Paul Bloom on Happiness, Suffering, and the Sweet Spot

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2021

⏱️ 69 minutes

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Summary

Author and psychologist Paul Bloom of the University of Toronto talks about his book, The Sweet Spot, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Bloom argues that suffering is underrated--suffering is part of happiness and meaning. This is a wide-ranging discussion of popular culture, religion, and what we hope to get out of life.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.8	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover
0:12.8	Institution.
0:13.9	Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode and find links and
0:18.6	other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.4	You'll also find our archives, but every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.8	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:30.3	We'd love to hear from you.
0:37.5	Today is October 4, 2021, and my guest is Paul Bologn, Professor of Psychology.
0:43.2	Formerly, at VL University now at the University of Toronto, this is Paul's third appearance
0:48.1	of the program.
0:49.1	He was last year in September of 2018, talking about cruelty.
0:53.2	And he's back to talk about suffering and his new book, The Sweet Spot, The Pleasures
0:58.8	of Suffering and the Search for Meaning.
1:01.3	Paul, welcome back to econtalk.
1:03.6	Thanks so much for having me back.
1:06.0	What is the role of suffering and making us happy?
1:08.6	It seems a little bit like an oxymoron perhaps?
1:12.0	It does, and that's why I got interested in the topic.
1:15.8	I think there's two very different roles that suffering has as part of a good life.
1:21.6	The first was what motivated me to write the book, which was I was very interested in
1:25.4	kind of paradoxical pleasures we have.
	...

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