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rrer, "and ultimately is internalised to the point where the concepts govern action."
Isn't this the nanny state gone mad, I ask Layard. He replies that learning such values is about instilling character, which is the only way children can become strong, secure and autonomous. "So it's not nannying. It's the opposite. Any happy society is one in which people feel in control of their own lives. The government can develop a school system that encourages self-determining agents to flourish."
Why should such inculcation of values be important? Partly, Layard argues, because we live in a mostly secular society. "I had an education that included a religious component and, even though I've become agnostic since then, I recognise that those with religious beliefs tend to be happier." Layard contends that there has been a catastrophic "failure to develop a secular morality. People find it hard to talk about moral issues. A moral vocabulary is what is lacking for many children."
In this, Layard claims popular support. He chairs the Good Childhood Inquiry set up by the Children's Society. Its aim is to work out what might be good values to instil in children. His inquiry will report early next year, but he already has some ideas. "We need to get different people into teaching." He wants to encourage more psychology graduates to become teachers, not least because they will appreciate the behavioural psychology that underpins Layard's happiness philosophy. "We must use time in the school day devoted to values in a more distilled way. Again, the problem is that there aren't teachers trained to do such things, so classes given over to values can be waffly.
"We need some people going into schools with missionary intent. Before I became an economist in my 30s, I was a schoolteacher, and at that time the missionaries were the 'use of English' people who, under the aegis of FR Leavis, believed that teaching great literature could provide a moral education. Like the Matthew Arnolds of the Victorian era, we need intelligent missionaries in our schools."
He tells me about the Local Well-Being Project, a new three-year trial involving three local authorities (South Tyneside, Manchester and Hertfordshire) which has the goal of increasing happiness and which, if successful, could be replicated nationwide. The aim is to wean children from binge drinking, adolescent suicide, anxiety and depression into happier, more wholesome futures. Fingers crossed.
This new politics of well-being is one of the greatest experiments in British social policy for generations. It could be a wonderful thing, steering us away from the Scylla of materialism and the Charybdis of selfish individualism, just when we thought we were doomed.
Or maybe Layard's happiness agenda is misplaced. It's too soon to be certain. The revolution is still under way, and there are problems. There are waiting lists for CBT, and positive psychology classes have not yet delivered compelling results. But there's a bigger concern. Aren't you worried, I ask the happiness tsar, that this whole agenda is based on an imposture, and that happiness is neither a desirable nor an achievable political goal? "You'll be happy to learn," says Layard, as he kindly shows me to the lift, "that I'm not".
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