Why is it called the "Pursuit" of Happiness?

[Land Shark]

Why Is It Called the “Pursuit” of Happiness?

Thomas Jefferson was not the first ever to write the three words “pursuit of happiness,” but it was nevertheless the genius and imaginative leap of Thomas Jefferson to replace the third term of John Locke’s trinity of “life, liberty, and property” with “the pursuit of happiness.” This revolutionary substitution has been called “a felicitous, even thrilling, substitution.” See http://hnn.us/articles/46460.html

Unfortunately, conventional wisdom mis-defines the phrase “pursuit of happiness” along lines consistent with a conservative zeitgeist of “rugged individualism” and materialistic pursuit of pleasure. This is so far off the mark, it's a misfortune and a wonder that more people don't resist this nonsense.

"Happiness” as understood at the time of 1776 (and especially by Jefferson) refers to the Greek philosophical conception of “happiness”, which is a poor translation from the actual Greek term “eudaimonia ” (literally meaning “good spirit”). A conception of the good life as a virtuous life intensely concerned with just social relations dominated essentially all early philosophy, whether Greek, Christian or pagan. (Witness: "Is it better to be a happy pig, or to be Socrates unhappy?" Few ancients considered this a tough question...)

In John Locke’s 1690 essay Concerning Human Understanding. There Locke points out the obligation to ensure that one's desires are consistent with the greatest good and to suspend them until we are sure of that. (THINK: New Deep Water Drilling Permits):

“The necessity of pursuing happiness {is} the foundation of liberty."
He went on to write that
“the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; {…The} pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, {is what we must focus on for} our real happiness: and therefore, till we are as much informed upon this inquiry as the weight of the matter, and the nature of the case demands, we are, by the necessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, {we are} obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases.”

As Locke explains it, the “pursuit of happiness” is the “foundation of liberty” because it frees us from enslavement to particular desires. Because in this day and age we operate from an overly individualistic paradigm, we might erroneously interpret the obligation to suspend our desires in particular cases as being some sort of privacy-invading notion. However, this would be mistaken both because of the strong social justice character of the pursuit of happiness, and because another inalienable right (liberty) only is curtailed or ends “where the rights of another begin.” Thus, one’s personal behavior of course is the very arena where liberty has its strongest play.

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes, “the happy man lives well and does well; for we have practically defined happiness as a sort of good life and good action.”

The good life of eudaimonia consisted of all the social “goods” or virtues (all in proper amounts) plus a mere sufficiency of Things or material “goods.”

Even way back then, the Greeks and Romans understood that while a certain amount of money or wealth/possessions was necessary in order NOT to be Un-happy, that after this sufficiency plateau was reached for material things, possessions and wealth become either impediments to the virtuous life or (in some cases) clear or powerful vices.

To illustrate how Jefferson’s mind was strongly familiar with Greek philosophy, see the letter Jefferson wrote to William Short on October 13, 1819 where he declares “I too am an Epicurean" -- with the caveat that Epicurus had been greatly mistranslated while Jefferson read it in the original Greek. "The genuine doctrines of Epicurus {contain} everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.” Later in that same letter, based on his own reading of the original Greek texts, Jefferson summarizes the main points of Epicurus, including that virtue is the foundation or key to happiness, as well as that Justice is cardinal among the virtues he and Epicurus were thinking of as necessary to personal and social happiness.

When Thomas Jefferson and others of his generation write of “the pursuit of happiness,” they are invoking the Greco-Roman philosophical tradition of eudaimonia that ties happiness to civic virtues such as courage, moderation, and especially justice.

It should be stressed that these are civic virtues, not mere personal attributes, and they are certainly not individual pleasures or desires – which are both actually considered vices if and when they are un-moderated as the hedonist. The most destructive of happiness was considered to be anxiety or worry. This conception of eudaimonia/happiness can not be reconciled with an uncaring rugged individualism nor can it be reconciled with hedonism (something Epicurus is sometimes falsely charged with)

The pursuit of happiness is therefore the pursuit of social happiness through fostering conditions of a sufficiency of material goods along with maximum reasonable virtue by, among other things, reducing the causes of social anxiety.

Foremost in reducing social anxiety, and foremost in the pursuit of happiness, is nothing less than the existence of Justice.

So, we are now prepared with the above context, and so better able to appreciate that the “pursuit” of happiness is the pursuit of “the good life,” understood as a life lived under conditions of SOCIAL happiness (for, indeed, what good man or woman could be happy when any of their fellow people are miserable?) “Eudaimonia ” (or “happiness” in the poor English translation) is the sum total of all “goods” (or good qualities),and as such it can never be achieved, or adjudged to have been achieved, until after a person has died. We can, and indeed must (as best we understand it) pursue happiness throughout our life, because it makes no sense to say “I don’t wish to be happy..” except that somebody else is not having or hasn’t had eudaimonia, and even then, such an unusual “protest” against happiness is itself a tribute to the supremacy of eudaimonia happiness in the final analysis.

