{"id":1491531,"date":"2022-05-25T11:45:03","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T15:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1491531"},"modified":"2022-05-25T11:45:12","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T15:45:12","slug":"why-conservatism-is-the-key-to-the-american-pursuit-of-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-conservatism-is-the-key-to-the-american-pursuit-of-happiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Why\u00a0Conservatism Is The Key To The American Pursuit Of Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhy-conservatism-is-the-key-to-the-american-pursuit-of-happiness%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1491531&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Human beings are not born with the necessary knowledge, experience, or habits to pursue their own happiness. Conservatism is essential, not because it teaches the contents of\u00a0 \u201chappiness,\u201d but because it understands what is required for \u201cthe pursuit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I spend my life standing in front of American teenagers attempting to teach them civics, economics, and world history. Lately, I have become somewhat obsessed by a particular question: what will teachers a century from now say about our particular time in the stream of history? How will this chapter in the American saga be portrayed to our posterity?<\/p>\n<p>In short, what will they teach their students about the United States of America circa 2022?<\/p>\n<p>The delirium of daily news and the incessant frivolity of social media hysteria probably won\u2019t even register as a historic blip. No one cares about an arbitrary Trump tweet or outrageous college protests at Ivy League Colleges. Given enough time and perspective, even presidential scandals\u2014both real and imagined\u2014will fade from the privileged perch of perpetual news coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what I think will transcend the tedium of outrage and quite possibly become the defining story of this particular moment in history: Americans were deeply unhappy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Present-day Americans are cynical about the future. <a href=\"https:\/\/mcc.gse.harvard.edu\/reports\/loneliness-in-america#:~:text=Our%20new%20report%20suggests%20that,outbreak%20of%20the%20global%20pandemic.\">We are lonely<\/a>. We are mired in hapless confusion and seem to exist in a sinister fog of unending malaise about how to pursue what the Ancient Greeks called \u201cthe good life\u201d or what University of Chicago <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Leading-Worthy-Life-Finding-Meaning\/dp\/1594039410\">ethicist Leon Kass<\/a> labeled \u201ca worthy life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Future Americans will probably note a tragic diversity of manifestations of modern American gloom.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If they study our cities, they will observe rising waves of crime, chaos, and homelessness.<\/p>\n<p>If they look in rural areas, they will witness surging rates of drug addiction and more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2022\/05\/11\/drug-overdose-deaths-cdc-numbers\/\">one hundred thousand drug-related deaths<\/a> in a single year. They will uncover surges in suicide, anxiety, and self-harm \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/health\/health-news\/teen-suicides-increased-many-states-pandemic-rcna25825\">especially among the young<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If they look in our schools, they will observe teenagers who are monomaniacally obsessed with their devices, unable to concentrate long enough <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/opinion\/story\/2019-08-22\/death-of-reading-high-school-cellphone\">to read a book<\/a> or even watch a movie, and largely ignorant of American history and our constitutional system \u2014 though still brazenly cocksure their society is systemically engaging in a sprawling yet clandestine campaign of endless oppression.<\/p>\n<p>If they read studies about love and marriage, they will note that we are living through an existential <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prb.org\/resources\/why-is-the-u-s-birth-rate-declining\/\">decline of birth rates<\/a> fueled by millennials who are largely suspicious of marriage as an institution. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.studyfinds.org\/gen-z-adults-pets-over-kids\/#:~:text=%E2%80%94%20Generation%20Z%20may%20end%20up,people%3B%20millennials%20are%20as%20well!\">Seven in ten millennials<\/a> claim to want a dog more than a family. The consumption of pornography has been destigmatized during the past few decades, and, to no one\u2019s surprise, it has coincided with a profound decline in levels of interest in finding a romantic or sexual partner. Programming like \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d features skits <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vulture.com\/2022\/05\/your-longterm-boyfriend-is-old-enough-to-run-errands-on-snl.html\">unapologetically infantilizing American men<\/a> in their 30s, explicitly comparing them to Japanese infants.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What do all of these tragedies have in common?<\/p>\n<p>Simply put: we Americans have forgotten how to pursue our own happiness, and conservatives should know why.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most detrimental facet of modern progressivism is the popular opinion it perpetuates in young people: if the world were just a little bit better, if we could just make sure the minimum wage was higher and global temperatures were lower, if everyone just treated everyone else a little bit better, if only there was less extreme income inequality, then the world would be worthy of veneration and happiness.<\/p>\n<p>This belief that the \u201cpursuit of happiness\u201d should be a political project instead of an individual aspiration is toxic. It orients our souls toward a misplaced utopianism that will never come to pass rather than toward individual virtue, private ambition, or the cultivation of personal relationships. Even if this idealized version of society did transpire, we would just move on to a different set of problems.<\/p>\n<p>When I ask my college-going daughter to explain why young people are so deeply unhappy and anxious, she never cites the absence of love, friendship, faith, or patriotism from their lives. She never catalogs the hours spent mindlessly scrolling TikTok. Instead, she talks about climate change, bad jobs, and the prominence of implicit bias. Her essential argument is, \u201cWhy would anybody be happy in this world?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet, the evidence is clear. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/10\/20\/opinion\/conservatives-liberals-happiness.html\">Conservatives tend to be happier<\/a> than progressives.<\/p>\n<p>Some argue that it is because conservatives have a built-in ideological tolerance of inequality. Others argue that it is because conservatives tend to believe in their own individual will more than liberals do, as many progressives attribute much of life\u2019s outcomes to circumstances beyond their own control.<\/p>\n<p>My argument is that conservatism is essential to the pursuit of happiness, not because it has miraculously unlocked the eternal secrets of human happiness, but because it focuses on the habits necessary for the \u201cpursuit\u201d itself\u2014discipline, powerful friendships, and familial bonds to guide us and, most of all, faith in the righteousness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Human beings are not born with the necessary knowledge, experience, or habits to pursue their own happiness. Conservatism is essential, not because it teaches the contents of\u00a0 \u201chappiness,\u201d but because it understands what is required for \u201cthe pursuit.\u201d I spend my life standing in front of American teenagers attempting to teach them civics, economics, and &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":790,"featured_media":1491544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1491531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/790"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1491531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1491544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}