Theoretical and Historical Background
The ideal of the good life is historical, communal, and practical. It is a reflection of the acquired ethical commitments of a society. The way a society defines the good life is crucial for understanding the internal meanings of its cultural practices and traditions (Tafarodi et al.
2012, 785). Paul Ricoeur (1992, 72) defines the ethical intention of the term as ‘aiming at the “good life” with and for others, in just institutions’. In life, the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ are bonded together (O’Dwyer 2009, 46). According to Ricoeur (1992, 179), the aim of the good life:[I]s the unending work of interpretation applied to action and to oneself that we pursue in the search for adequation between what seems to us to be best with regard to our life as a whole and the preferential choices that govern our practice.
Thus, the ideals of the good life are also intentional and practical.
Juha Sihvola (2004, 63–64) has stated that the historical Aristotelian virtues of the good life can still astonish us with their relevance and current applicability. In the northern Lutheran countries, the most fundamental change in the twentieth century was the gradual shift from pervasively dictated ideals by religious mindsets to the more secularised ideas of individual and communal welfare. Until the twentieth century, the prevailing ideal of the good life consisted of humility, collectivity, diligence and religiousness, patience, continuity, and stability. These were virtues that guaranteed the ‘eternal good life’ after a secular contest. This mode of thinking was logical and valid because in practice the agrarian society enabled the material and immaterial prerequisites for the good life to only a few people, depending on social class, wealth, and sex (Veenhoven 2005, 458).
After the French Revolution, new kinds of ideals of equality, individual freedom, and communality were slowly adopted; the growth of industrial society created the resources for this shift, and the modern welfare state gave it an organisational shape (Veenhoven 2005, 458).
Unlike in the agrarian society, the concept of the good life for the new individual meant something profane, something tangible in the here and now that he or she could achieve during the life-course (Imhof 1996). In the West, the twentieth century created the material and political resources for this new way of life, as opportunities for social mobilisation were opened through education, migration, entrepreneurship, and politics. Secularisation turned people’s eyes away from God and towards earthly powers, such as international organisations, the state, political parties, and social movements. Belief in a personal god remained important, however (Häkkinen 2014).The modern ideal of the good life, that of having, loving, and being (Allardt 1975), was formulated in the northern countries in the context of the Nordic welfare state, and this ideal achieved an almost sacrosanct position in these societies (Kettunen 2001). Welfare, employment, and social security (having); trust, belonging, and social relationships (loving); and the possibility of making individual choices and leading a meaningful life (being) were the basic ideals of the post-war network generation that participated in the building of their own ‘dream society’. This developed hand in hand with rapid economic growth and a widely shared consensus on democratic values (Hobsbawm 1995, 257–286).
However, since the 1980s, there has been a growing discussion in the West about new forms of poverty and inequality (Veenhoven 2005, 459). In Finland, the economic depression of the 1990s is often seen as a turning point and the first severe tear in the fabric of the welfare society (Julkunen 2000). By 2000, it was evident that the foundations of the so-called dream welfare society were being shaken in the West (Bonoli, George, and Taylor-Gooby 2000; Trägardh and Rothstein 2007; Erola and Saari 2010). The ethos of stability and continuity was threatened by fast changes in almost every field of life—the economy, nature, society, and even peace. This resulted in the crisis of the economic basis of the welfare state and the questioning of equal social security systems and familiar ways of life (Beck 2000; Bauman 1998; Suoniemi and Rantala 2010). As Wyn and White (2000, 185) point out, ‘young people must engage with a world that is so different in so many ways from that of the previous generation’.