Recall our three overarching meta-categories, each of which traces a fundamental domain of well-being. In the previous chapter, we covered the first of these, feelings, through which we experience well-being. The second, and the subject of this chapter, is relationships, the principle source of influence over well-being. The final meta-category is personal development—the primary means through which well-being is cultivated.
Undoubtedly, there are resonances among these meta-categories, ways in which they overlap and are mutually reinforcing. The point here is not to demarcate rigid boundaries but to reflect on patterns in language use, and allow these to guide us toward ideas about well-being that might be overlooked if we were limited to the concepts available in English.
To that end, I turn to the language of relationships. It is no wonder that these form a large segment of the lexicography: relationships are as complex as they are essential to well-being. That complexity is captured in a profusion of words documenting the many nuanced forms of relation. Our languages would not be so prolific at developing these words if relationships were not so significant in our lives.
One of the most comprehensive assessments of factors affecting well-being is the World Values Survey. Initiated in 1981, the survey asks nationally representative sample populations in nearly a hundred countries about their beliefs and values. Researchers have used the data collected to conduct ongoing time-series analyses of participant feedback. In the process, they have learned a lot about what people think is important.
John Helliwell and Richard Putnam have paid special attention to what survey respondents say about the good life.1 They reviewed surveys spanning 1980 to 1997, covering over 87,000 people across 46 countries, to find the most prominent determinants of subjective well-being. Their top five factors, ranked in order of impact, were romantic and familial relationships, financial situation, work, community and friends, and health. Romance, Family, friends, and community are tightly bound up with concepts of relationship, as is work. There is no doubting that relationships constitute a backbone of lives well lived.
Why might this be? We can only speculate here, but many theorists draw on telic (i.e., goal-driven) models of need-satisfaction, in which well-being is dependent on what the environment provides. Ruut Veenhoven is influential on this score, arguing that well-being depends on livability (a congenial environment) and life-ability (one’s ability to take advantage of this), each of which is enhanced by relationships.2 Indeed, Robert Biswas-Diener suggests that relationships can “to some extent avert the psychological costs of material deprivation.”3 Siegwert Lindenberg and Bruno Frey’s social production–function theory offers another spin on telic ideas. They propose that there are two ultimate goals—physical and social well-being—which are advanced by the pursuit of five instrumental ones: comfort, stimulation, status, behavioral confirmation, and affection.4 Again, relationships have a clear role to play in furthering all of these goals.
Turning to Helliwell and Putnam’s factors affecting well-being, the first is family, in particular the chosen family of a romantic relationship. Alongside the World Values Survey, numerous studies bear out the well-being benefits of such partnerships. For example, a survey of nearly 60,000 people across 42 countries found a consistent positive correlation between marital status and well-being.5 Conversely, research shows strong negative correlation between well-being and relationship separation.6
The importance of romantic and family relationships can be accounted for in terms of the universalistic theories above, which look to the presumed essence of personhood to conceptualize what people usually need in life.7 More prosaically, partnerships and families can also offer so-called protection effects beneficial to well-being. These include division of labor, and the emotional support of someone sharing goals and ideals similar to one’s own.8 Of course, many of these benefits are mediated by cultural context. For example, there may be greater social costs to unmarried life in certain cultures, boosting the well-being effects of marriage.9 And the effect of widowhood on well-being is to a degree a consequence of the culturally variable status of widows.10 In spite of these variations, though, across the great sweep of cultures, stable and loving partner and family relationships are widely regarded as the most significant predictor of well-being.
Helliwell and Putnam also emphasize the welfare benefits of broader social-support networks, from one’s circle of friends to the wider community. Many social psychologists would explain the benefits of these networks in terms of what Pierre Bourdieu called social capital. This is “the sum total of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual (or a group) by virtue of being enmeshed in a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.”11
Social capital is important in part because it is multidimensional.12 Put differently, much of what matters in life can be articulated in terms of social capital. It may be a resource possessed individually, as in one’s friends and other intimate contacts. It can be reflected in the community as a whole: a group that can more effectively pursue common goals is said to have greater social capital.13 Social capital may manifest in attitudinal beliefs, such as trust in others.14 It is also obtained through structured connections, such as those of a profession, institution, or organization.15 And social capital might inhere in bonding and bridging—cohesion within groups and connection across them.16
Social capital’s importance to well-being cannot be overstated. A striking example of its power—and thus, the power of relationships—comes from Finland. Researchers noticed that, in one coastal province, the Swedish‐speaking minority lived longer active lives than the Finnish-speaking majority.17 Although the two communities were similar in most respects—including genetic profile, socioeconomic status, education, and use of health services—there were remarkable disparities in morbidity, disability, and mortality. Swedish-speaking men lived 77.9 years on average, while Finnish-speaking men lived an average of only 69.2. The researchers suggest that these dramatic inequalities cannot be explained by conventional health‐related risk factors. Instead, they point to indications of higher levels of social capital in the Swedish community, including more extensive voluntary associational activity, friendship networks, and religious involvement.
Unfortunately, although social relationships are good for us, prominent theorists such as Robert Putnam and Robert Bellah18 have observed that Western societies are losing sight of their importance. An ethos of individualism is frequently invoked as an explanation for this trend, with Westerners being ever more prone to understand themselves primarily as individuals.19 That is, as Geertz would have it, the Western subject is generally regarded as a “bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe.”20 Such individualism is partly defined in contrast to collectivism, supposedly the province of Eastern cultures. As Harry Triandis puts it, people in collectivist cultures are more likely to “define themselves as aspects of groups” and to “give priority to in-group goals.”21 Where individualism involves atomization, collectivism is steeped in relation.
