Ken Burns grades the Founding Father’s pursuit of a good life.
Most of the happiness scholars I cite in this column are living and active, because the scientific study of human happiness, relying as it does on social psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience, is only a few decades old. But the philosophical premise behind this modern discipline goes back centuries. The topic was of particular interest to American Enlightenment thinkers of the late 18th century. Most famously, Thomas Jefferson declared the pursuit of happiness an unalienable right in the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson later explained that the Declaration, including this odd claim to happiness, was simply “an expression of the American mind.” The American mind of one of Jefferson’s fellow Founding Fathers was especially influential when it comes to the philosophy of happiness: that of Benjamin Franklin. This is according to the filmmaker Ken Burns, who also dubs him our nation’s first happiness professor. Burns has spent the past two years immersed in Franklin’s mind, to make a documentary on the man that is currently airing on PBS.
Franklin believed that everyone naturally seeks happiness. “The desire of happiness in general is so natural to us, that all the world are in pursuit of it,” he wrote in his memoir in a section titled “On True Happiness.” He dedicated his life to defining it for his peculiar American compatriots, and advising them on how they could work to get it. But like so many people who give advice for a living, it is not at all clear that he lived his own life in the happiest way. We can still learn a lot today by taking his counsel—and avoiding his errors..
What did Franklin mean by happiness, I asked Burns? Pleasant feelings? Not even close: “For Franklin, happiness meant lifelong learning in the marketplace of ideas,” Burns told me. “In other words, self-improvement.”
This conception of happiness encompasses the great contradiction in American culture: individualistic in the focus on the self, yet communitarian in the reliance on a cooperative marketplace. Further, Franklin defines happiness as an endless journey, not a comforting destination. This journey could be an exciting adventure or a terrible curse, depending on your point of view... Arthur Brooks
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/05/ben-franklin-happiness-self-improvement-advice/629767/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
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