<br><div> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph"><a href="https://www.jesusgmaestro.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer" target="_blank">Jesus G. Teacher</a> (Gijón, Spain, 1967) is one of the most influential Spanish thinkers, authors and literary critics of the digital age. His unmistakable speech, his independent character and his way of expressing ideas – sometimes somewhat controversial – made him <strong>a reference for a broad sector of society</strong>especially the youngest, who have become <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@Jes%C3%BAsGMaestro/" rel="nofollow noreferrer" target="_blank">your videos on YouTube</a> into a mass phenomenon.</p> <span class="content-ad-module "> <span class="content-ad visible-md irr-container hidden-ad"><span class="ad-unit irr"> </span></span><span class="content-html"><span class="intext-md hidden-xs hidden-md"> </span></span></span><span class="content-ad-module "> <span class="content-ad visible-xs roba-container hidden-ad"><span class="ad-unit roba"> </span></span></span><p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">This week, the professor and university professor specializing in Literature Theory and Comparative Literature was present on 'Mundo Deportivo' to talk about happiness, manipulation, literature and all the topics he covers.<strong> his latest book, 'The Failure of Happiness'</strong> (Harper Collins Editorial).</p> <figure class="composite-image image-container " data-gtm-element-container="button-gallery"> <div class="picture-wrapper"> <picture> <source media="(min-width: 638px)" data-srcset="https://www.mundodeportivo.com/files/content_image_desktop_filter/uploads/2026/01/27/6978dbe59b3db.jpeg" width="544" height="775"> <source media="(min-width: 480px)" data-srcset="https://www.mundodeportivo.com/files/content_image_intermediate_filter/uploads/2026/01/27/6978dbe59b3db.jpeg" width="607" height="865"> </source></source></picture><span class="visible-md inimage-container "><span class="ad-unit inimage"> </span></span><span class="visible-xs inimage-container "><span class="ad-unit inimage"> </span></span> </div> <figcaption class="figure-caption"> <p class="caption-title ">Jesús G. Maestro: “Contemporary culture does not know what to do with suffering because it has given up thinking about life in tragic terms”</p> <span class="caption-author ">Assigned</span> </figcaption> </figure> <span class="dynamic-ad-module "/><span class="content-ad-module "> <span class="content-ad visible-xs irr-container hidden-ad"><span class="ad-unit irr"> </span></span><span class="content-html"><span class="intext-xs hidden-xs hidden-md"/></span></span><p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph"><strong>He states that “happiness is a mirage”. Who does it and with what specific interests?</strong></p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">The market, with a fundamental interest: making money at the expense of people's emotional needs. Happiness is a complete mirage, an illusion, a hook. People pay to achieve happiness when, in reality, happiness consists of having something that the market cannot offer, for the simple reason that happiness cannot be bought or sold. There is no happiness store: there are placebos, mistakes and other very expensive ones, in fact.</p> <span class="dynamic-ad-module "/><span class="content-ad-module "> <span class="content-ad visible-xs roba-container hidden-ad"><span class="ad-unit roba"> </span></span></span><p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph"><strong>How is the promise of happiness used as a mechanism of social control?</strong></p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">In all possible ways, which boil down to just one: the false promise. People are led to believe that happiness is the solution to all problems, when in reality happiness is impossible and solves nothing.</p> <span class="dynamic-ad-module "/><span class="content-ad-module "> <span class="content-ad visible-xs roba-container hidden-ad"><span class="ad-unit roba"> </span></span></span><p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Only those who promise real facts are seductive, and happiness is idealism. When people seek happiness, they forget something more important: freedom.</p> <blockquote> <span class="content-highlights"> <span class="module-title-container"> <h2 class="module-title">"The more permanent happiness is promised, the more unbearable any form of pain becomes. Contemporary culture does not know what to do with suffering"</h2></span> <span class="author"> <span> <span class="author-name">Jesus G. Teacher</span><span class="author-job">Teacher, teacher, thinker and writer</span></span> </span> </span> </blockquote> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph"><strong>Why do you consider contemporary happiness “an empty promise that generates more frustration than well-being”?