Two out of Three Ain’t Bad
July 9, 2010 Leave a Comment
“…that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Okay, not everyone is going to agree with everything. There are even some who say it’s debatable whether or not we’re even here. Joke’s on you…you pay some of them to teach your kids!
Still, everyone recognizes that everyone else has a Right to live. We don’t need to debate what a Right is, since it turns out that it’s only the recognition anyway. I am speaking, as always, of the class of humans. You acknowledge that the next guy, and everyone else in the absence of any direct cause to the contrary, ought to be allowed to live, at least as far as you’re concerned.
So let’s move on. Pretty much everyone–everyone normal and decent, that is–understands that Liberty is automatic too. They may convince themselves to do and agree otherwise, but it’s no secret any more what freedom and liberty are all about, and what they end up producing. Or should I say, what the entities that are alive and free, produce. If a billion Chinese people understand this, considering their “education,” then almost everyone understands it.
This leaves the last…”the Pursuit of Happiness.” Why the argument with that? What is there about that, that doesn’t ring quite as obviously true as the other two? It’s clearly anti-altruist, since one can only acheive happiness for one particular person, oneself. And it’s also anti-sacrifice, since happiness is nothing but a personal, selfish emotion.
But we’re taught, nearly from the moment we can form a word, that the measure of good is what we do for others and what we give up ourselves. So is this a fancy way of saying that the Founders had two right, but missed the boat on the last?
Or is the claim that we actually become happy by sacrificing ourselves and doing for others more than we would do for ourselves? What would that mean, anyway? How would one pursue it…would you try to figure out what the next guy wants and then try to do that? Seems kinda roundabout, just on a practical basis!
Yet usually it’s the practical basis that’s offered as the justification. “How else shall we be happy unless we control what everyone else does?” IOW if I don’t make others act as I wish, then how shall I be able to pursue my own happiness?
Whoops, but then we’re back around to pursuing our own happiness as the good. If it’s good, then why not acknowledge it in the first place? What’s the function of the altruism and sacrifice?
And so ’round and ’round it goes.
Maybe the Founders were right, and maybe this really means something. Maybe the pursuit of happiness is indeed just as self-evidently natural as life and liberty themselves. Quite obviously it was to them, so what’s the problem now?