Happiness, then, is neither a trivial pursuit nor the pursuit of pure pleasure. It includes a sufficiency of material goods combined with the ultimate in every other (nonmaterial) good, it is tempered by moderation as applicable, and reflects the awareness that no amount of true social Justice is ever “too much.”

When the inalienable right to (social) happiness is always a right to “pursued,” there is no point during anyone’s life that society or corporations or the government can legitimately say, “you’ve had your chance.” However, they will and are surely trying to say so, so it is up to the lovers of freedom and true happiness to cite the Declaration of Independence in support of the truer conception of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

These conditions of social happiness for the individual must be afforded throughout life, and can’t be judged successfully achieved until after death. However, the inability to pursue happiness can be a cause for action and complaint during life, because it violates the inalienable right to pursue happiness. By definition, that which is inalienable can not ever be lost, it can only be violated or taken away. But even in the (too frequent) case of such violations where governments purport to "take away" rights, if the right is inalienable it still leaves the aggrieved person with the strongest possible MORAL cause of action and complaint. Given that any government can purport to take away any right it wishes to, the concept of inalienable rights is the strongest possible heritage anyone could have.

The fact that “happiness” within the meaning of the Declaration of Independence clearly refers to social happiness and justice is an awareness that smart reformers and revolutionaries never forget. The fact that the very reason governments are formed is “to secure these rights” is an awareness that governments almost always forget.

[Land Shark]

1. 6 recs and 93 reads, but no comments so far... n/t

[defendandprotect]

34. Lots to read -- have to come back tomorrow -- and maybe

everyone else had same problem?

[valerief]

2. A sufficiency of material goods means sharing. The 1%ers don't like that. nt

[Geoff R. Casavant]

3. My one regret with this post . . .

. . . is that it appears to be Land Shark's own excellent work in DU, rather than a copy and paste of a separate article. And thus, no link that I can share on FaceBook.

I hope Land Shark sees fit to copy this in a separate blog somewhere and provide a link. This analysis needs to get much more exposure in the world at large.

[Land Shark]

5. I'll see what I can do. Mean time, anyone else can post it.

Meanwhile, it might be nice to clean up a couple typos though, like changing When to While in the 2d or 3d to last paragraph or so.

[pnorman]

10. I too was looking for a link!

So I had to conclude that it was an "original". Great post, LS!

[stevedeshazer]

4. Recommended

[anigbrowl]

6. probably the single most insightful article ever posted at DU

At least since I started reading 2-3 years ago.

[Naturyl]

7. Happiness = money

That's what it has become, and how it is understood in American culture.

[AnArmyVeteran]

13. And Money = Value to conservatives, No Money = No Value

Conservatives believe the wealthy are special and superior to others. They equate monetary success with value. They believe the poor are lazy deadbeats who do drugs and are a burden on society. But true value lies not in riches, but rather in the heart.

My older brother made a fortune working for an oil company but he didn't spend a moment helping his dying brother, mother and father. He never even called. I took care of all three for the final years of their lives. Taking care of them cost me several hundred thousand dollars. I was with them emotionally, physically and financially. But conservatives praise people like my older brother because of his wealth, even though he is a sociopath who has never cared for another person in his life.

We need to change our country where values are defined by what we give to society, not take from it. We are called 'bleeding heart liberals' as a derogatory expression because conservatives put no value on human kindness or the deepness of a person's heart. It's sad how so many of them are infected with an complete absence of empathy or compassion for their fellow man. They are so entrenched in their beliefs they even have a political system which fosters their negative will towards their fellow man.

There is no such thing as a 'compassionate conservative'. Those words are antonyms of each other.

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. You remind me a bit of this bloke:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2007/01/happy_without_m.html

[AnArmyVeteran]

30. Wow, that was perfect. Thank you! So well said.

Eloquently simple and expresses the true values in this world. Thanks for that link and your very kind words. All the best...

[Joe Chi Minh]

39. He must be some bloke. I had to laugh at his off-hand, "I was run over...", among

all his other trials and tribulations. Not '"run into", mark you! The mutual incomprehenson between them at the time was hilarous, wasn't it? "Are you happy? How can you be happy?", the idiot asks. Matey scratches head...

It's one of the best things I've ever seen on the Web. The other guy "sat high in the counsels of the Southern Baptists" - for all the good it did him; while matey lived the Gospel values with all his heart and all his soul and all his might.

You can just imagine him on Judgement Day, saying to God, "I don't know you". "Oh, but indeed you do", God would respond. "Whatever you did to the least of my brethren...", and so on. "If you didn't believe in Me, why weren't you covetous like so many of my followers, who claim to know me?"

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

43. I have another theory: this person is telling the truth. He, as he says, doesn't believe in God.

You don't get to claim every person who is nice by stating that, if some person is nice, they MUST believe in God even though they "mistakenly think" they don't.