That said, much like the troublesome East–West distinction itself, this individualist–collectivist binary homogenizes and obscures on its way to simplicity, disregarding strains of individualism and collectivism in all societies.22 But it is nevertheless useful as a broad generalization, if only because people self-identify in this way, and not without consequences. Indeed, the individualist–collectivist distinction in self-identification has been corroborated across hundreds of empirical studies.23 Moreover, the literature shows that self-identification of this kind may have consistent effects on outcomes like cognition, emotion, and motivation.24 For instance, Richard Nisbett and colleagues report that East Asians are more likely to have “holistic” modes of cognition (i.e., attending to the entire field), and dialectical modes of reasoning, whereas Westerners are more prone to analytic modes of cognition (i.e., paying attention to a focal object), and use of formal logic.25
This individualistic sense of selfhood has also influenced the view of the person in Western academic psychology, which in turn affects how people perceive themselves. Mainstream psychology is mostly predicated on appraising and studying human beings as self-contained monads, and the field’s individualism is reflected in myriad constructs, from self-determination to self-esteem, authenticity to autonomy.26 The social, to the extent that it is recognized at all, tends to be constructed as an aggregation of individuals.27
Individualism permeates PP as well, leading theorists and practitioners to downplay the social context of well-being.28 Notably, one of the most influential works in the field, Sonia Lyubomirsky and colleagues’ analysis of factors contributing to variance in subjective well-being, holds that social circumstances are almost irrelevant.29 Drawing on genetic studies of twins, the researchers proposed that only about 10 percent of the variance in subjective well-being is shaped by social circumstances, while 50 percent is determined by genetics, and 40 percent by “intentional activities,” such as cultivating gratitude and practicing meditation.30 This and related research has directed PP toward individually targeted interventions, such as developing aptitude for intentional activities.31
Such ideas are valuable, insofar as they constitute a broadly accurate analysis of factors contributing to well-being across a population. However, the statistics are often misconstrued. Assuming that the 10 percent figure is accurate across a population—a point which has been challenged, one should note32—it is not necessarily true of every person within that population. Commentators frequently make this error, known as an ecological fallacy. For people living in more challenging situations, the impact of their social circumstances upon their well-being is likely to be far higher than 10 percent. Consider that men in England’s lowest socioeconomic class are almost three times more likely to have a common mental disorder than are those in the highest.33 More broadly, a vast range of studies in social determinants of health demonstrates that, with respect to physical wellness alone, social conditions are deeply important.34
In sum, despite the many individualist currents pressing against Westerners, there really is no getting away from the importance of relationships to our well-being. Fortunately though, there also is no good reason to essentialize individualist traits; the West is neither inevitably nor intrinsically individualistic. As such, Western cultures may yet develop a greater appreciation of the value of relationships, perhaps simply by recognizing what has mattered all along.
I submit that this development process might involve engaging with unfamiliar concepts, such as those rendered in untranslatable words. Many cultures—including some Western ones, particularly Nordic35—have developed a nuanced vocabulary for describing relationships, covering the terrain in detail that English can often lack. For English speakers, reflection on these words may prove revealing.
I divide these terms into two broad categories: love and prosociality. Love refers to any relationship characterized by selectivity and closeness. Prosociality then describes all other social ties and networks. Each set of words will help us—academic psychologists, and people generally—refine our experiential maps and explore dimensions of social existence we had not previously attended to in detail.
I may speak of love when describing my deep ardor and respect for my wife, the unshakable bond of care and loyalty I have with my family, the affection I feel toward my dog, my appreciation for the music of Tom Waits, even my occasional cravings for chocolate. All this is to say that, in English, “love” covers a lot of ground. It encompasses a multitude of feelings and attitudes; spans spectra of intensity, valence, and duration; and may be directed at all sorts of people, objects, and experiences. Indeed, Bernard Murstein describes love vividly as “an Austro-Hungarian Empire uniting all sorts of feelings, behaviors, and attitudes, sometimes having little in common.”36 Most words have multiple meanings, but love is “polysemous in the extreme.”37
Recent scholars have attempted to delineate the many strands of love. One early and influential effort was by John Lee, who drew on classical Greek and Latin distinctions to identify six styles of loving.38 He isolated three primary forms: romantic érōs, flirtatious, playful, but possibly manipulative ludus, and familial storgē. Pairing these generates three permutations. Combining ludus and storgē yields prâgma, a rational kind of love. From érōs and ludus arises mania—possessive and dependent. Finally, érōs plus storgē produces selfless agápē.
Another noted typology comes from Robert Sternberg.39 His triangular theory holds that love emerges from the interaction of three principle components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Alone and in combination, these give rise to seven types of love: liking (intimacy alone), infatuated love (passion), empty love (commitment), romantic love (intimacy and passion), companionate love (intimacy and commitment), fatuous love (passion and commitment), and consummate love (all three).
These models are largely concerned with love of other people, though they might be applied awkwardly to other phenomena. For instance, Sternberg’s triangle has been modified to explain consumers’ brand loyalty on the basis of liking, yearning, and commitment.40 Similarly, Yun-Oh Whang has argued that bikers genuinely feel érōs, mania, and agápē in relation to their motorcycle.41
What this suggests is that English subsumes a great deal under the category of love. Lee must have thought so, too, since he parsed love into more granular categories based on classical concepts. In doing so, he was essentially advocating a weak version of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, as I am. He chose terms from classical Greece and Latin precisely because they identified feelings familiar to, and understandable by, all people, but for which the English language lacked equivalents.
Lee helpfully expands our vocabulary with six pertinent words. Going further, I have located many more relevant terms, which enable us to achieve still greater granularity, including forms of love not aimed at people.* I group these into fourteen themes, each representing distinct forms of love. The first three are non-personal, directed toward experiences, non-human objects, and places. The remainder relate to people and are further grouped into three categories: caring, romantic, and transcendent love. In a spirit of poetic consistency, I label each of the fourteen forms using a relevant Greek term.
There is a Greek term, meraki, which could be loosely translated as “ardor,” but specifically with respect to one’s actions and creations. As Irene Sotiropoulou explains, meraki refers to “the care and love someone has for what he/she does.”42 I use it here to describe a passion for particular experiences and behaviors, which is the first form of nonpersonal love identified in the analysis. We shall not dwell on this form, since words pertaining to meraki can be found scattered throughout the book. These range from aficionado and duende in the previous chapter, to ikigai—a Japanese term relating to having purpose in life—in the next.
The second nonpersonal theme pertains to a love of objects. Here I mean “objects” in the widest possible sense, including not only physical things but also intangible phenomena, such as ideas. This latter usage is reflected in the loanword “philosophy,” which derives from the Greek philosophia denoting love of knowledge and wisdom (sophia). Selecting an appropriate Greek label to represent love of objects is tricky, due to ambiguities and slippages in the meaning of terms over time and across contexts. In the end, I have chosen érōs, though not without reservations. My choice is based on its classical usage, where érōs denotes desire, but not necessarily sexual desire for people, as it often does in academic and popular literature today, and in the form “erotic.” Rather, in the work of Plato and others, érōs more commonly describes appreciation of beauty, whereby one loves an object because it shares in the perfection of the divine forms. As Plato writes in Phaedrus, “He who loves the beautiful is called a lover because he partakes of it.”43 For sexual love specifically, I use epithymía instead, as explained below.
