ABSTRACT the Pursuit of Happiness and the American Regime

ABSTRACT The Pursuit of Happiness and the American Regime Elizabeth S. Amato, Ph.D. Mentor: Mary P. Nichols, Ph.D. The Declaration assumes that government has a duty to ensure that its citizens can pursue happiness, but it does not specify how or to what degree a government can or should exert influence over and take responsibility for happiness. The project for this dissertation is to consider American novelists as guides on the pursuit of happiness who with a critical eye can present the shortcomings of pursuing happiness in a liberal nation but also present alternatives and correctives compatible with liberalism. American novelists offer insights about the prospects for happiness in a liberal regime and the difficulties Americans face in attaining it. I examine works by four American novelists— Tom Wolfe, Walker Percy, Edith Wharton, and Nathaniel Hawthorne—in order to show how our novelists engage us in our understanding of and the pursuit of happiness. Through depicting characters pursuing happiness, our novelists show how our political and social order does or does not facilitate the pursuit of happiness and what individual decisions can contribute to or detract from happiness. In so doing, our novelists provide signposts and other markers to indicate what roads and pathways are or are not likely to contribute to happiness. The individual enjoys meaningful freedom to act on his own and in coordination with others for the sake of pursuing happiness. Our novelists point us toward each other as our greatest resource to help us and to guide us toward happiness. The Pursuit of Happiness and the American Regime by Elizabeth S. Amato, M.A. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of Political Science ___________________________________ W. David Clinton, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ___________________________________ Mary P. Nichols, Ph.D., Chairperson ___________________________________ David K. Nichols, Ph.D. ___________________________________ W. David Clinton, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Dwight Allman, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Michael Foley, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School December 2011 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth S. Amato All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vi EPIGRAPH vii Chapter 1. Understanding the Pursuit of Happiness 1 Liberal Theory on Happiness The Quantitative Approach to Happiness How American Novelists Contribute to the Pursuit of Happiness 2. Tom Wolfe’s America 29 The Bonfire of the Vanities A Man in Full I Am Charlotte Simmons Conclusion 3. Walker Percy’s Critique of the Pursuit of Happiness 95 The Moviegoer Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book The Thanatos Syndrome Conclusion 4. Edith Wharton’s Case for the Individual’s Happiness in Society 147 The Custom of the Country The Age of Innocence Conclusion iv 5. Hawthorne on Friendship and Happiness 297 The Autobiographical Impulse “The Old Manse” The Custom-House The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne as Author and Friend 6. Conclusion 254 BIBLIOGRAPHY 272 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Marcus Aurelius begins his meditations by acknowledging his debts, and I too would like in some small measure to credit many of the wonderful people who have helped me and to whom the best and most brilliant parts of the following pages are responsible. I would like to thank all my professors in the Department of Political Science at Baylor University for their expertise, guidance, and congeniality during the completion of my studies and dissertation. Under their respective tenures as the chairs of our department, Mary Nichols and David Clinton have created an academic setting that fosters excellence in scholarship. Mary Nichols, as my advisor, has helped me conceptualize my project and throughout its writing has given me criticism and advice. To describe her contribution by the written word would fall short of the extent to which she has supported and guided me as a teacher and friend. I would also like to thank the staff of our department, particularly Jenice Langston, for their tireless help and good cheer. As an undergraduate at Berry College, Peter Augustine Lawler taught me how to read good books. Since my matriculation, he has continued to guide me in my academic interests. He helped me first decide to write about happiness and America. My friends have suffered innumerable hours listening to me chattering about happiness and somehow still seem to want my company. For their conversation and indefatigable companionship, I am grateful. To an inestimable degree, my family has loved me and supported me with every undertaking. My parents and my brother, Alex, have given me much happiness. vi EPIGRAPH “And not only is the human heart a place of darkness which, with certainty, no human eye can penetrate; the qualities of the heart need darkness and protection against the light of the public to grow and to remain what they are meant to be, innermost motives which are not for the public display.” From Hannah Arendt’s On Revolution. “Oh Happiness! Our being’s end and aim! Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! Whate’er thy name: That something still which prompts th’ eternal sigh.” From Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man. “Do you seriously believe that having money automatically brings you happiness?” “Well, no, but it doesn’t automatically depress me either.” From How to Marry a Millionaire. vii CHAPTER ONE Understanding the Pursuit of Happiness The pursuit of happiness is inextricably linked to the United States as a reason for its creation and also as a measure for its success or failure as a regime. The Declaration of Independence boldly asserts that among the “unalienable Rights” endowed to humans are “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Declaration further claims that security of these rights is both the impetus for establishing government and also the cause for the “consent of the governed.” If a government fails to secure these rights, including the pursuit of happiness, then the people have a right to alter, abolish and institute a new government that is hopefully better suited for the task. The Declaration assumes that not only are the people able to form governments to secure their rights, but that they can evaluate and ought to evaluate their governments. The people have the right to institute whatever form of government that they judge “most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Taking the Declaration seriously also means exploring and evaluating how well our regime succeeds in providing for the pursuit of happiness for the sake of our present, continued consent. Although the liberal theory that informs our Declaration—and our Constitution-- leaves the pursuit of happiness to the private realm and restricts the role of the state to the creation of the conditions that facilitate that pursuit, it is difficult, and indeed, impossible to pursue happiness with no notion of what happiness is. The question of happiness cannot be long absent from our public consciousness as a nation. And indeed, it has not 1 been. Liberal theorists have continued to explore the relation between happiness and liberty since the time of our founding, and more recently “happiness studies” have gained a preeminence in psychology and social science in attempt to provide guidance on policies that implement the pursuit of happiness. My dissertation begins, in this chapter, with a survey and what liberal theory and social scientists tell us about happiness. The inadequacies of both lead us to seek other resources—and American novelists, I argue, have throughout our history reflected on the meaning of happiness and the ways of its pursuit. In their literary works, they have called upon their fellow citizens to engage in this inquiry. My dissertation focuses on how American novelists tap our potential—even out of our self-interest and desire for happiness—to transcend narrow self-interest and overcome our disconnection from others. As voices in our literary tradition, they engage us to think about private and public goods that contribute to happiness, and about the ways in which we can achieve them individually and in common. In contrast to liberal theorists and happiness researchers, American novelists cultivate our judgment about the meaning of happiness and the implications of our choices and actions for our lives. Each of my subsequent chapters will examine how one of four representative American novelists, Tom Wolfe, Walker Percy, Edith Wharton, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, portray and evaluate the pursuit of happiness in their selected writings. They serve as guides to how we understand and pursue happiness that are also compatible with liberalism’s commitment to protecting the plurality of voices within the United States. 2 Liberal Theory on Happiness Early liberal thinkers, like Hobbes and Locke, argued that liberty was essential to the pursuit of happiness. The social contract that secures the political liberty over natural liberty allows the individual to pursue his well-being, but leaves it to the individual’s ability, holding that happiness is experienced solely by the individual and as a result of his own efforts. Liberal governments cannot provide happiness, but only liberal governments, in their protection of freedom, offer the possibility of happiness. Hobbes conceived of happiness in hedonic terms. In the course of his famous discussion of manners in Leviathan, Hobbes says that “[f]elicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the later.”1 As Hobbes explains, the reason why felicity cannot be a “Summun Bonum” is because individual desires are in constant motion and that to secure what one has in the present for future enjoyment, one must acquire more.

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