“Happiness” isn’t overrated in America so much as it is misunderstood.
Popular culture certainly interprets the iconic line of the Declaration of Independence regarding “the pursuit of happiness” as some kind of individual quest for meaning and fulfillment.
However, considered in the context of the reading Thomas Jefferson did (and not in terms of the movies he didn’t watch) a different definition of “happiness” emerges.
Happiness, as it was understood by Aristotle and others in the days of classical Greece, meant the pursuit, education for, and practice of virtue. This is but one of the several concepts the Founding Fathers borrowed from Aristotle, the founder of political science.
I’m currently reading Aristotle’s Politics for my political philosophy class and have been struck by just how much the American democracy has borrowed from Aristotle via the writing of Thomas Jefferson.
1. The mixed regime.
Broadly speaking, Aristotle categorized three categories of government: monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy.
Each of these categories has a just and unjust version, and much of Books 5 and 6 are taken up with a discussion on how to create and preserve what Aristotle felt was the best form of government. Recognizing that cities, his basic political unit, were comprised of different classes of human beings, Aristotle correctly deduced that long lasting regimes would have to mix elements of regimes the different classes would have affinity for.
Jefferson and the Founders also recognized this basic truth of politics and thus designed a democratic regime that mixes elements of democracy (universal suffrage, frequent elections, juries, etc.) and aristocracy/oligarchy (some offices directly elected, others not). This model created a structure of government that has proven both stable and flexible, especially in accommodating shifts in American population and demographics.
2. The mistrust of monarch and masses.
It doesn’t take an expert to recognize the paradoxical distrust the Founders had of both single rulers and the masses. They certainly recognized that a regime based wholly on the rule of the masses meant mob rule that could be as tyrannical as any king.
Aristotle, too, shared this mistrust and in typical realist Aristotle fashion, noted that monarchy could only last as long as one individual could be proven more worthy than others. Discarding this as an inherently unstable model (an instability that the Enlightenment revolutions in both Frqnce and America prove), Aristotle’s mixed regime foreshadowed that of America’s in that it granted certain powers to the masses while entrusting others to the aristocracy. The inherent stability of this power-sharing arrangement, coupled with opportunities for access to the aristocracy for members of the masses ensures that both groups will comply with the regime’s actions.
NOTE: This tendency of competing interests preserving democratic regimes has been noted by Adam Prezworski in his analysis of democratic transitions in Europe and Latin America.
3. Virtue = Happiness.
I already hinted at this equation in the opening of this post, but it’s important to fully develop.
Aristotle makes no secret about how he defines happiness:
…happiness cannot be present apart from virtue…
That virtue (the pursuit of good) is so closely entwined with happiness renders it more than just a material, or even emotional state. The regime must rule “finely” as an expression and pursuit of virtue, and does so to maximize the happiness of the city as a whole, not necessarily of an individual, or specific group of individuals.
This conception of happiness renders Jefferson’s writing in very interesting light in that the “pursuit of happiness” becomes more than just an individual quest for a better life, but rather a statement about the nature of a political community and self rule.
If man has the natural right to pursue happiness (virtue), Jefferson is arguing that a government that does not allow this pursuit in a political context is unjust and must be changed. This rendering of the phrase fits the context of a conflict that began over the lack of representation (“no taxation without representation”) and led to a declaration of self rule much better.
4. The importance of the “middling” class.
Aristotle understands that a political society can only flourish with a diverse set of people, interests, and wealth. Recognizing the need for a sliding scale of wealth, Aristotle is among the few premodern theorists that I’ve read who defined and valued the role of a middle class as being part of a stable regime.
Though Aristotle may have mistakenly (justifiably so as it will turn out) considered farmers as the best middling class, he was absolutely correct in recognizing the middling class’ desire for stability and property gain as being essential for creating a political environment that valued equality and provided a means for all people to share in the prosperity of the city.
Jefferson, too, made a similar mistake in overemphasizing agrarian culture, which I’ll get to later, but he and the other Founders all recognized that a flourishing middle class was critical to economic productivity and political stability.
Those are the first four of eight Aristotelian concepts I see as being influential in the American founding. This post is way too long to treat the others, so that’ll be next week’s post….. I also need to go read more.