AN OPEN LETTER TO COCA-COLA
Dear Sir or Madam
So I was drinking a bottle of Diet Coke. I know that this is not a particularly startling or attention-grabbing statement with which to start a letter, but it is a necessary introduction to what I feel the need to ask you. I was drinking a bottle of Diet Coke, and I was studying the label affixed to said bottle. As I was studying it, I noticed a little sign on the label that I hadn’t seen before. Just to the right of the nutrition information table, near the bottom of the label, there was a little picture of a Coke bottle, and the following words:
Listen closely & hear the happiness being unleashed when you open this bottle
I don’t know how long these words have been appearing on Diet Coke bottles for, as I rarely drink Coke or any of its variations, so do not have the chance to study the labels very often, but these words were certainly new to me. In fact, I found these words to be highly intriguing. I found them so intriguing because they make an important claim about the nature of happiness, namely, that it has physical properties, and can therefore be captured in a bottle of Diet Coke and released for the benefit of the drinker of said bottle when the cap is unscrewed, even making a little sound as it escapes.
This claim was news to me. All my life I had been labouring under the misapprehension that happiness was a concept without physical dimensions, that it was a fleeting, insubstantial feeling, the result of the activity of certain neurons that occurs due to some particular stimulation from the outside world. All my life I had thought that happiness was hard to capture and probably even harder to define. As it turns out, I was wrong. If happiness can be released by unscrewing a Diet Coke bottle cap, then it follows that happiness must be contained inside that bottle. If happiness can be contained, then it must have certain physical properties that allow it to be contained. If it has physical properties, then it cannot be just a concept, as I had previously believed – it must also exist as a physical substance or object. If it has physical form, then happiness can be manipulated, experimented on, consumed, measured, quantified, stolen, bought and sold for a specific, quantity-related monetary value that could possibly be determined by a system of supply and demand.
If happiness can come from a Diet Coke bottle, then either Diet Coke is happiness, or Diet Coke contains happiness.
As I’m sure you can imagine, this revelation was quite startling to me, and it caused me to reconsider my entire conception of reality. For example, I had always thought that the hissing sound that occurs when a Diet Coke bottle is opened was just air escaping from the bottle. This occurs because the beverage is carbonated, so the hissing sound is not unique to Diet Coke, but occurs in all soft drinks and also some alcoholic beverages. However, the sign on the label seems to be implying that not only does the hissing sound have a different cause in Diet Coke compared to other carbonated beverages, but that this sound is in fact the audible expression of pure happiness escaping. As one who had not hitherto believed in the objecthood of happiness, nor that it was capable of emitting a sound as it escaped from a compression environment, I found this fact to be quite radical. However, when I overcame my initial shock at the new, I became curious as to the nature of this new conception of happiness, and I have several questions on the subject. As you at Coca-Cola seem to be experts in bottling happiness, I thought that perhaps you had a better understanding of the properties of happiness than the average philosopher. Also, it is due to your product that I came to ask these questions in the first place. For these reasons, I have chosen to direct my questions about the nature of happiness to you, in the hope that you will be able to answer them.
1. Is it the case that Diet Coke is happiness?
1.1. If it is the case that Diet Coke is happiness, is happiness also Diet Coke? I mean, is Diet Coke to happiness what 2+2 is to 4? Are the two identical?
1.1.1. If happiness is Diet Coke, then how do you account for all the non-Diet-Coke-related happiness in the world? How do you account for the people who are happy in the absence of Diet Coke?
1.1.2. If happiness is Diet Coke, then is it the case that no-one was happy before the invention of Diet Coke?
1.1.2.1. If no-one was happy before the invention of Diet Coke, then why did the concept of happiness exist prior to this time, and why did people claim to be happy prior to this time?
1.1.2.2. Has the definition of happiness changed since the invention of Diet Coke to mean only Diet Coke and nothing else?
1.1.2.2.1. If this is the case, then is happiness really a meaningful term to use?
1.1.2.2.1.1. Isn’t it a bit misleading, then, to talk about Coke and happiness, when happiness is Coke? Because people might assume that because you are using two different words, that you are talking about two different things, and they might not be aware that the definition of happiness has narrowed to include Diet Coke and only Diet Coke. I think you need to take these things into consideration if my previous questions are the case.
