The Pursuit of Happiness

The United States is alone among constitutional democracies in granting the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right. Our founding fathers were men of the Age of Enlightenment and serious students – particularly Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison – of the philosopher John Stuart Mill. Mill taught that achieving “the greatest happiness” for “the greatest number of people” ought to be the purpose of government.

It’s hard to argue against sharing happiness, but Americans are especially adept at looking into the mouths of gift horses – like critics of Social Security, the EPA, school lunch programs, or even stop signs. Several of my Berryville neighbors, for example, believe the guy with the biggest, loudest truck has the right-of-way over all other vehicles (but especially Subarus). Stop signs make them unhappy and are, consequently, un-American.

There are other critics. That headiest of goosesteppers, Friedrich Nietzsche, described a life spent pursuing happiness as empty and contemptible, and argued that only things achieved through struggle and suffering are worth anything. Much earlier, Aristotle said that happiness was simply the result of doing stuff, however empty-headed, but that a truly happy life was a life of the mind – thinking, in other words. Thomas Aquinas said that Perfect Happiness was achieved only through contemplating God.

These boys shouldn’t be dismissed.

It’s a problem when happiness is taken for granted. When I was a kid, I was rarely able to cough up the .20 cents school lunch cost, but when I could I felt happy. And I recall buying Anita Henry’s lunch one day. She was my first girlfriend and I felt like Diamond Jim Brady, a really good, happy feeling. I doubt that school kids today will ever experience that specific act of happiness.

None of this is an argument against Social Security or the EPA or school lunch programs; they’re all important contributors to the general happiness of our society as a whole. It does suggest, however, that pursuing happiness involves responsibilities as well as rights, that functional democracies require thinkers who are willing to hear the truth, and that churches ought to be more than simply a branch of the entertainment industry.