The Fiction of the Castrating Power of America

Every human being has the right to pursue happiness. That much seems to be certain. Jefferson’s iconic words, which became the cornerstone of the law upon which an independent America was founded, “hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain [inherent and] inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Jefferson 24). Out of these three notions, however, it is the “pursuit of happiness” that presents the greatest challenge to the human condition. It not only assumes that man knows what “happiness” is, but also presupposes that he knows how to pursue it. On one level, this concept seems to connote a process of acculturation, a liberation from culture, or a demolition of the idea of culture as differentia. On another, it may be thought of as an end to discourse as such, an end of the thinking process itself, or an end of the philosophical quest. The very indefinability of the idea seems to confront the symbolic mandate of man as a construct of language without indulging him as the ever questioning being about the desire of the big Other or, to put it in another way, as the very denial of existence by way of contemplating the reason behind existence. Yet, it is this non-indulgence in the philosophical discourse itself that makes the idea of the pursuit of happiness so appealing. Its attraction stems from its call to sacrifice reflection on the ontological self in order to develop further the animate self through quotidian existential challenges.

When V. S. Naipaul writes about the idea of the pursuit of happiness in his essay “Our Universal Civilization,” he seems to be fascinated by something that remains elusive, and indefinable. It cannot possibly be talked about in any way other than through generalization: “It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit” (par. 53). Naipaul then tries to pinpoint meaning by assembling together a group of sundry, but specific, concepts: “So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement” (par. 53). But the question is, cannot such a list be extended endlessly? What about the idea of the family, companionship, integrity, freedom, love, desire, the life of the body, vacation, etc.? Not surprisingly, Naipaul quickly returns to the safety of general statements: “It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist; and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away” (par. 53). It cannot be denied, however, that, viewed today outside of its historical social context, the mystery and the indefinable excess of the Jeffersonian ideal also seems to mark a certain discursive drive toward cultural death. What seems to be certain is that the pursuit of happiness started within a specific historical and cultural context: an America that was tearing itself free from British imperial rule and ended in an ever-changing and imaginative discourse regarding a largely symbolic America.

As the leader of the happiness-pursuing modern world, symbolic America (as a philosophical concept) provokes certain negative associations. America is perceived as exceptional, assertively religious, multi-cultural, the most advanced, most democratic, most powerful, most enlightened, most tolerant, freest, and richest. The superlatives attributed to the master signifier America create an excessiveness of all sorts. This very multi-faceted excessiveness seems to point to a kind of absolutism concerning America that sets it apart as a historical civilization. These heterogeneous traits, despite various differences, seem to confer upon America the role as the ultimate realization of human experience: a finality that a humanist would perceive in the mass culture and technology that destroys intellectual and cultural traditions; that a Marxist would call capitalism and imperialism, (both completely canceling out the agency of the human subject); that a nationalist would call the globalism that oblivates nations...