The Happiest and Most Miserable Countries in the World: Iceland and Moldova

 In The Geography of Bliss, in which Eric Weiner travels the world in search of happiness, he discovers heaven and hell, Iceland and Moldova respectively. Iceland is the happiest country in the world while Moldova is the most miserable.

Here are some telling points about Iceland’s happiness:

 

1. In general colder climates are happier. Why? There’s the Get-Along-or-Die Theory. In warm climates we can be isolated if we want. In harsh climates, we need each other. Weiner writes that “Interdependence is the mother of affection.”
2. A society built on reciprocity develops love.
3. Iceland is so small, there are no strangers in Iceland. Whether we want to believe this or not, studies show that homogenous societies are happier (though living in diverse Los Angeles, I love all the eclectic food choices I have here so I’m not sure if Weiner is including gastronomical happiness)
4. Iceland shares the pain of inflation. Everyone pays higher and higher prices, because their country favors inflation over job loss: Unemployment is far worse because it’s experiences individually.
5. Icelanders don’t suffer delusions of grandeur or immortality about their cities. They feel insignificant in the best, humble sense of the word. And this sense of humility results in happiness.
6. They accept the wonder and harsh doom of nature.
7. Icelanders love their language and their greetings are benevolent such as “Go happy,” vertu saell,” and “come happy,” komdu saell.”
8. Their language is “egalitarian and utterly free of pretense.”
9. They feel connected to the land and receive creative energy from it.
10. Icelanders suppress envy by sharing things, in contrast with the Swiss who hide things.
11. Failure doesn’t carry a stigma in Iceland. It’s okay to fail with the best intentions. It’s okay to try and fail. This is a nurturing society, not a society of haters.
12. Naïveté serves them well. There’s a certain innocence, a goodness, about them. They’re not so “sophisticated” in an arrogant stuffy sense of the word.
13. The collective culture encourages creativity, which allows us to lose ourselves in something larger than us, something Weiner calls “flow.”
14. Icelandic people thrive on being sad and happy at the same time, a natural part of the human condition.

 

Then there’s Moldova. Weiner spares no judgment on this culture, which he analyzes with a mixture of pity, disgust, and condemnation.

 

1. Unlike the Icelanders, the Moldovans are seething with envy, which can be defined as thus: The unhappy cannot bear the sight of the happy. Weiner writes that in their country “envy accumulates like toxic waste.”
2. Weiner describes the Moldovans’ body language as sour and bitter and this in turn makes the people feel sour and bitter.
3. The Moldovans have been beaten down into learned helplessness. One of their common sayings is “This is Moldova.” Or “What can I do?”
4. Moldovans compare themselves to the richer countries, not the poorer ones. So of course the glass is always half empty.
5. Their service industry is fiercely rude and this is a self-fulfilling prophecy of misery.
6. There is no trust of anything, including their own people, and this results in nihilism.
7. The people are neither Russian nor Moldovan. They exist in a nether world of no identity or culture. “How can you feel good about yourself if you don’t know who you are?”
8. Their new “freedom” means nothing without jobs. They cannot even afford to eat at McDonald’s, which has become, ironically enough, a symbol of freedom.
9. Corruption and nepotism are rampant.
10. Men don’t care about their appearance because they’re outnumbered by the woman who wear “raccoon” makeup.
11. They are consumed by selfishness: “No este problema mea.” They can’t even recognize the value of “selfish altruism,” which encourages reciprocity.
12. The Moldovans are fueled by schadenfreude; “They derive more pleasure from their neighbor’s failure than their own success.”
13. There is no queuing, a sure sign of nihilism, anomie, and chaos.
14. They trust nothing: doctors under thirty-five, their own friends.
15. Weiner points out that the once cheery American Peace Corps workers in Moldova quickly become gloomy and depressed because they are infected with the Moldovans’ spiritual disease.
16. No one wants to be in Moldova, including Moldovans.
17. The Moldovans have thrown politeness and civility out the window. They say, “Give me that.”  Moldovans don’t say please. In contrast, Japan emphasizes politeness. A common expression: “Gomen nasai.” I’m sorry. You won’t hear any such expression in Moldova.
18. Weiner concludes with “lessons gleaned from Moldova’s unhappiness”: Number One: “Not my problem” is a mental illness, a condition of no empathy. Lesson Two: Poverty is too often used as an excuse for unhappiness. Their reaction to poverty is worse than the poverty. Lesson Three: A culture that belittles the value of trust and friendship and rewards mean-spiritedness and deceit cannot be happy. Weiner makes it clear that he is very eager to leave Moldova and is certain he shall never return.

 

Comments

[zimbru]

I am frequent visitor to Moldova and love the country and its people, who are hospitable and friendly.

Are you sure you didn't go to the Maldives?

[Jeffrey McMahon]

Zimbru, thanks for showing me a different side. Eric Weiner had a consistently bad experience, contrary to yours, and chronicled it in his book.

I had a student from Moldova, a very fine person. I appreciate diverse opinion about a country I've never been to.

I think we can take lessons from Weiner about the anatomy of happiness and unhappiness, but as your experience shows, we should be loath to make generalizations about entire countries.

[wpd]

Happiness... hmm... do you mean to say that people are much happier in Europe or in the States, profaning everything peoples believed for centuries? I have meet people from the purest countries in Africa - very happy and very stable and equilibrate individuals. I wonder if this Weiner guy, who ever he is, wasn't more like Freazer an anthropologist who wrote about indigenous tribes in Australia without ever leaving his office in Europe.
Yes, I believe people there are not of the highest self-estime in did. What can we do to help that? Do you think your article will boost up their opinion of themselves? I know it is not meant to... but it is not enlightening anyone ether.
It is the ignorance and the superficiality that is very irritating...
Don't take it as a rude comment but more as a call to what could we do (or wright) in order to make things better?

[Calin]

approximately 70% of what Weiner claims about Moldova is simply untrue. While I recognise that this is a generalisation, however, most of it are pure lies. The rest can be applied to any country really.

The country has economical problems, it is landlocked with no resources other than people, brought to knees but high gas prices imposed by Russia. There is a massive foreign Russian army dislocated in Transnistria, which is a separatist region controlled by Moscow where most of the industry is located. The country has been on it's own for only 25 years or so and it is still trying to build working institutions. The politics are complicated and aggressive, the country is in permanent political crisis.

Happiness is a relative, it is really much easier to be happy and analyse happiness when basic processes are implemented and working in a society and economy, and where there is some kind of revenue streams available. Moldova is poor and miserable, it would really be difficult to build happiness on top of nothing.

[Nathalie]

This is such a superficial description of Moldova. I think Mister Eric Weiner is an unhappy person. I really wonder about his experience in Moldova, how long has he been there and what places did he visit