1.2. If Diet Coke is happiness, but happiness is not Diet Coke, then is Diet Coke a type of happiness? Just as, for example, Socrates is a type of man, but all men are not Socrates.
1.2.1. If Diet Coke is a type of happiness, then how many other types of happiness have been discovered/invented so far?
1.2.1.1. Is there a particular category of things (such as animals, confectionary or knitwear, for example) whose members are more likely to be a type of happiness than those members of other categories of things?
1.2.2. Where do you draw the line between Diet Coke and not-Diet-Coke, happiness and not happiness? Coke Zero, for example, is very similar to Diet Coke. Is it the same type of happiness as Diet Coke, or is it a different type of happiness? Is it happiness at all?
1.2.2.1. Pepsi Max is also very similar to Diet Coke. Is Pepsi Max also a type of happiness?
1.2.3. Does Coca-Cola have a patent on happiness?
2. If it is not the case that Diet Coke is happiness, is it the case that Diet Coke contains happiness?
2.1 If Diet Coke contains happiness, then the fact that happiness emerges from the Diet Coke bottle (as stated on the label) in the same manner that air bubbles emerge from the bottle suggests that happiness is a gaseous substance with properties similar to air. Is this the case?
2.1.1. If this is the case, then what can you tell me about the physical and chemical properties of happiness?
2.1.1.1. Is happiness toxic?
2.1.1.1.1. Is excess consumption of happiness bad for my health?
2.1.2. Is happiness mined, or manufactured?
2.1.2.1. If it is mined, then in what environment is happiness typically found? Is it trapped under the tundra like peat, for example, or is it high up in the stratosphere?
2.1.2.1.1. How is happiness captured and stored?
2.1.2.1.2. Is happiness distributed randomly throughout the universe, or is there some grand plan relating to its distribution?
2.1.2.2. If it is manufactured, then how do you make it? Can I make it at home?
2.1.3. Why does happiness make a sound as it escapes from a Diet Coke bottle?
2.1.3.1. Why does happiness make a different sound (or fail to make a sound at all) when it escapes from different objects?
2.1.3.2. What other sounds does happiness make, for example when it is at boiling point, or when it is flowing in liquid form from one receptacle to another?
2.1.3.3. If happiness falls in a forest, does it make a sound?
2.1.4. Does happiness have a shelf life? Will it go off after a given time?
2.2. I think that it is quite possible for everything to have the potential to give at least one person or other animal happiness. For example, I was given a Wollemi Pine tree for Christmas. Most people do not care about Wollemi Pines, but my Wollemi Pine makes me very happy. I feel happy whenever I look at it. Does my Wollemi Pine contain happiness? Does every substance/object contain happiness?
2.2.1. If it is the case that everything contains happiness, then why is it that some people may experience happiness due to a particular object, whereas other people, when confronted with the same object, will completely fail to register any happiness at all? How is it that some people can extract the happiness from a given object while others can’t?
2.3. How does happiness, the material object, affect people’s bodies and/or minds? How do happiness particles (or waves – is happiness a particle or a wave? Or both?) penetrate the body, especially from a distance?
3. Don’t you think it’s a bit unethical to charge for happiness? According to popular media, we all have a right to happiness, regardless of our ability to pay for it. So shouldn’t Diet Coke be freely available?
3.1. If you do not believe it is unethical to charge for happiness, is this because you do not believe that happiness is a basic right?
3.1.1. Do you believe that happiness is something you experience because you are lucky enough to be able to afford it, or because you happen to be able to find happiness in lots of different (cheap or free) things?
3.1.1.1. Do you believe, therefore, that happiness is a privilege?
3.1.1.2. Does happiness have an objective value? ie. is it good or bad, or is it simply something that exists with no objective value to it, in much the same way as a rock exists?
I’m sure that, given time, I could come up with many more questions to ask about happiness, but I think I have asked enough questions for the time being. I hope you can enlighten me on these points, and I look forward to your answer.
Yours Sincerely
Jean Cloisson
21 Jan 2009, 3:32 am
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