For a culture of wellbeing. Two paths for the university of the future.

Abstract

The issues of wellbeing, happiness and quality of life are at the centre of social life as never before. While this trend evokes the Aristotelian desire to attribute the highest axiological value to happiness - as in the concept of eudaimonia where happiness and ethics are fused together - it is also compounded by instances typical of contemporary Western society, including individualist utilitarianism and the crudest hedonism.

The university institution, like other educational institutions, is called upon to confront these tendencies in a critical manner, to sift and discern them, and to be the promoter of a sound education in the culture of wellbeing. The author suggests two main paths that the university can take in its future.

Firstly, the path of subjective wellbeing. Here the university is called upon to overcome, at least partially, the disembodied didactics typical of university lecture halls, in order to face the challenge of embodied wellbeing, which can take place through, among others, bodily and meditative practices.

Then, the path of collective wellbeing, that is, the socio-economic, political and ethical dimensions of social wellbeing. Here the university can become an educational hub and exploit its agency (institutional agency) to help overcome the econometric mentality typical of the Gross Domestic Product-GDP in favour of a broader and more inclusive vision of wellbeing (e.g Movement for Quality of Life and Beyond GDP).