The third nonpersonal theme is the love of places, which I label chōros. As Eugene Walter argues, Ptolemy uses chōros to signify not the physical appearance of a place (topos) but its qualitative association, such as the affection and significance attached to it.44 The related term chōra could also be used to denote a sacred place, and was deployed symbolically in philosophical texts to refer to a vital space, such as a metaphorical womb in which ideas gestate before being born.45
Many languages incorporate words that express a love of place, and not in the ambivalent, longing senses of saudade or hiraeth. One such word is the Māori noun tūrangawaewae, which literally means “a place to stand,” describing land one would feel comfortable calling “mine” or “ours.”46 Relatedly, mana whenua delineates those who may exert moral authority and guardianship over a territory. This concept has had legal implications in New Zealand, where it has been incorporated into legislation that deals with guardianship and stewardship of natural resources.47
Similarly evocative of belonging is the Spanish noun querencia. Deriving from the verb querer, meaning to desire, it can refer to a place where one feels secure or from which one draws strength. As Ernest Hemingway famously explained in Death in the Afternoon, the term is commonly used in bullfighting to describe the bull’s “preferred locality,” where it “naturally wants to go in the ring.”48 In the case of people, Kirkpatrick Sale writes, querencia articulates the “deep sense of inner well-being that comes from knowing a particular place on the Earth; its daily and seasonal patterns, its fruits and scents, its soils and bird-songs. A place where, whenever you return to it, your soul releases an inner sigh of recognition and realization.”49 The Welsh noun cynefin captures a similar sense of intimate relationship with the environment where one was born or raised, or to which one feels “naturally acclimatized.”50
Turning to love for people, I begin with care, which I distinguish from romantic and transcendent love. I further delineate caring love into three main forms.
The first is the love embodied in close friendship, which Plato called philia.51 So closely associated is Plato with philia that today love between friends is often described as “platonic.” In classical Greece, philia usually referred to fondness, appreciation, and loyalty, in contrast to the desire conveyed by érōs. Philia was bestowed not just on friends but also one’s family, community, and country.52 In Rhetoric, Aristotle associates philia with “doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done.”53 Modern Greek also contains an interesting derivation, philotimo. Sometimes rendered as “love of honor,” this conveys the culturally important ideal of respecting one’s friends and the wider community.54
Other terms describe acts of friendship pertaining to specific arenas, such as spiritual practice. One example is the Hebrew noun havruta. Literally meaning “fellowship,” it describes the practice of paired or shared learning—particularly of religious texts, such as the Talmud—and the bond that can result.55 A similar concept is conveyed by the Sanskrit kalyāṇa mitratā, which might be rendered as “spiritual friendship.”56 The term derives from the adjective kalyāṇa, meaning “auspicious,” “helpful,” or “good,” and the noun maitrī, which describes a form of compassionate loving-kindness (as discussed further below). In a religious context, kalyāṇa mitratā is deliberately, even formally, used to identify groups of people committed to helping one another along their spiritual and ethical paths.
A second form of caring love is directed at oneself. I refer to this with the Greek philautia, which encompasses self-esteem, self-compassion, self-regard, and self-respect. In classical Greece, philautia was recognized as a vital component of a well-lived life. For example, Aristotle argued philautia was the precondition for the other forms of love, and, if cultivated and deployed skillfully, constituted a sound basis for ethics.57 Contemporary psychologists such as Kristen Neff also emphasize these self-valuing qualities.58 Mind you, excessive self-regard can produce arrogance, egotism, and narcissism. Ideally though, the form I consider here does not come at the expense of others, who are equally respected and cherished. Thus, Aristotle’s self-love is a reflective pursuit of virtue, a desire to cultivate one’s character and thereby learn to extend affection and help to others.59
French has at least two forms of philautia, each of which can be admirable or problematic. The philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau held amour de soi, which translates as “self-love,” in high regard.60 Amour de soi indicates a secure form of self-concern that is not contingent on others’ validation. However, in this very security there is the potential for inconsiderateness.61 Rousseau was more disparaging of amour propre, which also translates as “self-love” but carries connotations of vanity, and is seen as comparatively fragile and dependent on external validation.62 Even so, because amour propre entails concern for others’ opinions, it can lead to prosocial behaviors in hopes of currying approval.63
The third category in my typology of caring love is storgē, which readers will recall from Lee’s theory, but which I use specifically to describe familial love. In classical Greece, storgē usually referred to care and affection of this sort.64 Don Browning describes it in terms of the “deep and preferential investment by parents” in their children.65 Admittedly, there is a fuzzy boundary between storgē and philia—as there is between many categories here—given that some close friends regard each other as family. Nevertheless, it is useful to differentiate between love of friends and the kind of unconditional, even instinctual, love that can exist between kin.66
One interesting term reflecting familial love is kanyininpa, from the Australian Aboriginal Pintupi language. Fred Myers describes this as “an intimate and active relationship between a ‘holder’ and that which is ‘held,’” capturing the nurturance and protection parents usually provide children.67 Built into kanyininpa are senses of unconditionality and responsibility that apply in family contexts, but usually not among friends (or at least not to the same degree).
The Yiddish naches (nachat in Hebrew)—which features in Ekman’s Atlas of Emotion from the previous chapter68—articulates a more celebratory type of affection, in particular the pride felt in one’s children, although possibly also unrelated mentees. A related Yiddish word is kvell, derived from a Germanic verb meaning to “well up.” Where naches is a kind of pride, kvell refers to the overt expression of that pride.69 What makes naches and kvell unique and difficult to translate is that they rarely refer to pride taken in others generally and instead are directed almost exclusively at people younger than oneself. By contrast, the Chinese xiào, often translated as “filial piety” or “family reverence,”70 specifies respect for and devotion to one’s elders and ancestors.