</strong></p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Because people mortgage their lives looking for a ghost. No matter how hard he searches, he can't find it. Happiness consists of being healthy, nothing else is necessary: where there is health, there is everything. Contemporary happiness is an empty promise because it has become an ideological product and not a real human experience.</p> <span class="content-ad-module "> <span class="content-ad visible-xs roba-container hidden-ad"><span class="ad-unit roba"> </span></span></span><p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">It is not offered as a result of a rationally organized life, but as a permanent, immediate and obligatory emotional right that ends up functioning as a guilt mechanism: anyone who is not happy (that is, practically everyone) feels like a failure, defective or morally inferior.</p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Happiness is no longer an eventual consequence of certain material, intellectual and moral conditions; become an abstract, advertising, therapeutic and deeply fraudulent imperative. What is promised is not what can be achieved, but what is never intended to be fulfilled.</p> <span class="dynamic-ad-module "/><blockquote> <span class="content-highlights"> <span class="module-title-container"> <h2 class="module-title">“Human beings get lost on the Internet, in politics, in ideologies, in religious beliefs and in self-help philosophies that don’t help anyone”</h2></span> <span class="author"> <span> <span class="author-name">Jesus G. Teacher</span><span class="author-job">Teacher, teacher, thinker and writer</span></span> </span> </span> </blockquote> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">This ideological happiness does not eliminate discomfort: it manages and enhances it; It does not combat the causes of suffering, such as precariousness, uprooting, ignorance, inequality... It disguises them with slogans, prefabricated emotions and a sentimental and infantilizing pedagogy.</p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">The result is not well-being, but chronic frustration: the more happiness is promised as a permanent state, the more unbearable any form of pain, conflict or limit becomes. Contemporary culture does not know what to do with suffering because it has given up thinking about life in tragic, historical and material terms. A society that runs away from reality does not find happiness: it leads to neurosis, self-deception and resentful failure.</p> <span class="dynamic-ad-module "/><span class="content-related content-border related-double " data-gtm-element-container="modulo-noticias-relacionadas"> <span class="module-supra-title"> <span>Also read</span></span> <span class="related-double-module-container "> </span><span class="related-double-module-container "> </span></span><p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph"><strong>How do we move from the pursuit of happiness to emotional dependence and intellectual submission?</strong></p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Life has become aimless leisure. You don't work, you don't take responsibility, you don't study... Human beings get lost on the Internet, in politics, in ideologies, in religious beliefs and in self-help philosophies that don't help anyone. At this point, people get lost in the maze of ignorance and helplessness.</p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Then begins the search for ideals, myths and utopias. It falls into the hands of sects, religions, political parties and philosophical groups that promise what you want to hear and, in return, perpetuate emotional deficiencies. They fill people's heads with simple and seductive messages, and in this way increase the number of submissive followers. The Internet is an ocean of completely unsatisfied emotional anxieties.</p> <blockquote> <span class="content-highlights"> <span class="module-title-container"> <h2 class="module-title">“Freedom is the result of a struggle, the success or failure of which measures your intelligence and requires effort, discipline and, above all, renunciation of self-indulgence”</h2></span> <span class="author"> <span> <span class="author-name">Jesus G. Teacher</span><span class="author-job">Teacher, teacher, thinker and writer</span></span> </span> </span> </blockquote> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph"><strong>He also states that freedom is not in being happy, but in developing intelligence. Why is this idea so uncomfortable today?</strong></p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Because intelligence does not console and happiness does. And a society that has turned emotional well-being into dogma cannot tolerate an idea that reminds it that freedom is not pleasant, or kind, or therapeutic.