[Joe Chi Minh]

46. No. You're muddled up. Only people who help others in need, whether

they believe in Christ or not, will be welcome into the courts of eternity. Remember since Christ's day, faith has always been more about our commitment to love our neigbour as ourself than about formal credence, still credulity. 'Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God's law.' Romans 13:10. Of course, today, with our press, simple fornication is described as love. But in this context, selfless, charitable actions towards those in any need or plight are obviously signified.

Two things you need to bear in mind though:
a) God could force us to KNOW he exists - just as the devil does 'and trembles', as James says. But he doesn't.
b) Instead, he leaves us wriggle room.

Why? Because we believe what we want to believe, and that tells God about our hearts. In terms of formal, conscious credence, we can even believe in the right things for the wrong reasons, and remain impervious to supernatural grace, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Howmsomever, to revert to my earlier point about the primacy of commitment to a life of generally selfless, love... that does not absolve formally-believing Christians from their duty of evangelisation, however low key it may be. Also, in a general way, formal Christian believers are bound to observe the religious duties taught them by the Church. At least Catholics, anyway. But, in the final analysis, the crucial one, only God can judge our motives, guilty or otherwise for failing to do so; or indeed the purity of our motives when we do. It's a safe bet that not every 'pillar of the Church' is going to Heaven. Many, many people, of course, have been scandalised by the wickedness the institutional Church has been involved in, in one degree or another, throughout its history. Sadly, including converts.

Of course, atheists are not in the least interested in the immense good that the Church contributes in the world, and it is not helped when the excuse is adduced that, well, it's made up of defectible human beings, like any other institution. It's not any other institution and its sins and derelictions are inevitably and rightly held to a higher standard. I mean the excuse is valid all right, but it is nevertheless much more limited in its validity than is sometimes understood in the hierarchy. At the end of the day, there are people who are able to stay in it, in good faith, because they know it's Christ's own chosen vehicle for evangelisation and worship, just as the Synagogue of his own day was - even though he condemned it vehemently for its wickedly distorted witness. Nevertheless, while the Church still evidently carries some of the failures and weaknesses of the past, Vatican II was a major factor for bringing the Church back to basics: Love trumps legalism (still not an invitation to 'freelancing'). And there are those who stay for reasons that owe nothing to supernatural grace, who will be in for a rude awakening on the great day.

I see what you're driving at though. But you are wrong. The belief of those God welcomes on Judgment Day is indeed expressed in their actions, for the simple reason that those actions, if properly-motivated are inspired by supernatural grace, the Holy Spirit. It is a mistake to think that the most important thought-processes are conscious and cerebral. Wisdom is the province of the heart. As Pascal, mystic, philosopher and mathematician put it: "The heart has its reasons that reason knows not of."

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

50. My post wasn't about churches at all, only personal beliefs.

But I'll take some time to answer one thing:

"Of course, atheists are not in the least interested in the immense good that the Church contributes in the world"

Wrong. Many many atheists contribute to Catholic (and other religious) charities for the simple reason many of such institutions unquestionably do good. Moreover, Catholics, unlike some other denominations that shall remain nameless, tend to not attach strings to their charity. That's a huge plus.

Most people are able to separate that from the Pope shuffling pedophiles around.

OK, now that the broad brush has been de-haired, let me focus on the critical sentences:

"I see what you're driving at though. But you are wrong. The belief of those God welcomes on Judgment Day is indeed expressed in their actions, for the simple reason that those actions, if properly-motivated are inspired by supernatural grace, the Holy Spirit."

"Good" comes from empathy. You want other people to be happy and not suffer, which is the same thing you want for yourself. People who don't have that impulse are, in fact, the minority. They are technically called psychopaths, and their defect can be traced to physical causes, just like epilepsy, color-blindness, Alzheimer's, etc. In all others, there is an internal struggle between empathy and selfishness, which even when empathy loses, it puts up a fight. Hence the so-called "conscience" that makes us feel miserable when we do something wrong.

And when empathy wins, everybody wins.

You seem to believe any selfless good act must have been directly caused by supernatural causes. That's selling people short. We are in charge of both fighters in the aforementioned struggle. It's our duty to boost the right fighter and weaken the wrong fighter as much as possible. And, amazingly, many people manage to do just that. Much of this happens, of course, in an unconscious/intuitive/emotional manner, which doesn't mean it doesn't happen in the brain. It's very possible no person will ever be able to understand it all fully. Which doesn't make it supernatural. It only makes it complicated.

[Joe Chi Minh]

52. Between what you think and what I think there is a great divide. And I'm not

about to try to convince you that you know less than you think you do on this subject. Your signature line speaks volumes. Even if the script is a child's illiterate scrawl. But your post is much better than that, if, as I say, it is more limited in its scope than you know.

