Every nation has its own culture. When you read about their culture and analyze it, you can see that those people who started to create these thoughts and beliefs intended to achieve which goals at last. That ultimate step of thought and beliefs that every nation tries to achieve is to gain happiness; a happiness based on their definition of it.
Since each nation’s viewpoint on life and thoughts are not similar, the results would be different and even in contrast with each other, in other words, we can say that happiness is different for various people. Although everyone uses the word happiness and sees their pleasures in it, the way to gain happiness is different for them and their definition of happiness is also not the same either.
Throughout the history of philosophy, philosophers, and thinkers have tried hard to define the subjects in a way that could be comprehensive. That is, it should both include all the characteristics they intended for that particular subject and prevent any peripheral definition that might crawl into the belief system of that set of definitions they had pointed out for that subject. Despite this, the culture of a nation can be considered as a measurement of their identity, not their thinking or ideas because the thinkers are a part of that culture themselves. The extent of the thinkers’ ideas development has resulted in turning many subjects into global ones.
One of these subjects is happiness. Happiness has a clear and obvious meaning and it does not need any discussion or debate and everyone can agree on the same thing. However, quite the opposite manner is true about this popular subject and many distinctive views have been represented due to different ideologies and cultures that exist.
“Aristotle” the well-known Greek philosopher, talks about an idea named “Eudemonia” in his book “The Nicomachean Ethics”. This idea has been translated as happiness, being happy, and being successful. He believes that in ancient Greece the most prominent and the best levels of life is to achieve eudemonia or happiness. According to Aristotle, we do everything because of something else but we cannot continue the chain of events so long that it could end in confusion, and as the philosophers say we might turn back to the first square once more and trap into a vicious circle. He points out that there is a purpose for everything and every purpose has another purpose itself but the ultimate purpose of human beings in life is to be happy or gain eudemonia. Hence there is an ultimate point at the end. If whatever humans do is to build a life, when they make this life where would be the destination. Happiness and being successful will be prominent.
Aristotle talks about morals elaborately and finally, he discusses the characteristics of morality, however, he believes that the goal of morality is to gain happiness.
In order not to continue this subject any further, let us discuss another subject which is whether morality carries the same meaning in every culture or not. Obviously, as it is examined and experienced in the whole world, especially in the contemporary era, morality does not have a unique and common definition. From the perspective of a radical religious person morality is defined in a way that is totally distinct from the perspective of a democratic person or a secular person. It means that being in each one of these positions makes you pick up your own particular definition of the concept.
However, undoubtedly some of these concepts are closer to each other. Among the cultures of nations, some of these cultures have nurtured this concept and they have delivered it down to the next generations. These concepts still have clear and positive definitions or to put it in a better way, they are still in accordance with modern human beings’ nature. These concepts are not only in line with the basic rules of human rights and protecting the environment but also are completely compatible with them.
One of these cultures is the Kurdish culture and customs, stories and legends, biographies, elderly anecdotes and their ideas, the form of men and women’s relationship with one another and social relationships, in general, indicate that this nation is devoted to morality and they also regard individual happiness to be tied with the happiness of humanity. If we mention some of the contemporary deeds of Kurds briefly we can discuss the international battle against ISIS and their radical religious violence. A comparison of Kurdish people’s shares and all the other nations who were involved in this battle reveals the fact that the Kurds were devoted to morality and happiness for all and to gaining a peaceful life for everyone with any religion, language, or nationality and they did so by defending people of the region against the inhumane and detained group of ISIS while there were nations in the world who were supporting ISIS plainly. Eudemonia for Kurds is not just gaining their own goals as a nation but it is also gaining this happiness along with the whole world. They sacrificed 40 thousand selfless warriors against ISIS which showed the fact that happiness has a greater meaning than the happiness of a particular nation in a part of the world. This definition has been mentioned and written in Kurdish stories and legends clearly. We will discuss them in later commentaries.
