Conclusion

Our aim in this volume has been to raise awareness around an alternative approach to happiness and well-being. Against the backdrop of a departure from the twentieth century’s GDP = Happiness paradigm, we sought to lay out the basic concepts, outline the general policy storyline, and present supporting evidence in support of this alternative. We tried to keep the presentation concise, and accessible to a wide audience, in hopes of attracting many readers who might not otherwise encounter such ideas. Inevitably, brevity leads to many places wanting of deeper elaboration. Readers seeking more details and nuance may wish to now turn to our many scholarly articles published primarily in the fields of (cultural) psychology, sociology, and education, but increasingly in environmental studies as well. Given the nature of scholarly publishing, the larger story that we have outlined herein tends to get lost among the many smaller empirical studies that support it. On the other hand, outlines of the larger plot can tend to sound stereotypical, essentialist, homogenizing, or quaint, as when we gesture toward, say, ‘harmony’. We hope to have persuaded readers we are not engaged in this sort of shallow work. Instead, we are trying to contribute to a discussion around alternatives. We are interested neither in relativism nor in competition, but instead dedicated to collective search for new solutions to shared problems. Our stance is consistent with an interdependent mode.