You might find this interesting (or not, as the case may be):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jan/31/charles-taylor-philosophy-religion-science

[AnArmyVeteran]

55. Do you believe a person can be a conservative extremist & a practicing Christian?

You seem to know quite a bit about religion and I'm wondering what your take is on my question. To me, it seems obvious that no one can be a conservative extremist and a practicing Christian. They are exact opposites. I know many conservative Christians and they are the most selfish, greedy people I know. They only think of themselves and appear to hate everyone who is vulnerable, or poor, or sick or oppressed. I can widen the circle of conservatives I know of to conservative politicians and talk show hosts, none of whom every espouses anything close to what Jesus taught. In fact, they do the opposite of what Jesus' teaching are. Every right wing talk show host I've heard makes their fortunes 'bearing false witness against their neighbors'. So how can they claim to be 'Christians' and violate one of the Ten Commandments every day?

I remember when the right wing hijacked 'god' almost 30 years ago. Republicans/conservatives/right wingers actually believe they are 'gods' people, when in fact they support a wholesale attack on everything Jesus stood for. I believe conservatism is a disease born from evil because of the way it supports the strong over the weak, the powerful over the vulnerable and the rich over the poor. In everything I've read about Jesus he takes the exact opposite view that conservative take. So how can they claim to be 'Christians'. It's equatable to me calling myself a zebra, a whale or the moon. It's not just wrong, it's idiotic to believe a conservative can be a 'Christian' just as I can't claim to be something I am not. I can say I'm the moon, but that doesn't make it so. Anyone can call themselves a 'Christian' even when they have no idea who Jesus was or what he taught. And even if they hated the teachings of Jesus.

To me a conservative who calls himself a 'Christian' is nothing more than a hypocrite. And Jesus had a few choice words about hypocrites in the Bible too.

[Joe Chi Minh]

56. No. Of course not, AAV. That is crystal clear from Christ's/God's own description of

the Last Judgment in Matthew's Gospel; the only one in the whole of the scriptures.

However, Conservatism in politics covers quite a broad spectrum. In the US, I believe, you have nutters trying to re-write the Gospels, to cast wealth as a reward for virtue! Mother Theresa always said that God would provide, yet she wouldn't allow her nuns to live in a mansion, accept a new or nearly-new vehicle, and the nuns use old newspapers for toilet paper. She obviously didn't consider a benign dispensation of Providence getting her and her nuns out of a financial tight spot, as a sign that wealth was something to be coveted as a mark of God's bleesing! Quite the reverse.

On the other hand, you have what, I believe, you call 'swells' (though maybe they're just rich guys), i.e what we call 'toffs', 'old money' types, Al Gore, Gore Vidal, John Kerry, doubtless Eisenhower and Roosevelt and, of course, their families. Maybe the Kennedys by this time. They are sometimes spoken of in the UK as the party grandees. Some of them, particularly some of the women, do devote much of their lives to charitable causes; but again, there are always tares among the good crops.

Conservatives, at least the activists, are, it's true, all united by this weakness for lucre in some degree, I believe, although families tend to throw up independent spirits, who grow up in that ethos, but find that they are moved by a love for people that is inconsistent with the esurience and avarice of the ancestors of theirs who built up the family fortune. Any rich knave can give to charity, and many do as an extension of the long ego trip that is their life. But there are also many old-type, pre-Thatcher, Tories (though not pre-war!), like McMillan, the only real grandees, imo, who retain a 'one nation' vision for the country. The royal family are such types. It doesn't mean they will always be consistent and willingly pay all the tax they might, but there is a genuine goodness and love of neighbour in them, not confined to their own class.

On the other hand, we have a thieves' kitchen of nominal Labourites who, like the Republicans, profess to want everyone who aspires to be upwardly mobilen to be given every opportunity. Of course, it's the ultimate lie, upon which all right-wing political parties depend. The American Dream, as it's called in the US, and 'aspiration'/upward mobility, etc, in the UK. That is and always has been the preserve of the Left. We haven't had a Left in the UK since Callaghan - arguably before him. The Left was corrupted by its secularism. They start off even convincng themselves that they want to help the people, but time and success act as the thorns in Christ's parables, choking any idealism and moral fibre they had at the beginning. Of course there are exceptions, but they've been increasingly rare.

The fundamental problem is that all politicians are power people with at the very least a low, worldly cunning, and more commonly a high worldy intelligence. Unfortunately, a high worldy intelligence invariably falls prey to worldly ambitions with all the false and twisted assumptions they imply, unless grounded in the primordial assumptions of a mainstream religion focusing, as Judaeo-Christian scripture puts it, on Love being the fulness of the Law. People are given a relatively high worldly intelligence precisely to assist the more innately spiritual people who make up most of the poorer folk.

Adam Smith understood this and was appalled at the marked penchant for treason of the merchant class. However, he recognised that (supernatural) 'grace builds upon nature', and urged that their aptitude for making money should be left unhampered, provided only that it should be in furtherance of the common good, and that they require to be monitored closely at all times, as they are by nature chronic recidivists, ready to conspire with their fellows against the common good at any and every opportunity, even in their leisure time.

Still, as I say, human beings are a very disparate lot, often difficult to categorise. The public schools in the UK have turned out a lot of terrific types, as well as wrong'uns, and stange as it seems, those schools have proved to be one of the last bastions of Christianity. As a Duane Doberman-doppelganger, Gunner II Class in the Motor Pool in the artillery, I was more than happy with the military caste system, the offices were a good lot, and both sides were happy with their own way of life and outlook (with the exception of a few ambitious NCOs, I think), but I'm not sure it's been at all good for the country in civilian life.

