Five words in our Declaration of Independence, “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness,” have helped define America since its formation as a nation. While we can take pride in our efforts to protect and preserve life and liberty, our performance at pursuing happiness appears a lot more mixed.
This writer has had the good fortune to grow up and live most of his life in the unique period of American history when the pursuit of happiness may have achieved its apex in this country. When that phrase was enshrined in our Declaration of Independence in 1776, it was the third in the order of … “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Defense of our right to life began in our struggle to survive as a nation at a time when the British Empire violently suppressed discontent within its colonial territories. America survived in its struggle for independence from colonial domination and went on to secure our right to life through territorial expansion as a nation and settling of the West as a people.
Yes, treatment of native Americans and racial minorities was abysmal for our arrogance and our indifference to their rights as human beings, but slowly, very slowly the right to life of all Americans has become increasingly protected and respected.
American’s right to liberty, to freedom, is also manifested in hard-fought battles, from an internal civil war through two world wars, with the outcome being laws and protections of civil liberties at home and a new world order of international organizations and alliances globally. Two centuries of struggle have produced dividends of relative peace and the security of freedoms we come to expect.
The pursuit-of-happiness thing, however, is proving a lot more elusive for a whole lot of Americans. That’s because, this writer contends, we have yet to define it and to learn how to practice it in sustainable and equitable ways.
Until the middle of the 1900’s we had little time to engage in pursuing happiness when our very security as a nation continued to be under threat. Understandably, happiness had to take a back seat to our survival as a new nation, to settling and securing our frontiers and to fighting foreign wars that posed threats to our sovereignty.
For the vast population of Americans, it has taken nearly two centuries to get to a time, in the middle 1900’s, when we could begin to enjoy ourselves and when growing numbers of families, particularly middleclass white families, could count on living the American dream.
A life of leisure entered the American lexicon.
Racial and ethnic inequities have not disappeared, but during the last half of the 1900’s as the civil rights movement spread across the country, an increasing share of Americans could count on a more level playing field to participate in the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness no longer became a distant dream for my parents, siblings and me but an attainable aspiration.
A Great American Success Story or Excess Story?
Before the end of the last century, however, our pursuit of happiness began to take a troubling turn. This writer looks around now and he witnesses too many examples of where The Great American Success Story has morphed into The Great American Excess Story.
Examples:
Excessively wide income and wealth disparities with continuing trends toward the rich getting richer and the poor becoming poorer.
A world record in our levels of air and solid waste pollution and in carbon dioxide and methane gas emissions;
Health issues, particularly obesity and substance dependence, afflicting a excessively high shares of our population;
Ballooning financial indebtedness threatening the livelihoods of increasing numbers of American workers and their families;
A world leader in the numbers of deaths due to drug overdoses and violent gun deaths and in incarcerations, particularly among young men of racial minorities.
While few countries approach America’s levels of per capita income and wealth, these monetary measures belie the assertion that we lead the world in happiness and well-being.
The United Nations' World Happiness Report, 2022, ranks countries of the world based on a multidimensional measurement of for factor scores - fair and sustainable socio-economic development; conservation and promotion of a vibrant culture; environmental protection; and good governance scores.
In 2021 America ranked 16th behind Finland (#1), Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Australia and several other much smaller and lower per capita income countries. Over the ten years that the UN has tracked and compiled its national happiness index, America has gradually moved down not up in the world happiness rankings.
Renewed Threats to Life and Liberty?
Also disturbing, Americans’ excesses are now putting our lives and liberty at risk and creating growing headwinds against future economic growth and broad-based prosperity. Democracy and its kissing cousin, free-market capitalism, are on the defensive because, this writer asserts, we have yet to learn how to handle happiness.
Our free-market consumer culture has largely defined happiness for us as “things,” as goods and services in a consumer culture. And it’s our pursuit of ‘things’ that puts us at odds with each other, with other nations, with nature, with the planet, leaving us, understandably, a bit unhappy with ourselves.
The good news is that there is still time, because time is what we will need to change the course of the consumer culture cruise ship we are currently on. Fortunately, we live on a tolerant and resilient planet that has been forgiving – up to a point - of our wastefulness and largess. We need to cultivate that same tolerance and resiliency in our social interactions.
When alerted we have responded responsibly to a number of challenges to our health, wellbeing and happiness. During this writer’s lifetime some examples of meeting those challenges include:
Scientific studies and published works like “The Silent Spring,” that led to banning of DDT
Atmospheric ozone depletion research that led to banning of hydrofluorocarbons; technological advances in renewable energy production and in energy conservation to reduce dependency on fossil fuels as power sources;
New public programs that have rescued tens of thousands of Americans with funds to restore livelihoods lost from natural disasters.
