I’m really fascinated by this question. Why is it that social surveys routinely show conservatives are more happy than progressives? Today Thomas Edsall has an opinion piece in the NY Times which looks at some of the research on this question. And what he finds is that there may in fact be a depressive aspect to modern progressivism, one that is being driven by identity politics and the spreading fixation on social justice.
The happiness gap has been with us for at least 50 years, and most research seeking to explain it has focused on conservatives. More recently, however, psychologists and other social scientists have begun to dig deeper into the underpinnings of liberal discontent — not only unhappiness, but also depression and other measures of dissatisfaction.
One of the findings emerging from this research is that the decline in happiness and in a sense of agency is…