Our inquiry now moves into the domain of romantic love, of which my analysis uncovered no fewer than five distinct forms. Any given partnership may involve any or all five types, in a mixture that may shift over time.
Much romantic love involves my first form, passionate love. This I label epithymía, which in classical Greek denoted desire and lust. The word has a revealing etymology, deriving from the Greek thymós, which connotes spiritedness and will. Thymós in turn is thought to derive from the Indo-European dhu, which evokes “the swirling of air in a vortex,” and therefore in the context of passion implies a turbulent emotion that can be difficult to control.71
We have already broached the theme of sexual passion in the previous chapter with jouissance. Alluding more to the buildup to such a climax is mamihlapinatapai, from the Yagán language of Tierra del Fuego. Geoff Taylor defines this as “looking at each other hoping that either will offer to do something which both parties desire but are unwilling to do.”72 Thus, it can be used to describe a longing look between people that expresses unspoken mutual lust.73
Conveying more of the excitement of desire is the Tagalog kilig. This can simply mean to shake or tremble,74 but it can also describe the “butterflies” in the stomach arising from an interaction with, or thoughts about, someone one desires or finds attractive. The term was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016, where it is defined as “exhilaration or elation caused by an excitement or romantic experience.”
The second form of romantic love involves playfulness, but potentially also manipulative “gamesmanship.” Lee used the Latin ludus to describe these kinds of behavior; for consistency, I prefer the Greek equivalent paixnidi. Both can be translated as “game” or “play,” and both are multifaceted, usable in positive or negative ways. But in their positive inflections—which are our primary concern here—they can refer to gestures of flirtation and coyness, and to seductive strategies such as playing hard to get.75
Although situated here as a variant of romance, ludus does not exclusively pertain to this category. The spirit of ludus can also infuse other forms of love, such as philia or storgē, as seen in forms of playful affection between friends or family members. An example of this is found in Tagalog, where gigil describes the “urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.”76 A similar note of playfulness is sounded in the French noun frimousse, which has been translated as “sweet little face” and is used to describe a person whom one finds cute or otherwise endearing.77
A more elevated instance of ludus infiltrating non-romantic forms of love is with respect to transcendent love, as found in esoteric contemplative traditions. For instance, the mystic Henry Suso (1300–1366) is credited with developing the notion of ludus amoris, which literally means “game of love” and has been used to depict the divine play of God.78 The phrase refers to the way God is experienced as enticing, eluding, and ultimately embracing the spiritual seeker.79 Comparable concepts are found in other traditions, such as the Sanskrit noun līlā, which has been deployed in Hinduism to describe the cosmos as the creative play of a divine being or power.80
However, paixnidi and ludus can also have negative connotations, describing scheming and deception in relation to love. Many of the studies drawing on Lee’s typology emphasize this aspect. For instance, David Sarwer defines ludus as “a manipulative, game-playing orientation toward intimate relationships” associated with coercion.81
Indeed, one of the advantages of using untranslatable words to delineate different forms of love is that we can allow the good and bad ingredients to separate, conceptually if not experientially. Thus we arrive at the third and darkest inflection of romance, which Lee and I both label using the Greek mania. Of course, this is already a loanword, generically denoting madness or frenzy, as it did in classical Greece; the manaie were spirits who personified insanity, possession, and death.82 With respect to love specifically, this troubled emotion has echoes in the French notion of amour fou, which translates as “mad love.”83 In themselves, mania and amour fou are not associated with well-being, but I include these in order to more fully understand the complexities of love—which of course is central to well-being—including its often ambivalent and potentially problematic nature.84
Contrasting with the intensity and instability of mania is the fourth form of romantic love, which Lee and I identify as prâgma. In its original Greek context, prâgma denoted a deed, action, or “thing done,” and as such is the root for the English “pragmatism.”85 This form of love has tenuous parallels with Sternberg’s “empty” love, which involves commitment but not intimacy. However, the pejorative connotation of emptiness does a disservice. Prâgma captures the idea that, while romantic love may often be passionate, it can also be a long-term process of building a life in partnership and forging bonds that do not depend on the whims of desire.
This aspect of romance is often overlooked, or perhaps is not even regarded as love, as Sternberg suggests. However, its value has been recognized by theorists such as Erich Fromm, who argued in The Art of Loving that people place too much importance on falling in love, and not enough on learning how to “stand in love.”86 The reasonableness of prâgma is captured by the French verb s’apprivoiser, which literally means “to tame,”87 but which, in the context of a relationship, can describe a mutual process of accommodation, whereby both sides slowly learn to trust and accept each other.
Finally, the last form of romantic love might be regarded as the deepest, most intense, but possibly also the most tragic. This refers to the kind of bond that can appear ordained by fate—either to succeed or fail. I label this sort of love anánkē, after the Greek goddess of necessity, compulsion, and inevitability. “Even the Gods don’t fight against Anánkē,” the poet Simonides wrote.88
This preordained sense of fate is captured by the Japanese term koi no yokan. Translated as a “premonition of love,” it articulates the intuition on meeting someone that falling for them may be inevitable.89 This is not so much love at first sight as the more vertiginous feeling of being about to fall for someone. It also is imbued with “echoes of melancholy and uncertainty,” as Kevin Williams puts it, since there is no guarantee the path of love will run smooth.90 This concern is common in literature, where fated love is frequently tragic in its course; Romeo and Juliet may be the most famous case in the West.91 The English term “star-crossed” captures this negative sense of fatedness, but not the positive sense also contained in koi no yokan.
Finally, we have three types of love characterized by the transcendence of personal needs and desires.
The first is described by the Greek noun koinōnía, which denotes communion, fellowship, intimacy, joint participation, and so on. However, I do not have in mind the general sense of community that, say, members of a church may feel.92 Rather, picture a sudden efflorescence of participatory consciousness and collective euphoria at a worship service, or alternatively a rock concert or football game. It is specifically this kind of fugitive yet intense shared connection that koinōnía encapsulates. One is swept out of one’s habitual self-contained individuality, and instead is momentarily united with some larger intersubjective unit, experientially becoming “one” with the group.