Such experiences – and there are many more – offer promise that we can find ways to get ourselves on sustainable paths toward prosperity and happiness.
Our Deficit of Trust
But first we must work at rebuilding trust in and among ourselves and among other nations of the world, many of whom are still attempting to emulate our consumer culture with equally damaging long-run outcomes.
On the international stage today, how America is handling happiness – not well! - is dismaying our international friends and delighting our foreign enemies. Our mixed happiness performance as a free-market economy and democratically representative government is raising doubts among even our most avid supporters and followers.
Daily we are demonstrating our ineptness at handling abundance responsibly, a behavior that eventually will draw contempt from all quarters.
This is particularly notable in the extravagant wastefulness with which we handle, yes, our waste. While others in the world go hungry and poorly clothed, America literally fills hundreds of dumpsters each day with uneaten food and still useful clothing. Not unnoticed either are the mountains of coal ash and the acres of chemical “lakes” that dot our countrysides with the by-products of industrial plants that produce our overabundance of food and things.
We’re literally drowning in things and in the toxic waste from producing them. This is a poor measure of happiness. And our world neighbors are observing it while shaking their heads.
What to do now?
So first, let’s realize that in the 75 years since the end of World War II and the beginning of America’s unprecedented period of prosperity, we have made only limited progress toward achieving happiness by following the materialistic path we are on. We just haven’t learned yet how to do make progress on a national scale that is both sustainable and equitable. It most likely will take time to identify and explore pathways other than being a consumer culture to claw our way up the list of countries on the happiness index.
Fortunately, there are steps we can take, even by those of us most addicted to the “material things” approach to happiness. As examples we can:
Begin to say “No!” more often. We can work at restoring delayed gratification and rebuilding household assets, by getting on a pay-go trajectory toward major purchases – houses, cars, higher education. Our pioneering ancestors did that; it’s time we re-examine that approach to life as well.
Recognize the benefits we derive in helping neighbors advance along with us, not necessarily through government directed tax and spend wealth transfers but by investing in our communities’ education systems and particularly post-high school technical training programs, financial literacy training and life-skills equipping. Yes, bring back – in contemporary trappings - the quaint “Marriage and the Family” and “Home Economics” classes that fell out of favor in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Teach the generations that follow us how to fill out tax returns and not just how to calculate the area of parallelograms.
Press our political leaders to legislate and implement fiscal incentives to locating production facilities and generating jobs in communities where people live and where the social capital already exists for building happiness locally;
Advocate for public programs that put people to work in the “restorative economy,” replacing or rebuilding deteriorated transport systems, power infrastructure and affordable housing, particularly in dying rural communities and decaying urban centers;
Reallocate our retirement savings investments away from fossil fuels and into the renewable energy, energy conservation and infrastructure restoration industries;
Undo the damage of indebtedness – particularly from predatory lending - by loan forgiveness in exchange for public service or future graduated tax commitments from those who once free from education debt can pursue employment that will boost their earnings and expand tax revenues needed for supporting the restorative economy and critical public services.
These are a few of many steps we can take. Most importantly, let’s not beat up on ourselves over the problems we’ve created in our pursuit of happiness.
Rather let’s recognize that we as a nation – and as a world leader which other people look up to for guidance – have yet to get it right when it comes to achieving lasting and widespread happiness. Let’s learn from our misguided efforts and apply that knowledge to charting and following a better future path.
No one wants to see two centuries of struggle to defend life and liberty collapse because of the unsustainable and divisive pathways we have followed in our pursuit of happiness. Happily, we have the resources, knowhow and a bit of time to invest in securing a happiness that is broad-based and sustainable.
We might also benefit from observing experiences of other countries higher on the happiness scale than we are. Those of us who are communicators can share those experiences particularly with the upcoming generations of Americans who will be responsible for correcting the errors and righting the imbalances with nature for which this writer’s generation of Americans is responsible.
This writer’s generation is already beginning to take its final bow on this stage in America’s history. Our final act can still be one of sharing lessons learned and riches earned from our successes and from our mistakes.
We may now be too old to act or even march in the streets to advocate for the changes necessary to get coming generations onto more stable and sustainable pathways toward happiness than we have succeeded in doing. Fortunately, we’re left with accumulated wealth, experience and knowledge that we can share.
Then we should slip behind the scenes and let those following us take center stage. ###