Let's be smug, shall we?

I came across this bit of tangible drivel the other day and found it worth adding to my up-till-now useless blog. It's from the livescience.com online news journal:

Though you might not be able to run away from your problems, moving to another state could be good for the soul. New research suggests U.S. states with wealthier, better educated and more tolerant residents are also happier on average.

The reasoning is that wealthy states can provide infrastructure and so it's easier for residents to get their needs met. In addition, states with a greater proportion of artists and gays would also be places where residents can freely express themselves.

On average, well-being was highest in the Mountain states and West Coast states, followed by the Eastern Seaboard and then the Midwest and Southern states.

The researchers note that because a state scores high or low doesn't mean you could pluck out a resident and expect that person to be appropriately cheery or depressed. And not every state in the union sits exactly where you might expect on the list.

"We can only make generalizations about groups of people," said study researcher Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in England. "These results don't say wealthy people are happier than unwealthy people, [or that] people who live in areas where people are wealthy are happier."

What is curious to me is that the researcher is denying his own data with this comment. Wealthy people are the ones who pontificate on this stuff and they are the ones who do the research. They justify their own results because that's how they see life. Being happy is the result of being in a system where happy people (meaning: well-paid) reside.

Rentfrow doesn't get it because he doesn't have to make choices that the middle class finds abundantly available.

This is how we pawn off a lie.

Folks who live in trailer parks don't send their kids to Cambridge.

They may not be unhappy about that but Rentfrew wouldn't know.