</p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Freedom is the result of a struggle whose success or failure measures your intelligence and requires effort, discipline and, above all, renunciation of self-indulgence. It forces you to think against yourself, to accept limits and to endure truths that are not at all comforting. Today this is experienced almost as an aggression.</p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Happiness, on the other hand, is politically harmless: it can be managed, measured, promised and sold like tobacco. Intelligence, no. An intelligent subject is unpredictable, indomitable and difficult to govern; A happy individual (or convinced that he is happy) is docile, grateful and easily controllable. This is why freedom is confused with emotional well-being: because then freedom stops being dangerous.</p> <figure class="composite-image image-container " data-gtm-element-container="button-gallery"> <div class="picture-wrapper"> <picture> <source media="(min-width: 638px)" data-srcset="https://www.mundodeportivo.com/files/content_image_desktop_filter/uploads/2026/01/27/6978e09133906.jpeg" width="544" height="306"> <source media="(min-width: 480px)" data-srcset="https://www.mundodeportivo.com/files/content_image_intermediate_filter/uploads/2026/01/27/6978e09133906.jpeg" width="607" height="341"> <img data-full-src="https://www.mundodeportivo.com/uploads/2026/01/27/6978e09133906.jpeg" alt="Jesús G. Maestro, author of 'The Failure of Happiness': " apostar="" por="" la="" inteligencia="" es="" formar="" sujetos="" capaces="" de="" orientarse="" en="" realidad="" sin="" necesidad="" anestesia="" emocional="" width="449" height="253" src="https://www.mundodeportivo.com/files/content_image_mobile_filter/uploads/2026/01/27/6978e09133906.jpeg" class="lazy"/> </source></source></picture><span class="visible-md inimage-container "><span class="ad-unit inimage"> </span></span><span class="visible-xs inimage-container "><span class="ad-unit inimage"> </span></span> </div> <figcaption class="figure-caption"> <p class="caption-title ">Jesús G. Maestro, author of 'The Failure of Happiness': “Betting on intelligence is forming subjects capable of orienting themselves in reality without the need for emotional anesthesia”</p> <span class="caption-author ">Assigned</span> </figcaption> </figure> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">The freedom of the people is a threat to their rulers. The freedom of rulers is invisible to the people. This idea dismantles one of the great alibis of our time: thinking less makes us live better. And that is false.</p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Thinking less only makes us live more calmly (that is, with more ignorance) while others think and decide for us. Intelligence does not guarantee happiness, but it prevents voluntary servitude.</p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph"><strong>What does it mean, in practical terms, to bet on intelligence instead of happiness?</strong></p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Avoid failure. Betting on intelligence implies, above all, giving up useless consolations and avoiding frustrations. It does not promise well-being, it promises strategy and independence, power and freedom in struggle. It does not offer emotional harmony, but rather an (almost always crude) understanding of reality.</p> <blockquote> <span class="content-highlights"> <span class="module-title-container"> <h2 class="module-title">“The freedom of the people is a threat to their rulers and the freedom of the rulers is invisible to the people”</h2></span> <span class="author"> <span> <span class="author-name">Jesus G. Teacher</span><span class="author-job">Teacher, teacher, thinker and writer</span></span> </span> </span> </blockquote> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">In practical terms, it means accepting conflict, frustration and limits as constant conditions of human life, and not as system failures or traumas that must be repaired therapeutically. Intelligence protects from danger by exposing itself to it, with due care and precautions, of course. And those who understand the world better necessarily live better in the long run.</p> <p data-gtm-element-container="modulo-texto-link" class="paragraph">Betting on intelligence is, in short, training subjects capable of orienting themselves in reality without the need for emotional anesthesia. It is not a popular bet, because it does not sell hope or dispel fears. However, it is the only thing that prevents an entire society from sinking, smiling, drugged and happy... And completely intellectually disarmed.</p> </div><script type="script/gg"> gg.didomi.doWhenConsent(!window.didomiBypass, 'c:facebooka-frU9M5JY', function () { console.log('facebook-ad-def'); !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '682047071976590'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); }); </script>