The Anglo-Celts have been negatively influenced by the Norman types (British Conservatism is or was, as much a Norman cultural phenomenon as a set of political beliefs), so that, as Christ said of the Synagogue's foreign acolytes, for which they had scoured the ends of the earth, they turned out to be even worse than themselves.

A coalition between NuLab(c) and the Liberal-Democrats held power in the Scottish Parliament, from 1999 to 2007, when the Scottish nationalists acceded to power. The Health Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, yesterday admitted more than 450 people have died in the country' hsopitals over the past five years. One in ten children admitted to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill, Glasgow, last year, was found to be underfed. With the Scottish nationalists, it's as much incompetence, I think, as anything, but what an unbelievable stain on them all. NuLab(c) started part-privatizing hospitals. Before the deaths at least hastened by starvation, there was the culling by superbugs on the wards, with the privatization of the cleaning services.

But the right-wing political position, as far as economics is concerned, is palpably not merely unChristian, but anti-Christian. Yet they will always find some specious reason for seeing the polarisation of wealth as unavoidable, if the country is to be saved from toal ruin. The very antithesis of the truth. Now, by that very polarisation, they have ruined the global economy.

I dont think your Republicans are Conservatives at all. They're neoliberals aren't they. And the Democrats are little different on the big issues. Not too many old-type toffs like Gore Vidal even among the Dems. Careerists.

[Land Shark]

59. A nice tour de force summary of your view! Thanks! n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

57. The term, Conservative, itself, seems to me to be misleading. The only way in which

our Tory party is/was conservative is with regard to preserving a mainstream Christian ethos - and that with a bizarrely pronounced ambiguity towards the Second Commandment. But as regards it economic aims, the term 'liberal' (even, today, 'libertarian') makes much more sense, and is, in fact the term used in Australia, Canada (I believe) and presumably other former British colonies, for economic barbarism by the Haves. Wedgie Benn once commented that Thatcher wasn't a Conservative but an old-fashioned liberal.

But the term, 'barbarism' is interesting in this context, as at a very fundamental level - the one you brought up - hunter-gatherer societies seem to exemplify the values of the Sermon on the Mount and Beatitudes to an astonishing degree (to us).

In the earliest days of the Christian Church, you may recall, everyone held everything in common, the people selling their properties and the proceeds pooled for the common good. This was, I could imagine, have only been in response to a uniquely powerful prompting by the Holy Spirit for that particular, brief period of time, because in normal circumstances, in a civilized society (permanent settlements), grace has to build upon a very far from sublimated human nature, and people would instinctively refuse to place such total trust in strangers - least of all, in their leaders, as Stalin discovered when he collectivized the farms in Russia.

Perhaps I'm wrong in this, but even in hunter-gatherer societies, such basic items as dwellings, clothes, etc remain private property, while the land and its produce are held in common, held to belong to all, in trust, under God. This is, surely, the way we must go, with a mixed, but increasingly public economy - the concept of capitalism not being consecrated by the most irreligious of people, only to protect their own ill-gotten gains.

Here is a positively magisterial article by Seumas Milne of the Guardian analyzing the past 30+ years of Britain's misgovernment:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/06/margaret-thatcher-election-new-labour

It hit me the other day just how hypocritical this weird notion of the right-wingers ('concept' is all together too grand a word') that the payment of benefits to the unemployed, (since minimal as such payments are, the wages paid for available jobs are still lower) raises an issue of so-called, 'moral hazard'.

Apart from the 'rentier' class, living on share income, always holding the country to ransom, not so long ago, the quintessential 'gentleman' was a known as 'gentleman of leisure', now updated to the American version, 'independently wealthy'. 'Trade' was regarded as common - never mind that they had a penchant for marrying rich Amerian heiresses. Amazing the mental contortions they manage to go through, seemingly unawares.

[Joe Chi Minh]

58. Sorry, but you've got me on my high horse now. The end game of conservatism/neoliberalism

is slavery. Which brings us full-circle, doesn't it! Well, there has only been credit and unemployment standing between us and slavery, hasn't there? All the more so, in your vast, privatised prison gulag.

[lib_wit_it]

48. And with so many cons claiming to be Christians, this belief system should be anathema to them.

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. To know the price of everything .... and the value of nothing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. The things we no longer discuss

but we should.

Of course we also must remember that this as an ideal world, as the real world was quite ugly, and included not only black slavery, but white slavery... we just used a nicer term...

[Land Shark]

12. And, as you say, we should discuss them. And we are, in this thread and others...

As far as the ugly realities of that day and age, of course some "ideal" of justice needs to be asserted so that we can SEE that it is ugly, and urge people to follow the ideal instead of the ugliness. There's always this distance between reality and the calls of reformers and revolutionaries. If there weren't the reformers and revolutionaries (and their ideals) would not be so necessary.