The second form of transcendent love is agápē, which also features in Lee’s typology. In classical Greece, it usually denoted selfless forms of love. In English it is thought of mostly in terms of charity,93 but in Greek versions of the Bible it is used to describe God’s unconditional love for humanity. Followers are urged to emulate agápē in their worldly relations, hence the exhortation to “love thy neighbor.” The sense here is of a universal love, embracing all humanity. In the New Testament, agápē is preeminent among the theological virtues. In the words of Saint Paul, “So faith, hope, love [agápē] abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”94
This type of benevolent love is encouraged in other spiritual contexts too. I have already mentioned the term maitrī in the context of spiritual friendships.95 So esteemed is maitrī in Buddhism that it is regarded in the Therevada tradition as one of the four brahmavihārās, or “abodes of Brahma” (the God of creation in Hindu theology—not to be confused with Brahman, which is discussed in the next chapter). Brahmavihārās denote the four qualities people are encouraged to develop, thereby becoming “Brahma-like” (a divinity who is specifically regarded as being loving and free from hate). In addition to maitrī, these are karuṇā (compassion), muditā (sympathetic happiness), and upekṣā (equanimity). Agápē captures a comparable spirit to maitrī, as does the Hebrew hésed, which is significant in Judaism. Relatedly, gemilut hasadim refers to bestowal or acts of loving-kindness.96 Similarly exalted in Nguni Bantu languages, particularly Zulu and Xhosa, is the notion of ubuntu. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu explains, ubuntu “speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness; it speaks about compassion.”97
Some languages make the universal character of loving kindness explicit by emphasizing kindness toward strangers. For instance, the Pashtun of Afghanistan and Northwest Pakistan have made the practice of melmastia a central tenet of ethical life. This may be translated simply as “hospitality,” but scholars note that the connotations of the term are more radical. Melmastia is generally deemed unconditional, such that one should grant asylum to anyone who seeks it, even an adversary.98 Similarly, Rawiri Blundell argues that the Māori noun manaakitanga, which has been defined as “reciprocal hospitality and connectivity,”99 is a “cornerstone” of that people’s tradition. It speaks to both the host’s responsibility to welcome the visitor, and the visitor’s invitation to partake of the host’s generosity. There is more at stake than even care for others, though; the concept encompasses the pursuit of “common ground upon which an affinity and sense of sharing can begin.”100 Similar ideals are expressed by the Greek xenia, “guest-friendship” and the Hebrew hachnasat orchim, “welcoming the stranger.”101
Our final form of transcendent love could be regarded as the counterpart to agápē. Recall the biblical conception of agápē as God’s unconditional paternal love for humanity. Just as agápē flows downward from God, sébomai—which also features in the New Testament—reaches upward, reflecting a submissive stance of reverence and devotion.102 There is an element of awe here, as reflected in Søren Kierkegaard’s “fear and trembling,”103 and described by Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt as being at “the upper reaches of pleasure and on the boundary of fear.”104
Like agápē, sébomai is found across traditions. For instance, in Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit term bhakti describes devotion toward spiritual ideas and beings, and the sacred generally.105 There are also words for persons—aside from Gods—that may be a focus of such adoration, such as the Sanskrit guru, which denotes a revered spiritual teacher.106
Intimate bonds with select others are essential to well-being. But as we saw in the Finnish study, so are relations with others in general. Indeed, Nordic countries on the whole offer clues about the importance of these broader social relations. As we have seen, these places are consistently ranked among the happiest nations on earth. They are affluent and politically stable, which certainly helps.107 But comparably wealthy and stable countries such as the United States and United Kingdom do not share the same high levels of overall life satisfaction.108 Many theorists believe this is because Nordic communities tend to enjoy high levels of social capital, which is both attributed to and reflected in their relatively low levels of inequality and their egalitarian social policies.109
To foster the socioeconomic dimensions of well-being, it helps to recognize that well-being itself is inherently a social phenomenon, not exclusively a private psychological state. This can be hard for more individualistic societies to grasp. We might do better by cultivating a sensibility Carolina Izquierdo locates among the Matsigenka of the Peruvian Amazon, who do not consider themselves personally well if their social group is damaged or suffering.110 I submit that untranslatable words might help people develop a less individualistic stance by bringing greater nuance to notions of prosociality. I group these words into five broad themes: socializing and congregating, morals and ethics, compassion and kindness, interaction and communication, and communality.
Our tour of prosociality opens with a celebration of socializing and congregating. We encountered a range of positive feelings pertaining to fun and revelry in the previous chapter. Here I touch upon the myriad social practices cultures have developed to enable such experiences—practices more nuanced than is captured by the generic English term “party.”
Some of these terms are familiar because English speakers have already adopted them, taking advantage of their granularity. These include, for instance, the French soirée (a relatively cultured evening party, often centered on music or conversation), aperitif (which technically refers to a drink taken before dinner, but also covers the occasion itself),111 and salon (an intellectual gathering).112 Spanish has similar words such as tertulia, which refers to a social gathering or conversation that has literary or artistic overtones. Less refined is a botellón, which literally means “big bottle,” and signifies a public congregation of people drinking, possibly to excess.113 Such examples could be multiplied, but the point has hopefully been made: language can chart the state-space of socializing with fine precision, allowing us to discern subtleties in the ways people get together for enjoyment and stimulation.
Congregation can also have deep cultural meaning and importance, such as in religious contexts. Although I focus on spirituality in the next chapter, the social aspects of religious life are relevant here. (Although the distinction between religion and spirituality is fraught, spirituality is often regarded as more personal and self-defined, largely free of the rules, regulations, and responsibilities associated with religion.114) Indeed, religion is so influential, touching many aspects of life, that it is often difficult to disentangle religious and social practices.115 Accordingly, the world’s languages feature many religiously oriented forms of socializing. It would be impossible to cover all of them, so by way of example I will focus on Judaism—a religion especially abundant in social customs—and in particular on two quite different traditions.*
First, on a more festive note is the annual celebration and holiday of Purim, commemorating the saving of the Jewish people from an oppressive figure named Haman, as recounted in the Book of Esther.116 The name itself may be the plural of pūr, meaning “lot,” an allusion to Haman’s practice of drawing lots to determine the date on which he would commit his atrocities (although other etymologies have also been suggested).117 Purim is a generally joyous occasion, marked by customs aimed at fostering a lively atmosphere and community of care. For instance, participants exchange treats called mishloach manot, which literally means “sending of portions.”
