Phil Eil
Apr 19, 2021 8:05 PM ET
The word "happiness," of course, appears in one of the most famous sentences in U.S. history: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." But at some point, that crucial bit of hedging contained in the words "pursuit of" seemed to dissolve, and left us with a culture that views abiding happiness as a birthright.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when this happened. Though it was certainly visible to the British social theorist Harriet Martineau, who in her 1838 book Retrospect of Western Travel, described "the inexhaustible American mirth" and noted of Americans that, "One of the rarest characters among them, and a great treasure to all his sportive neighbours, is a man who cannot take a joke."