The Harmony Games

Abstract

The central aim of this chapter is to relate the four temperaments to the Harmony perspective on human nature that was introduced in the opening chapter. I suggest that human life consists in substantial part of quicksilver transitions from Harmony in one mood to Harmony in another mood. In what follows, I propose an eightfold division of Harmony: four temperaments times two forms of thinking/feeling. Each temperament can Harmonize in an intuitive System 1 mode or in a reasoning System 2 mode. In that eightfold array of Harmony, I identify one weak link. Modern humans are strong, I contend, in creating seven kinds of Harmony Games but are much less effective in creating one: Sanguine System 2 Harmony. As much as we believe in the Sanguine as the pinnacle of our aspirations, we do not intellectually respect self-help books, and other guides to happiness, even as we do respect calculating, compliance-oriented, and argumentative modes of reason.