourself and find peace and perspective? How do you resist overengineering your brain?
Related Reading by Matthew Fox
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
Meditations with Meister Eckhart
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint For Our Times
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic…and Beyond
Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest
11 responses to “Further Wisdom From Arthur Brooks”
After reading about the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) whose 2025 annual meeting, featured speakers like Arthur Brooks, Mike Johnson, Nigel Farage, Peter Thiel and Vivek Ramaswamy, and after exploring Arthur Brooks’s writings as president of The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), especially his 2010 Obama bashing book “The Battle” (prefaced by Newt Gingrich and recommended by Rush Limbaugh as “a must-read”), I am dumbfounded that this DM platform, where Peter Thiel is called Antichrist and where christofascism is denounced, introduces Arthur Brooks as a model on the yellow-brick-road to happiness.
The following quote is from the presentation of Arthur Brooks book The Battle on Amazon: “Many Americans have forgotten the evils of socialism and the predations of the American Great Society’s welfare state programs. But, as American Enterprise Institute’s president Arthur C. Brooks reveals in The Battle, the forces for social democracy have returned with a vengeance, expanding the power of the state to a breathtaking degree. The Battle offers a plan of action for the defense of free enterprise; it is at once a call to arms and a crucial redefinition of the political and moral gulf that divides Right and Left in America today. The battle is on, and nothing less than the soul of America is at stake.” This presentation of the book by Brooks himself is also worth listening to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43QyNQpgo28
Wow! I had no idea about this side of Arthur Brooks. I am astounded. Thank you for letting me know. I apologize. Apparently he is utterly missing a via transformativa consciousness and dimension. I found his addressing young peoples’ depression to be insightful. But now I read this from you. Very sad. Again, I apologize to my readers. It’s interesting that Oprah Winfrey has backed him. One more lesson in the need to stay alert on the political front.
A deep apology to all. I knew nothing of his politics and lack of a via transformativa. Thank you, Daniel, for bringing this to my and our attention. Just shows how mysticism is not enough and how important the VT is also. He was supported by Oprah Winfrey I know also. I do think some of his insights about youth depression today were helpful and insightful. Again, my apologies to all and my thanks for your research, Daniel.
“Errare humanum est,” as we learned in Latin lessons. Thank you, Matthew, for the sincere apology to the readers. After reflecting on the mechanism of formal retraction as practiced in science when an author acknowledges a serious flaw in a published paper, I think it may be wise to add an asterisk or a brief parenthesis to the title in order to link it to the reservations you express in the comment section.
It is true that, taken out of context, Arthur Brooks advice on screen addiction can be called “wisdom,” but … there is a context. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0895435624001823
How do I transcend myself and find deeper Love, Peace, and Meaning? The answer for me has been related to my long continuous adult spiritual journey of Being Open with Contemplative Faith/Prayers to the Sacred Presence of Our Loving Source Co-Creator’s Spirit of Divine Love~Wisdom~Creativity… within and among All of Our Evolving Creation/Cosmos of Loving Diverse Oneness, including All physical/non-physical spiritual dimensions/Beings (Incarnational Spirituality; lorian.org), in the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment….
“How do I transcend myself, get away from myself and find peace and perspective?” Just hearing the question makes me realize I’m not doing that very well right now. Traditionally, I begin my day reading, chanting, meditating, and possibly writing. I’ve been quite remiss these past two or three months, and I feel the increase in anxiety and anger at the state of the country. I travel when I can, but the last two times I’ve gone on a trip, my sense of peace faded quickly. One because I came down with Covid on return, and one because near the end we were in an accident that totaled our car. So, where is my peace? Where am I getting away from myself or gaining perspective? These practices “should” help me ride the waves of these times, and they do; they do. Sounds like a recommitment is in order. 🙂
Most technology isn’t inherently bad, it’s how it’s used. Many people use social media and their “gadgets” to engage in virtual communities that enrich their lives — like we are doing right now! Of course some will abuse whatever technology, that is true too. It’s not an either/or thing. Few things are. The old mystics would have used these tools as well had they been available, just like we new mystics do.
For me it’s about balance. I spend a fair amount of time on my phone, researching, reading, talking to friends, taking classes, etc. I do not use social media. I limit my consumption of “news”. I also go for long walks in the forest, play with my pets, talk to my family, read actual books… but to be honest I don’t feel like I really need to have one foot in the technology world and one foot in the mystic world – they are the same to me. I no longer have a need to “transcend” anything.
Much like the left/right brain theory, it turns out things are much more integrated and not quite so dualistic. I find it curious that Brooks has made a career out of applying the technology of the scientific method to something intangible and etheric like happiness. Hmm.
❤️❤️
I appreciate Matthew’s honest response to not knowing everything. I like that he remains ordinary and human. Blessings
I admit being confused by Arthur C. Brooks. Of course some of what he espouses is good but when I discovered he was a devout right leaning conservative Catholic it started to make sense. They possess a common trait, a fundamental adherence to personal responsibility and devotion as a spiritual and political path. Little if any substantial concern for the poor or those underprivileged. Let them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Thank you, Matthew for your apology. When I listened to the beginning of Brooks’ talk yesterday, I thought it was well done, but when he got down to the economics side of things, I got an “uh-oh” visceral reaction. Not knowing anything about him, I was surprised that you endorsed him. After reading reader responses, I was thinking that maybe I wasn’t off the mark. I am also surprised that Oprah supported him, since I usually agree with her (though, I have to say that Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz have modified that impression somewhat).