Thus, contrary to what you MIGHT be implying, nothing about the ugly realities takes anything away from the assertion of the good or ideal in the Declaration. It is each person's individual obligation to praise the good and critique the bad INDIVIDUALLY -- even within the same person -- so as to raise up the good and remove the attraction of the bad, which is mostly the inertial power of the status quo.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Well then at that point we enter into myth making

versus history. In the US, I will argue, we prefer myths, not history.

The most famous of these myths involves one of them founding fathers... who could not tell a lie, but who ran a spy network in the real historical world. The former, kids learned about it for countless generations, the latter... is not well known. And that is the way we seem to prefer things.

We should discuss these things, we must discuss these things, and understand where ideas come from. But at times I doubt that will happen any more.

I am in the process of writing lectures for both US and Mexican History... for whenever I manage to find a job. And one of the decisions I made is that the earliest lectures would deal with something my Mexican history dealt with but not my US history. That is the cultures before Columbus stumbled upon the New World. Hell, right now re-readying a work on how America had to liberally be invented, since it was never mentioned in the Bible. So the West had to come to terms with a land that was outside biblical exegesis. The founders are the result of those three hundred years of discussion and invention. And we, are the ones who have forgotten all that.

[Land Shark]

26. Through the mists of time, probably all understandings amount to myths in the broadest sense...

The worst myths are the ones that ARE myths but are not discussed as such. The childhood story about Washington and the cherry tree has no real power in adult culture, where pretty much everyone knows it's not true.

Also, there as purported "myth-busting" that is either false, or itself a myth. Not every cynical statement is true, of course, but nearly all cynical statements are "myth-busters" when they encounter "myths."

What's the bottom line? Not that you are wrong to point to myths (depending on specifics), but that myths not parading as historical absolute fact are more useful carriers of meaning and can be relatively harmless so long as an important condition is met: They are freely contested (this is the NECESSITY of the conversation you referred to in the first place). When that condition is not met, then both "good" myths (which are more like over-generalizations for the sake of, say, admiration of good qualities that were in fact possessed by the person in question) as well as "bad" myths that paper over truths that are more like the opposite of what the myth purports to celebrate, become more damaging.

Even these "bad" myths, though hypocritical, still celebrate the good values and encourage their applicability to our times, even if the alleged historical carrier of those values didn't fit the bill as a matter of fact.

Someone once wrote a statement I believe to be true: Where there is no exaggeration, there is no love." Among other things, what this means is that anyone lovable as well as loved by writers of history and such is wide open to attack because the writers of history will be very likely to whitewash the perceived admirable character. Balance this, of course, with history being written by the victors which leads to the "bad" myths. This is why I'm driving at a sort of bifurcated analysis of myths where one's heaviest criticism is reserved for propagandistic myths that are basically the opposite of the truth, as opposed to "myths" of admiration that stray a little into the idolization of otherwise decent people who are, of course, imperfect.

I guess I'm feeling that if one is going to engage in "myth-busting", two things tend to happen:

(1) the positive (usually) value such as Washington's "honesty" is discredited as a mere myth, and

(2) the facts regarding Washington and his honesty are discredited as either mythical or as outright lies, even. YET, we still want to maximize honesty in government here and now, so the myth=busting has a disorienting effect (potentially). Clearly, I'm using overly simplistic examples here in order to make the point that there is a risk of destroying role models that may have nothing but positive impact on the situation today (depending on the content of the myth, of course) in the name of historical accuracy.

Not one to censor, I'd suggest that (as appropriate) when historical "surgery" is being done for factual accuracy that one be aware of when, and if, they are not just cutting out a cancer of falsehood but whether they are in fact cutting out something deeper that's not intended.

It may well be that in your classes you handle all this with a sophistication that transcends or removes all of my concerns, above. After all, I'm just starting, or continuing a conversation... :)

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. Also, apparently, slaves in the ancient world were generally treated

much more humanely than in our modern world in fairly recent centuries.

The treatment of slaves was actually codified in the Jewish law, limiting the cruelty and criminalising extreme levels of violence.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. But not in Roman or Greek law

which is where our traditions come from.

That said, the way MODERN slavery was justified was a heavy dose of religious, yes Biblical, Exegesis. We also imagine that the year when all debts were forgiven and slaves freed, actually happened. Well it is this reason why indentures originally had a max of seven years.

But we don't discuss these matters any more. Well in the midst of writing US History classes for College... yes... I AM going there.

Now granted, I will have to modernize some quotes, but definitely I am going there.

[Land Shark]

25. Check this good link on "Origins and Nature of New World Slavery" (N. American worse than biblical)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31668177/Origins-and-Nature-of-NewWorld-Slavery

I don't detect any particular bias in the above short monograph on the world history of slavery. I don't want to try to force you into a counterexample of your thesis that we don't talk about these things any more, but I'm game for a conversation! ;)

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. I am game for reserach

been doing some serious research into labor (and yes that established patterns) and I have found a dearth of evidence.

