A Political Community a Positive State.

The ultimate reason of State is guarantee peoples happiness. Recent scientific studies have shown
that positive psychology can help to reach happiness in our lives.

My political community will be based on a “Positive State”. A State based on scientific principles
shown by positive psychology.

As stated by Martin Seligman. “The third form of happiness, which is meaning, is again knowing
what your highest strengths are and deploying those in the service of something you believe is
larger than you are.”(1)

In this sense, State is larger from individuals but at the same time individuals constitute State.
Since Greek culture, Plato and Aristotle stated that was a reciprocity between individuals and
State.

Individuals in my ideal state must know their character strengths based on VIA character study and
based on that strengths a complete political system will be developed.

According to Seligman, people can score in twentyfour character strength categories: (2)

Now we can consider how Positive Psychology impacts in a Positive State. Where Justice is a very
important topic regarding state theory, we can see that for Seligman, Justice is based in teamwork,
fairness and leadership.

As a Public Affairs professor I have made some research with Public servers in my class. For my
surprise, leadership is not a character strength relevant to Mexican Public Servers.
Where appreciation of beauty and excellence is the most important character strength with 15.2%
followed by love of learning (12.1%) and bravery (9.1%). We can see that fairness, teamwork and
leadership barely reach 2%.

That survey triggered a question on me. What type of public servants do we have in Mexico?. How
education is modeling those character strengths?

For Plato, in ancient Greece, personal characteristics were directly related to Social structures. (3)
For Plato the well-ordered State is a larger instance of the model of the soul.

Boundaries.

In my ideal state based on Positive Science, there would be no boundaries. Since all we human
beings share the same character strengths (can differed from culture to culture). People should be
aware of their strengths and adhere to them to reach happiness. Thus, for an Invisible hand they
would group each other with other people sharing the same character strengths.

Here comes the topic of Freedom, since everybody is free to group and explore their character
strengths shared with the group. Freedom understood as “the quality or state of being free: such
as. a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. b: liberation from
slavery or restraint or from the power of another: independence. c: the quality or state of being
exempt or released usually from something onerous freedom from care.” (4)
Every time we speak of freedom we need to speak of responsibility. Thus, I understand
responsibility as: “the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something
within one's power, control, or management.” (5)

Membership criteria in my ideal state would be the voluntary act to enroll and respect positive
psychology principles and a will to reach happiness trough scientific methods and thinking.

Order and progress.

I truly believe that a Positive state needs Order as a prior stage to reach progress. Order is needed
in every society to reach better levels of wellness. This determines that in my ideal state order and
progress should be put in first position. If we talk about order, we must talk about laws and how
they would be promoted and enforced.

Constitution then is needed as a sine qua non condition for order and peace. In my ideal state
there must be a Constitution based on the human strengths of character. I believe that a written
Constitution is better for the demos to have it present in their minds and acts. Dan Ariely says in
his research that the mere presence of a written code is enough to peoples to respect. (6)

My ideal state would be a very technology based one with no need for representatives since we
“demos” can reach internet and technology. With a well-designed law-making system based on
technology we do not need representatives. We could have an online real time environment to
vote laws and implement them.

Law enforcing would then be needed. Course teaches us that prisons are may be not the best
mechanism to law enforcement and punishment since it is a very inefficient way to reach the
society goals we are pursuing. In my ideal state there would be house arrest. In that way people is
punished but maintained with their own resources. Technology also makes a great contribution in
this area because criminals should have a Satellite tracking of people is now possible.

Conclusion.

Science is nowadays enough to propitiate a happiness environment for people in a State. Social
science for behavioral issues and technological science to material and physical ones.
 Commented [J1]:

(1) EUDAEMONIA, THE GOOD LIFE A Talk with Martin Seligman.

https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/seligman04/seligman_index.html Recovered Oct 23,
2018.
(2) https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/classification-character-strengths-virtues/
(3) https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Plato/plato_on_women_i
n_the_ideal_state_part_I_the_context.html
(4) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freedom
(5) https://www.dictionary.com/browse/responsibility
(6) https://www.psychologicalscience.org/video/dan-ariely-on-our-buggy-moral-code.html
(7)