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NancyLebovitz comments on Open thread, July 21-27, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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This seems to me like learned helplessness, which is probably a "farmer" adaptation. In my opinion, hapiness is always good for the individual, but sometimes my unhappiness may benefit the rest of the tribe, so there can be a cultural norm against happiness. And if other people punish you for happiness, you will learn that happiness is actually bad for you, and rationalize some wise reasons for it, or the culture will already provide you with ready rationalizations.
How is individual happiness bad for society? While people are enjoying sex at their homes, churches and supermarkets are empty.
It's not just that-- I go with Wilhelm Reich in the idea that getting people to give up harmless pleasures is a way of getting more extensive control of them.
Getting people to wear uncomfortable clothes or give up sleep for no good reason is also a way of getting them to overwork or get themselves killed for your purposes.
Making people give up sleep is a traditional method of reducing their intelligence, so they are less likely to see through the bullshit or design an escape plan. Every decent cult does this to their new members.
But reducing their attention by uncomfortable clothes -- that's subtle!
Either way, seems to me this is not about pleasure per se, but rather about reducing mental abilities using unpleasant means. There are also pleasant things that reduce mental abilities, such as singing or praying together, though. It would be interesting to have data about how this correlates with the "ban on happiness" -- whether cultures opposed to happiness consistently oppose both "anti-system" and "pro-system" happiness, or whether the ban on "anti-social" happiness is used as a motivation to engage more in the "pro-system" happiness.