Though one MODERN book I highly recommend is White Cargo.

http://www.amazon.com/White-Cargo-Forgotten-History-Britains/dp/0814742963

[Land Shark]

31. Research. Game On!

Slavery is one of the more extreme labor practices violations, but that it is (and more).

If you can be more specific here or in a PM about your research interest where you're having trouble finding things, perhaps I might have something.

I'm not sure if we agree on the following, but only because of your use of the term "history" in connection with slavery, and a resultant unintended ambiguity (for my purposes here) concerning your views on the modern status of slavery, which I'd describe as "rampant" relative to conventional wisdom concerning the relative extent of its perpetration in 2010.

E.g. people look down on Southern slavery of the 1850s as if slavery did not exist in the USA today, when it does, and all of us inadvertantly or otherwise benefit from it unless we are extraordinarily careful in what we do. Forced labor in prison is slavery but specifically excluded from the 13th amendment, for example. "Illegal aliens" under some common circumstances including but not limited to threats to turn into the INS (meaning jail, deportation, family separation) are slaves because the "employer" is exercising some or all of the powers of ownership over human beings, the core definition of slavery under the 1926 Convention. And, of course, we've outsourced most of our slavery addiction to sweatshops overseas, which nearly everybody takes advantage of at some time, unless they do 100% of their shopping lifelong from places like NoSweat.

I'm happy, as in the OP, to discuss "Founders" or "founding fathers" so to speak. But, other than perhaps Alexander Hamilton, I don't know of any major figure from back then that wouldn't be shocked and appalled by our political situation today if they were teleported here now (and after they got over the distraction of some technical wizardry...) So, I'm wondering on what dais or platform we in the USA are on today that we can look so far down on others? It's up to us to move the ball forward in our time, just as they made big steps in their time. I think our progress in this generation doesn't match up too well, frankly.

This is why I am ambivalent about myth-busting's usefulness - it distracts too much from the rather serious work we have to do today and encourages (too often) a kind of complacemency about "modern progress" that is unjustified. People in Florida are being educated via the press about how to recognize slaves/human trafficking -- which is second in profitability only to drug trafficking. http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/nov/12/two-activists-move-anti-slavery-effort-to-palm/

http://www.madebysurvivors.com/ (to view or purchase art made by survivors of human trafficking)

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. Agreed we do have slavery today

as a medic I actually came across some of it... and helped "rescue" if rescue is the correct word, at least one slave. One of those many stories many folks here don't believe.

White slavery, east European slavery and all that. We go into the other lovely pattern, called cheap labor. It don't matter whether it is the laborer in the field, or sex slaves, or all that. And I will contact you later on.

[Joe Chi Minh]

37. I expect seven years was about the life expectancy of an 'indentured servant(!)'

They only thought up that one when slavery by its proper name was abolished. We Brits, I think.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. Yes, but indentures precede

the Atlantic trade by about fifty years.

[Joe Chi Minh]

40. Wow! The hypocrisy is staggering, even by the standards you'd expect of

the slavers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. As serfdom left the old world

slavery entered the new... not my words, by the way... the intro to White Cargo.

Reality is that the changes were staggering and staggeringly fast. When Shakespeare was still around all British were freedmen. Within a generation (that is 25 years) the home country came under incredible population pressures. No, it is not because people had more kids that survived to adulthood, but because of things like the Enclosure Acts that threw people off the land. Queen Elizabeth and the privy council made beggary a crime, subject to transportation... hell, under their definition the Bard himself might have ended up in Bristol ready for sale and transportation.

By the time Independence came one out of two Colonial citizens of English descent were indentures themselves, or descendants. There is more, about 50,000 people were forcibly transported to the new world as convict labor, who were sold into indentures and broke the land of oh Virginia, for example, planting Tobacco. We were closer to Botany Bay than fleeing for religious freedom. Just that this is not a good thing for the national myth.

And no, we never discuss this history in the regular world... it is mostly, when done, in the specialist press.

[Joe Chi Minh]

45. Air-brushing history keeps a battery-hen populace in their place, eh?

[nadinbrzezinski]

51. That is one way to put it

and it started early. Ever read about Washington not being able to tell a lie? This is a wonderful legend written by oh Washington Irving. He knew that the new nation needed those myths. Problem is they made it far and beyond nursery tales.

[Joe Chi Minh]

60. A very good point. Our establishment have been masters at mythologizing.

Churchill was rightly concerned that the retreat from Dunkirk back across the Channel, however uplifting on one level, should in no wise be construed as a victory.

[LostInAnomie]

9. Seems like a stretch to me.

Locke thought that the purpose of government was to protect its citizens' life, liberty, and property. Jefferson took out "property" and replaced it with "pursuit of happiness" as a creative means to paper over the fact that so many in the colonies were without property, and in the view of most of our founders had no "creator" given rights to it, nor governmental protection of it.

It has nothing to do with social justice.