The joyousness of Purim is contrasted with the solemn gravity of Shiv’ah, or Shiva, a specific form of wake or collective grieving. Here the Hebrew word meaning “seven” is used to denote the week-long period of mourning prescribed in Judaism.118 While the family are engaged in this mourning period (often referred to as “sitting shiva”), friends, relatives, and members of the wider community visit to pay a “shiva call,” providing solace, as well as supportive necessities. This practice of Nichum aveilim—“comforting the mourner”—is regarded as a great mitzvah.119 Mitzvah in itself is an important term, meaning commandment or law. To perform a mitzvah is to enact a deed in accordance with Jewish ethics, i.e., to fulfil one of God’s commandments (of which there are 613 according to tradition).120 And many such deeds—though by no means all—pertain to prosociality, hence their relevance here. Mitzvah also connects to our next theme under consideration, morals and ethics.
Many terms describing moral and ethical concepts are untranslatable. I also discuss this topic in the next chapter, but I wish to introduce it here because ethical systems are created via prosocial processes, and are also often designed to engender prosocial behavior.
Morals—from the Latin mōres, connoting norms, custom, and tradition—can be conceptualized as beliefs and practices about right and wrong that are “sanctioned by the conscience of the community.”121 Ethics—from the Greek ethikos, meaning habit, custom, or usage, but also character or bearing—is the explicit codification of these morals as a system of prescriptions and proscriptions.122
Morals and ethics cover many areas of life, not only those relating to sociality. For instance, many cultures have developed dietary prescriptions that conceivably promote public health, but which are also concerned with notions of sanctity that are mostly unrelated to social considerations. The closely related Jewish and Muslim ideas of kashrut and halal are good examples. However, many ethical guidelines are in fact concerned with how we ought to treat one other.
Different cultures have developed a variety of foundational theories about morality—why it matters and why people should adhere to it. By way of example, I will focus on Buddhism, which has a particularly rich and theoretically detailed moral lexicon.
One of the teachings at the center of Buddhism is a doctrine known in Sanskrit as pratītya-samutpāda, often translated as the law of “conditionality” or “dependent origination.”123 It articulates the Buddha’s insight into the causal nature of the universe, the ordered relationships between conditions and their effects. In Buddhism, this is arguably the meta law that underpins all other laws, such as the pivotal four “Noble Truths,” known in Sanskrit as catvāri āryasatyāni.124 We have already encountered the first truth, duḥkha, referring to the suffering and dissatisfaction that pervade life. The second is samudaya, which refers to the causes of duḥkha, namely attachment and craving. The third is nirodha, cessation, the termination of duḥkha by eliminating attachment and craving. The fourth is mārga, the path by which one can cease such craving and attachment. Buddhism promotes, in particular, the ashtangika mārga, or eightfold path.125
Buddhists regard such teachings as the key to well-being and ultimately nirvāṇa. As Urgyen Sangharakshita and Dharmachari Subhuti put it, “Once we have understood and are fully convinced about the nature of reality as paṭicca-samuppāda”—the Pāli term for this doctrine of causation—“we align ourselves with those regularities or laws that lead us to liberation.”126 These laws have been expounded upon in various ways in Buddhist literature. One influential analysis is the identification of five levels of conditionality, known as the fivefold niyāmas.* Niyāmas can be defined as “laws, conditions or constraints that govern processes or phenomena.”127 These identify domains of life subject to causal law-like principles.
Utu niyāma refers to the “law of the seasons,” that is, the regularity of environmental phenomena. From the perspective of contemporary scientific understanding, it can be seen as equivalent to physical laws as they relate to inorganic phenomena, such as gravity. Bīja niyāma denotes the “law of seeds”—patterns in the realm of organic phenomena, such as might be studied by a modern biochemist. Citta niyāma, the “law of the mind” covers psychological processes, such as causes of mental events. Karma niyāma encapsulates “the desirable and undesirable results following good and bad action.”128 Finally, dharma niyāma is the “law of nature,” which refers to the “spiritual potential” inherent in the universe. From a Darwinian perspective, this potential is revealed in the emergence of life and the evolution of sentient human beings, who are able to make spiritual progress.129
Buddhism deploys this framework as a rationale for morality. Of particular relevance are the last two niyāmas, karma and dharma. In itself, karma simply means “action,” but popular usage of karma as a loanword does capture the key insight of the concept: actions have consequences. This differs subtly from Christian ideas of virtue and sin, in that no supernatural agency administers justice. Rather, in the Buddhist conception, we are rewarded or punished by our actions, not for them. As Chris Kang explains, “Volitional action rooted in non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion (or in positive terms: generosity, love/compassion, and wisdom) gives rise to virtuous or positive imprints in the mind that would subsequently result in experiences of happiness and pleasure.”130 Thus, we see a powerful rationale for acting morally: moral acts benefit not only the recipient and the broader community but also the actor. This motivation then blends into the final level of causality, the dharma niyāma. Essentially, Buddhism holds that if one pursues ethical action, the result may be more than happiness or pleasure—it may be bodhi and consequently nirvāṇa.
I will return to the possibility of psychospiritual development in the next chapter. For now, let us consider some of the specific moral precepts that may lead people along the path to that goal.
Buddhist moral guidance and practice is known in Sanskrit as śīla. Three aspects of the Noble Eightfold Path are devoted to it: vācā (speech), karmānta (action), and ājīva (livelihood).* Various precepts specify in detail what then constitutes right speech, action, and livelihood. The best known and most widely adhered to are the pañcaśīlāni or “five precepts,” which usually take the form of identifying a proscribed action.
The first proscribed behavior is pāṇātipātā—harming or killing. This precept can also be formulated positively as a commitment to, for example, maitrī and ahiṃsā (nonviolence). The second precept is adinnādānā, an injunction not to “take the not-given” (asteya)—an idea that is rather more subtle than simply not stealing—and in favor of generosity (dana). The third is kāmesu micchācāra, misconduct or “unwholesome” behavior concerning sexual or sensual activity. This is represented positively as the cultivation of saṃtoṣa, or total contentment. The fourth is musāvādā (false speech), or phrased positively, the cultivation of satya (truthfulness). The final precept is surāmerayamajja pamādaṭṭhānā, which refers to abstention from unmindful states related to alcohol or drugs; in positive terms, it enjoins the cultivation of smṛti. Most of these precepts relate, directly or indirectly, to the treatment of others.
