BUZZ
S TAT E O F M I N D
20 L A M AG . C O M
U C L A / R E E D H U TC H I N S O N
T
he year 2020 has been the worst in the lives of pretty much everyone you know. Imagine, then, in this darkest of clouds, spending your days studying silver linings. That’s the job of Daniel Fessler and Stacey Freeman, two academics who head UCLA’s Bedari Kindness Institute, a new multiG R I N A N D L E A R N UCLA, Stanford, Yale, and Rice are among the U.S. colleges offering courses in disciplinary program. mindfulness and well-being. Yale’s “Psychology and the Good Life” is the most popular course in the Fessler, the institute’s director, is university’s 319-year history and was expanded into an online version for the public. an evolutionary anthropologist whose In a nation whose founding docuresearch specialties read like a quarDacher Keltner, Greater Good’s coment cites “the pursuit of happiness” antine diary: aggression, conflict, codirector. “It changes your brain. It as a fundamental right, that’s a tall oroperation, disease avoidance, emochanges your gene expression.” der. Bedari has dispensed $6,000 feltion, food, risk, and sex. Freeman, the Major medical facilities and even lowships to an epidemiologist studyprogram’s executive director, is an government agencies are reclassifying ing food insecurity, a B-school student education-policy specialist with a side kindness as a physical necessity akin studying gratitude, and a law student gig running a lifestyle blog heavy on to heart health and nutrition. In 2018, studying legal incentives to promote presumably uplifting content like noVivek Murthy, the Obama administrakindness. bake Special K chocolate bar recipes. tion surgeon general, made happiness UCLA isn’t the only higher-educaThe Bedari Kindness Institute was his signature crusade, blaming lonelition institution to have elevated emconceived in 2019 when hedge-fund ness and spiritual emptiness for a host pathy into an academic pursuit. In millionaire and USC alum Matthew of medical and emotional problems. response to anxiety and depression Harris got the ball rolling with a $20 Last year, Nadine Burke-Harris, Caliamong the university’s students, Yale million donation. According to Befornia’s first surgeon general, debuted psychology professor Laurie Santos in dari’s lofty mission statement, the ina statewide program that urges Cali2018 began teaching Psychology and stitute was established with the goal fornians to monitor their stress levels the Good Life. The course, which exof empowering citizens and leaders to and calm their minds. amines happiness and invest in building more Still, translating these principles into how to achieve and sushumane societies. How practices is an open and evolving protain it, quickly became do they do that? “At the cess, admits Jason Marsh, editor-inthe most popular class simplest level, my job is chief of Cal’s Greater Good Magazine. in Yale’s history and to help spread kindness “There isn’t yet the definitive recipe, deHow do you was later expanded into around the world,” says spite the general support,” he says. translate an online offering for Freeman. “When you Researchers are aware that our curfuzzy abstract the public. talk about kindness, evrent moment is a perfect backdrop for platitudes At Stanford, proeryone knows on a funstudying happiness. fessor Jamil Zaki’s Bedamental level what that “I think it’s important to recoginto an coming Kinder course, means.” nize that we’re going through this imacademic based on his 2019 book But do they? The inmensely difficult time in many ways discipline? The War for Kindness, stitute could just as eastogether,” Zaki says. “We, as a culture, is among the school’s ily have been founded by have a lot of preexisting conditions— most popular classes. Deepak Chopra, the we were getting lonelier, more cynical, Last year, UC San Diego Dalai Lama, Meghan angrier—and we are now reeling unscored $100 million from Denny SanMarkle, the Obamas, Joel Osteen, or der chronic separation from one anford, the subprime credit card billionMr. Rogers. How do you translate other, the loss of our sense of shared aire, to study empathy and compasfuzzy abstract platitudes into an acapurpose and shared space.” sion in medicine. Cal’s Greater Good demic discipline? Says Freeman, “It’s amazing how Science Center, born in the wake of “We want tangible products at many people are completely clueless 9/11, has steadily injected academthe end of this,” says Fessler. “It’s not just because they’ve never had to conic rigor into a field previously domienough to say, ‘Well, give me some sider anyone else’s perspective. Everynated by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, money, and I’m going to think about one should be educating themselves, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Anthony Robthis problem for a while,’ which is the but most people don’t even know bins. “Kindness increases your life exway, frankly, a lot of academia works. where to begin.” pectancy by eight to ten years,” says We are more ambitious than that.” Now it’s her job to help them.