From the archives: What do you mean ‘Happy Christmas’?

A more scientific view of proceedings, courtesy of a Yale professor writing for The Spectator’s Christmas issue in 1994:

What do you mean ‘Happy Christmas’?, Robert Buck, The Spectator, 17 December 1994

It is the time of year when the pursuit of happiness is at its most frantic. People believe they should be happy in the holiday period because they are surrounded by tradition, mercantile enthusiasm and a desire to return to childhood, where, for the most part, it did not require an effort to be happy.

Is the experience of happiness only psychological? We know that the reductionist trends of science must be leading towards a molecular theory of practically everything. Will Christmas get scrunched down to a molecular evil? Could we really have a happy Christmas if the effect and the experience are just chemical?

A chemical basis of unhappiness is now accepted. Many psychiatrists have told their patients that the reason for their unhappiness and depression is that they have a ‘chemical imbalance’.