[Land Shark]

11. When commencing revolution, the Declaration HAS TO BE different from the reality at that time. n/t

[kctim]

15. HUGE stretch

[Land Shark]

27. The contrast between the facts and a revolutionary Declaration makes the revolution.

Does somebody have some other specific meanings of the 'pursuit of happiness' tending to show or prove that it did not refer to the Greek philosophical concept of eudaimonia/happiness? Outside of that context, the phrase is hardly present at all in the rest of English literature outside philosophy and politics.

[LostInAnomie]

35. It seems like an incredibly long and surreptitious route to take...

... when he could have just said "social justice". Surely, the words and concept wouldn't have been foreign to him. Jefferson was an incredibly eloquent man that revised the Declaration numerous times to suit the tastes of his incredibly rich and well connected co-signers (many of which owned slaves). The idea of governmentally assured social justice was not in the forefront of their minds. More than likely it wouldn't have been in Jefferson's mind either since he was of a mild libertarian streak and owned numerous slaves.

One of my History professors explained it to me like this once. In the founders' minds, "happiness" was property. They knew a large number of people in the colonies didn't have and never would have property, but according to the founders, they were free to pursue it all they wanted.

[Land Shark]

42. The right to "property" was NEVER thought of as the right for everyone to HAVE property

Based on the subject line, what your professor was talking about doesn't make any sense. REmember, Locke's trinity including property was already a known phrase regarding specifically inalienable rights, and those rights were not powerful enough in the English imagination to guarantee meaningful representation and rights for colonists. Change was needed, Locke's trinity and elsewhere.

Greek philosophy was more visible in 1776 than today. It was said back then "our farmers read Homer" and it wasn't entirely a joke. Substituting "social justice" as you suggest wouldn't work since that is only one slice of happiness that doesn't catch all the desirable qualities.

The good life as a fundamentally moral life including justice was a staple back then, as stated in the OP pagans didn't question this either. It is only in "modern" times that the ethical component of the pursuit of happiness gets lost. It's a symptom of the times, and not a good symptom, either.

[tammywammy]

16. +1 n/t

[midnight]

17. Your post is a well thought out reason why we need to step

away from the patriot act, and those willing to defend it.

[frogmarch]

21. The gov't can't guarantee happiness.

Jefferson probably foresaw lawsuits if it did.

[2 Much Tribulation]

24. Right, just the basic conditions/structures under which it may be pursued by all.

An actual guarantee (which was not discussed in the OP or in 1776) would leave some or even many unhappy -- they'd want to struggle for their own "happiness" and say "I did it my way..."

[Joe Chi Minh]

22. A fascinating post, Paul and one which oddly resonates with a much more general

insight concerning the 'the pursuit of happiness', according to our conventional understanding of it.

Malcolm Muggeridge, an Engish writer and broadcaster (he wrote a book about Mother Theresa, called, Something Beautiful for God), considered that, if there was one thing that would absolutely guarantee that a person would fail to find happiness, it was a deliberate pursuit of pleasure, self-gratification. Not completely unconnected with that individualism, rugged or not, that you refer to, I believe.

Of course, this deeper meaning you point out is not something that the politicians will want to know. But it surely is the kind of knowledge which, if widely disseminated, particularly in class-rooms (obviously, in simpler terms than you've written for us) would be another part of the grand mosaic of the really new world we appear to be facing, in which consumerism will be forced to 'downsize' in quite a substantial way. A poorer people, but a happier one.

[Land Shark]

32. Would one rather be a happy pig or Socrates, unhappy?

"The" answer, probably, is that there's no such thing, really, as a happy pig, if by "pig" we mean a sentient being solely dedicated to self-gratification and pleasure. Such beings are slaves to those desires, and as such are constantly fixated on re-creating their conditions of pleasure, which steadily become more and more difficult of attainment.

So, yes, I tend to agree with your broadening of the position of the OP.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

29. Nice to have your insights gracing us again here.

Thanks for the perspective. :toast:

[defendandprotect]

33. K&R -- for tomorrow --

[david13]

44. It is the pursuit, as it is an effervescent quality, an elusive thing,

a mere by-product of achieving your goals, your aspirations.
It's like practice. We practice, because we never get it absolutely right, we just keep trying.
And hopefully, we are happy with that, along the way.
dc
Hey, kind of like a kitten chasing it's tail. They never catch it, and what for, but they sure enjoy the chase.

[DailyGrind51]

47. We can pursue it, but that doesn't mean we'll find it.

[david13]

49. It's easy to find it. The hard part is to keep it, to hold on to it. But

that too is easy if you know how. I know many happy people.
I also know quite a few wealthy, unhappy people.
dc

[DailyGrind51]

53. "Happiness" is a state of mind and can exist in any situation.

[Land Shark]

54. Not in the sense of the 'pursuit of happiness" in the sense of the OP...

But yes, that is one definition of the word happiness, just not exactly the same sense as in the Declaration of Independence. The colonists and Jefferson were clearly not going to pursue "happiness" as a mere "state of mind" in "any situation" otherwise WHY REBEL from Great Britain?