So, having set out an example of a general theory concerning morals and ethics—using Buddhism as a case study—let us consider the various prosocial behaviors encouraged across the world’s cultures. Many such behaviors pertain to kindness and compassion.
In the section above, I explored the issue of morals and ethics by examining theoretical principles that explain why these are important for well-being. In doing so, I mentioned Buddhism’s five precepts, most of which pertain to kindness and compassion in some way. Ideas relating to these precepts can be found across the world’s languages.
Indeed, compassion and kindness themselves have interesting etymologies. As noted above, compassion derives from the Latin stems com (with) and pati (to suffer), thus connoting “a sense of shared suffering.”131 In this respect, it has parallels with its kinship loanwords empathy and sympathy, both of which have their origins in Greek.* As discussed in the previous chapter, pathos can mean suffering, but also refers more broadly to emotion, or even simply experience.132 The prefix em- then denotes “in,” while sym—sun in the original Greek—means “with.” Empathy and sympathy thus respectively describe sharing in or with another person’s feelings. These kinds of valorized relational processes are reflected here in a range of words.
Some terms refer to empathic sharing of sorrows and pains. One example is the Hebrew koev halev, which translates as “the heart aches,” thus constituting a particularly vivid evocation of empathy (which need not always be heart-rending in this way). Others pertain to vicarious embarrassment, somewhat like cringing. These include the German Fremdschämen, combining Fremd, meaning foreign or other, and schämen, to be ashamed or embarrassed.133 Conveying a more general concern for others’ plight is the Māori verb and noun aroha. Although sometimes rendered as “mutuality,”134 this translation lacks the warmth implied by the original. Finally, the Japanese term omoiyari, which has been defined as “altruistic sensitivity,” has more active connotations.135 Like sympathy and empathy, omoiyari indicates intuitive awareness and understanding of others’ subjectivity. But unlike those, omoiyari also conveys a commitment to altruistic action on the basis of this intuition.
Compassion, empathy, and sympathy all involve sensitivity to others’ emotions—but usually their feelings of dysphoria in particular. But we might also recognize and share in each other’s joys. We have already encountered two non-English terms of this type, the Sanskrit muditā and Yiddish noun naches. The Hebrew firgun similarly expresses open pride and happiness in another’s success but in more reciprocal terms. The relationship is not paternalistic, and there is a sense of sharing the other’s joy as he experiences it. Likewise, the Dutch verb gunnen connotes allowing, conceding, and granting, and has been translated as “to not begrudge.”136 But the term is more complex than that, articulating as well the conviction that the other person deserves something positive and that, furthermore, one will derive satisfaction from their attaining it.
Whether one is empathizing with others in distress or sharing in their joy, compassionate feelings are widely associated with kindness, another sensibility to which different languages are attuned in varying ways.
As is often the case, the etymology and history of “kindness” tell us much about its meaning. The word derives from the Old English cynde, an adjective referring to the innate character of phenomena, and related to “kin.”137 In its earliest senses, kindness indicated the affection and concern of that type shared by kin or others of the same kind, such as a particular community or cultural group.138 Over time, the ambit of kindness expanded to people in general, making for a more modest and achievable version of agápē.
I noted above that, today, agápē is often associated with charity, an understanding that reflects this latter-day overlap between kindness and agápē. We see a similar sort of conceptual merger in translations of the Hebrew tzedaka and Arabic sadaqah as charity.139 In fact, both incorporate a sense of moral obligation absent from the English charity, connoting righteousness, justice, and fairness.140 Whereas charity is seen as voluntary and magnanimous, tzedaka/sadaqah is one’s duty.141 A widespread conception of charity in these terms might make for a social revolution in approaches to well-being.
Where tzedaka/sadaqah relies on a kind of legalism, the Chinese guān xì, sometimes described as “interpersonal connections,”142 is more transactional. Tapping into notions of karma, it reflects the idea that one who does good deeds might reasonably expect goodwill in return.143 Meanwhile, the beneficiary of good deeds experiences an intuition of moral indebtedness and resulting obligation, called ēn. This intuition may play a role in the notion of xiào, filial piety.144
Social harmony demands not only kindness but, more generally, effective interaction and communication. Thus, many terms extol the virtues of interacting and communicating skillfully.
One that we have been introduced to is the Buddhist precept of eschewing adinnādānā, which I described as an injunction against stealing. It is that, but not only in a material sense. It also can be interpreted as a prohibition against theft of all manner of phenomena—including dignity, for example, thereby enjoining people from, say, gossiping. In my PhD research, meditators spoke of cultivating more harmonious relationships through attention to adinnādānā.145
Alongside respect, politeness and civility are widely thought of as an important facet of prosocial interaction. The Persian ta’ârof is sometimes translated simply as “politeness,” but it is a more nuanced form of ritual courtesy, particularly in relation to receiving and offering hospitality and gifts.146 Abdi Raifee likens it to a “verbal wrestling match” in which hosts encourage their guests to have more food and drink, and guests insistently refuse before finally relenting. The term nicely captures the condition of hospitality, in which the host is eager to welcome, yet the guest hopes to “minimise imposition upon, or inconvenience to” the host.147
If ta’ârof has about it an air of negotiation, the Arabic noun taarradhin has even more so. This describes a positive solution to a disagreement—no begrudging compromise, but rather a win-win. As Aaron Wolf elucidates, this concept is influential in many predominately Muslim countries, serving as a guide diplomatic interaction.148
Diplomacy is enhanced by civility, another concept to which non-English languages bring nuance. The Catalan verb enraonar is often translated simply as “to speak,” but, Enric Trillas and Maria Navarro explain, it implies communicating in “the best possible manner.”149 It means speaking “with a certain order, precision, calm and with the help of minimal but sufficient reasons to explain oneself.” The goal is both to “be understood as clearly as possible,” and to strive to understand the interlocutor in return.
