By: Paul Riley
In his 2006 book, Happiness: A History, Darrin McMahon argues that “[h]appiness, in the Enlightenment view was less an ideal of godlike perfection than a self-evident truth, to be pursued and obtained in the here and now.” Indeed, this was clearly the view of America’s Founding Fathers who stated in the Declaration of Independence that the “pursuit of happiness” was one of man’s “unalienable rights,” along with life and liberty.
This view, McMahon explains, marked a dramatic change from, among others, the views of the Greeks who believed that happiness was not “a subjective state” but a “characterization of an entire life that can be reckoned only at death.” In other words, as McMahon puts it, happiness for the Greeks was less about feeling good than about being good.
The Enlightenment view of happiness persists today, and this is especially so in America where the notions of autonomy and perfectibility permeate culture. Many Americans believe that they have the right to be left alone (autonomy) and that they can achieve perfection (perfectibility). Consequently and perhaps paradoxically, Americans believe that with enough effort and toil they can achieve happiness.
It may (or perhaps not) come as surprise then that in a recent study of the world’s happiest nations, America fell near the middle of the pack. The world’s happiest nation was Denmark; the reason for Danes’ happiness: their low expectations. When one has low expectations, of course, she is pleasantly surprised when things turn out to be not so bad after all.
A culture of low expectations is an anathema idea in America where every parent believes that his or her child is “above average” and that getting one’s child into the right $20,000 a year nursery school is the only permissible first step to the child’s admission one day to Harvard. Striving is the American way but people don’t seem to realize that it is making them miserable. Or maybe they do, and they simply don’t care.
“Those only are happy”, John Stuart Mill said, “who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.” Americans should consider taking Mill’s advice.
