Pursuit of Happiness as Worldview Fragment

This blog's intent is to throw some light onto the fault line(s) between Christianity and current U.S. culture. While the title "Christianity Unbowed" correctly indicates that the blog's focus is on the Christian side of the line(s), I think looking at the other, more fashionable side makes sense from time to time, if only to contrast the Christian side.

Of course, just as the Christian side is really a diverse collection of ideas that happen to share a strong connecting thread, so with the non-Christian side. A non-Christian viewpoint under analysis is therefore more accurately described as a worldview fragment than a definite and explicit worldview. Calling a viewpoint a "fragment" is not a subtle insult but a suitable label for a set of ideas that can (and often do) serve as a component or flavor in a complete worldview held by some specific individual. Moreover, since people commonly believe in an implicit set of ideas (living an "unexamined life" and all that), those implicit ideas don't claim to be more than fragments anyway. Also, a set of ideas may be logically or conceptually compatible with any number of complete worldviews, which again points to that set constituting a worldview fragment.

The Pursuit of Happiness is a worldview fragment defined as "the goal of human existence is the pursuit or maximization of happiness". This worldview fragment has undeniable popularity and lack of controversy. In politics in any democracy, the Pursuit of Happiness is an excellent platform to assure some votes, when promising it to at least a majority. On a personal level, nothing could be more natural than seeking pleasure and avoiding pain; animals do it.

Yet the Pursuit of Happiness has an easy application beyond the personal level, too: if the goal is to increase all happiness (of sentients), any personal decision that would lessen someone else's happiness level is wrong. The principle is then "do whatever you like to pursue happiness, on the condition that those actions don't make anyone else unhappy". Therefore the Pursuit of Happiness tells us that the ultimate moral question for a society to ask is whether a personal action hurts anyone; if so, disallow it, if not, ignore it so the personal Pursuit can continue without interference. What could be easier?

I'm not discussing this worldview fragment to discredit it, but to relate it to Christianity. Here are some areas to consider.

• One needn't read too far into the Bible to realize that the goal of existence is not defined by each person's pursuit of happiness. Rather, the goal of existence is defined by the Creator of existence, who knows what is best. And this goal...
• ...is not necessarily happiness as people imagine it to be. Paradise was people living in perfect harmony with God, their own natural drives, other people, and their surroundings. Without that paradise of harmony intact to serve as a guide and support, people have proceeded to have an incredible array of erroneous ideas about everything, including what real happiness is. Confessing one's errors is the essence of humility. God is good. One statement I have read is the suggestion that human-defined happiness is in actuality aiming too low.
  
• The Bible's ideas about community may seem strange, too. Individualism and independence are highly cherished ideals/rights for protecting citizens from the excesses of government, but we must also acknowledge the collective and dependent nature of humanity. This doesn't stop with the tribes and kingdoms of the Old Testament but continues into the New Testament, when Jesus declares the arrival of the "kingdom of heaven" and the group of Christians takes on the name "Body of Christ". As a result, the boundary line between public and private Christian holiness is blurry. In this context, the notion of my Pursuit of Happiness not affecting someone else's Pursuit of Happiness (for good or bad) is nonsensical.