WEBZINE ACC

What is happiness for those living in a society where AI plays an increasing role?

I visited the website of the ACC Humanities Lecture before I attended the 2024 ACC Humanities Lecture on Wednesday, March 27. The number of participants for this half of the ACC Humanities Lecture, which will be held in four sessions, was 200 per session, and I thought that there would be no difficulty in applying because of how generous the capacity of the sessions was. However, I was rather taken aback when I saw the notice: The sessions were at capacity already, and one could only apply for the waiting list. Of course, as I was covering the program, I was able to participate in it without applying in advance, but I had not anticipated such enthusiasm for the ACC Humanities Lecture. What could be drawing such a crowd to the program?

<Trend Korea 2024> (Kim Rando and others, Mirae Book), a book that discusses the new trends that will lead the year, chose “Don’t waste a single second,” “Homo Promptus,” “hexagonal human,” “variety pricing strategy,” “dopaming,” “good daddy,” “spin-off,” “ditto consumption,” “liquid politan,” and “care economy” as 10 key words that will lead Korean consumption in 2024.

“Don’t waste a single second” refers to the economy of time that is in such high demand these days, making time an important currency and generating fierce competition for attention. Even the popular content we see is short-form. This also leads to “dopaming,” a portmanteau of “dopamine” and “farming” as a gaming term that refers to people searching for things that trigger the dopamine in their brains in a short period.

But in this world of short-form content and changes by seconds, people have signed up for a lecture series well in advance and resolved to set aside time for their visit. The goal of their visit was to attend a 90-minute lecture about a long-dead philosopher, namely “Schopenhauer and How to Live Happily.” What happiness did they have in mind as they made their way to this lecture?

Happiness according to Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher. Born in 1788, he is often described as a thinker of philosopher pessimism, which is, simply put, a school of thought that denies the value of life. But despite being thought to be a pessimist, Schopenhauer was very affirming of life, and he died in September of 1860 at the age of 72. How did he come to live such a long life, despite thinking about suicide and death?

Schopenhauer argued that the unattainable human desire to live forever makes our lives basically painful and that although we appear to live our lives for some purpose, we are actually driven by the instinct to live one more day. Emphasizing human instinct rather than reason, Schopenhauer compared our lives to a train that is driven by some force without a conductor and therefore saw our will to live as natural and something we should accept rather than judge as good or bad. In this perspective, one could say that Schopenhauer proved the point of his philosophy with his longevity.

So what does Schopenhauer have to say to people who want to attain happiness with the painful life they’re forced to live? He identifies two sources of unhappiness in our lives: suffering and boredom. He argued that deficiencies and fulfillment in our lives both cause suffering, and he used the metaphor of life as a “pendulum” swinging between pain brought by deficiency and boredom brought by fulfillment. Like most of us, I subscribe to a lot of OTT. The exclusive content on the channels I don't subscribe to looks so tempting. But on the channels I do subscribe to, I don’t know what to watch, and I waste time trying to find something worth watching in a sea of content. What deficiencies and fulfillments do we live with? I found myself wondering if figuring that out could be the beginning of a path to happiness.

Schopenhauer says that each person should search for work that suits their personality and could help maintain joy in their lives. People say that today’s generation is not patient. Perhaps it is the case that they are fulfilling that condition for happiness more than ever. If the people of the past tended to be patient with things that they did not like, today’s people may be rejecting that patience and pursuing their own happiness in jobs that were shunned before.

Schopenhauer presents different points for happiness, but in the end, he emphasizes that the idea of happiness should be centered around oneself. The true origin of happiness lies inside us, rather than outside, and one should bring that center away from societal attainment, reputation, wealth, and such standards created by others to art, culture, philosophy, and other things that can nourish one’s personality. The ones who visited the ACC on that Wednesday were already on that path toward happiness, working to create and affirm their unique personalities for that purpose.

Enjoy the ACC Humanities Lecture every last Wednesday of the month.

ACC Humanities Lecture is a public lecture program featuring experts from art, culture, humanities, and other fields. The goal of the lecture is to serve as the basis for the participants to understand society and Asia through art and culture and to grow as active enjoyers of culture. The programs on offer for the first half of 2024 are organized around the main themes of ACC, “cities” and “culture,” through the lens of philosophy, art, archaeology, and American history.

The ACC Humanities Lecture series for the first half of 2024 will be offered every last Wednesday of the month at 19:00, in Theater 3 of ACC Archive & Research. There are three remaining lectures. The second lecture of the program will be a narrative tour through the works of French Impressionists Monet and Renoir, focusing particularly on the movement of light under the theme “The Light Loved by the Painter.” It will be delivered on April 24 by docent Jeong Woo-cheol.

The third lecture, delivered in May, will feature Professor Kang In-uk of Kyung Hee University presenting the field of archaeology and how excavated materials can help elucidate the history of humanity across the boundaries of the past and the present, life and death, and prosperity and downfall in the lecture “Archaeological Trip in search of the World’s Origins.” In June, Professor Kim Bong-joong of Chonnam National University will deliver the “Tale of Three Cities and American History,” which explores how the United States came to be through the histories of New York City, Chicago, and Las Vegas.

Applications for these 90-minute lectures can be made free of charge at the ACC website on a first-come, first-served basis. Those who cannot physically travel to the ACC or have not managed to sign up in time can take part in the lecture in real-time through the ACC’s YouTube channel, and Korean Sign Language (KSL) translations will be provided onsite and in YouTube Live.

As I mentioned earlier, the popularity of the ACC Humanities Lecture program means that one may not be able to apply for the lecture in time, so I hope that those who want to go will be able to confirm their seats in time, and I hope that these lectures will be a fun time of self-discovery and reflection.

Find out more about the ACC Humanities Lecture.Click to proceed to the web page.