The Fijian verb talanoa emphasizes civil discourse in another way, and roughly means “to tell stories.” In telling one’s story, one affords others context that helps them understand one’s perspective. And in listening to others’ stories, one bestows respect. The kind of discourse denoted by talanoa has benefits for well-being and has been harnessed as such in contexts ranging from conflict management to qualitative inquiry.150 More generally, communication is enhanced by the pleasure taken in conversation. This is reflected in the evocative Arabic verb samar, denoting the culturally significant and popular activity of sitting in conversation in the evening.151
Across cultures and time periods, salutations and interjections have also served important, prosocial communicative functions. Indeed, the English “hello” is comparatively lacking in expressiveness, serving purely as a greeting. Consider the Hebrew shalom and Arabic salām, forms of which are used in greeting and parting but which also refer to peace, harmony, wholeness, prosperity, and tranquility.152 Hebrew also features the well-known expression mazal tov. Literally “good fortune,” mazal tov is used as a congratulation and yet carries an additional sense of hoping for the addressee’s health and happiness.153 More playful is the Hebrew interjection tithadesh, which translates as “may it renew you,” “get new” or even “renovate yourself.” The idea is to commend someone who has acquired a new possession or a fortuitous change in circumstance.154 Or take the Japanese otsukaresama, derived from the verb tsukarea, meaning “to be or get tired,” which articulates gratitude for another’s efforts.155
Some positive interjections are not merely agreeable expressions deployed to smooth the passage of social interaction. They can be representative of a valued way of being. Something of this nature is seen with the Hawaiian word aloha—cognate with the aforementioned Māori aroha—which can be translated as the “breath of presence.”156 Not only does it serve as an expressive salutation, it is portrayed as epitomizing the spirit of Hawaiian culture.157
Moreover, skillful interaction need not only involve treating people well. Many cultures have developed words to reflect the notion that human beings can—moreover should—be in respectful and sensitive communion with the natural world. Consider dadirri, used in various Australian Aboriginal languages. This term describes an act of reflective, respectful, even spiritual listening. As Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann of the Ngangikurungkurr tribe explains, it denotes “inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness. … When I experience dadirri, I am made whole again. I can sit on the riverbank or walk through the trees; even if someone close to me has passed away, I can find my peace in this silent awareness.”158 Dadirri transcends the act of listening and signifies a contemplative way of life in which one is receptive to, and reverent toward, the world.159
The notion of living “in tune” with nature is similarly captured by hózhǫ́, a term portrayed as constituting the essence of the Diné (Navajo) people, reflecting their ideal of existing in balance, peace, and harmony with the world. As Michelle Kahn-John and Mary Koithan elucidate, it constitutes a “complex wellness philosophy and belief system … comprised of principles that guide one’s thoughts, actions, behaviors, and speech.”160 Conversely, the Hopi term koyaanisqatsi represents an absence of this kind of harmonious connection. This has been translated as “nature out of balance” or “time out of joint,” denoting a dysfunctional way of living that calls for urgent change or renewal.161 These ideas of harmony are reflected in the final section here, which articulates a broader sense of communality.
Our final theme, communality, is concerned not with particular relationships but rather the togetherness of groups more broadly. This is perhaps exemplified by the Spanish idea of simpatía, which Harry Triandis and colleagues describe as a Hispanic “cultural script” that encourages people to “strive for harmony” in interpersonal relations, thereby enabling a social group—of whatever size, from a family to a society—to be in agreement and accord.162 This idealized notion of social synchrony is likewise reflected in the Javanese tjotjog, which has come to prominence in academia through Geertz’s work. He suggests it means “to fit, as a key does in a lock,” and constitutes a “metaphysical concept” at the heart of Javanese culture.163 In his analysis, it describes a cherished harmony. It can apply between friends, to a well-matched couple, agreeable food, clothes fitting, and generally to any desired outcome. Most relevantly here, it also describes the internal coherence of a group.
This ideal of communality is also reflected in terms articulating “community spirit,” such as the Arabic asabiyyah, which has been translated roughly as “solidarity.” It conveys a sense of intersubjective group consciousness and/or identity. Although sometimes equated with tribal loyalty, asabiyyah can depict more intangible bonds, such as between people united by religious beliefs or spiritual experiences.164 Likewise, solidarity is conveyed by the Swahili term tuko pamoja, which can be translated as “we are together” or “we are one.”165 The Danish adjective folkelig, which literally means “folkish,” suggests a sense of a specifically national spirit.166 On an even grander scale, the Russian noun mir translates as “peace,” but also “world” or “community,” thus articulating a vision of global togetherness. It also may be accompanied by the adjective Russkiy, thereby signifying the “Russian world” in particular—all people who identify with Russia or feel themselves to be Russian, not only those within Russia’s geographic borders.167
Other words describe people working together for the common good, an essential element of prosocial interaction. Many such terms hail from Nordic languages, being further indicative of their egalitarian and collectivist cultural commitments. These include talkoot in Finnish and dugnad in Norwegian. As Isto Huvila elucidates, these describe “a short, intensive, collective effort with a tangible goal,” such as when people voluntarily pitch in to help someone renovate their home.168
There is also the fascinatingly ambiguous neologism Janteloven, coined by the Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose to describe the ten laws of Jante, a fictional community in his critical 1933 novel. These laws proscribe individualism and encourage collectivism.169 In one sense, they could be regarded as exemplifying Nordic egalitarianism. However, per Sandemose’s intention, the term is used colloquially in Nordic countries to denote social pressure toward conformity, and to criticize the notion that people should aspire to fit in to a collectivist mold.170
Janteloven is therefore emblematic of a tension at the heart of the way selfhood is often conceived and experienced in contemporary society: the felt need both to fit in and to become one’s “own person.”171 In this chapter, I have been concerned with the first aspect of this duality. The next chapter turns to the second—personal development.
This chapter elucidates the ways in which relationships can be conducive to well-being. We explored terms subsumed under the label “love,” charting all manner of close, intimate bonds. There were three forms of nonpersonal love: for activities (meraki), objects (érōs), and places (chōros). Next we discussed three forms of caring love: for friends (philia), family (storgē), and oneself (philautia). We then encountered five forms of romantic love, denoting relationships that are passionate (epithymía), playful (paixnidi), possessive (mania), sensible (prâgma), and fated (anánkē). Finally, there were three forms of transcendent love, including communion with a group (koinōnía), compassionate (agápē), and reverential (sébomai). We then considered prosociality more broadly, addressing the importance of socializing and congregating, morals and ethics, compassion and kindness, interaction and communication, and communality. In a counterbalance to this chapter, the next outlines the importance of individual development.