HAPPY OR GREAT - WHICH WOULD YOU PREFER AMERICA TO BE?

By Edwin Cooney

A fortnight or so ago, Maggie Astor reported in the New York Times that the 

United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network listed Finland as the “happiest” country in the world. The survey was conducted by distinguished professors from Columbia University, The Canadian Institute for Advanced Studies, and The Well Being Program at The London School of Economics and Economic Performance. The ten happiest countries are Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia. The United States ranks 18th of 156 countries studied. It is the least happy of the advanced industrial countries. What interests me are these two questions: since  President Trump was elected on a pledge to “make America great again,” isn’t it time for him to define what elements constitute a “great” nation? And can a great nation also be a happy nation?

The World Happiness Report lists the elements of a happy nation. They are a high GDP per capita, a high life expectancy, adequate social support to sustain and hopefully uplift the national standard of living, the freedom of minorities to make choices they believe will improve their lives, and an atmosphere of social tolerance and even generosity.

It’s easier to guess what President Trump might consider to be the elements of a great nation than it is to guess what he believes would make America a happy land once again. (I’m not very confident that the word “happy” is even in President Trump’s lexicon!) Here are the elements I’m guessing President Trump believes would “make America great again.” They are an impregnable national defense, minimal taxes for productive individuals and corporations, balanced national budget legislation which includes a line item veto, absolute acceptance of the concept that property rights outweigh human rights, the return of prayer to the public schools and public institutions, ironclad sustainment of the Second Amendment that guarantees gun ownership sales and rights, and rigid law and order provisions to his interpretation of the Constitution.

As I have pointed out a number of times throughout these weekly musings, I believe there have been at least two periods of American “happiness.”

The first period was just after the War of 1812, between 1817 and 1825, when James Monroe resided in the executive mansion. The country was expanding westward. There was but one political party, the National Democratic Party, which had grown out of the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party. The South generally admitted that slavery, although a “necessary evil,”  was more a question of economics than evil. With the passage of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery became an economic issue for the South and a moral issue for the North.  Then, good feelings became contentious issues on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The second era of good feeling began on the raw afternoon of March 4, 1933 when FDR launched his New Deal. The era began to unravel on November 22, 1963, but totally came apart in the wake of the election of 1968.

Of course, happy times aren’t totally absent of political or social contention. FDR certainly had more than his share of enemies. In fact, during his final address of the 1936 presidential campaign, he openly and even (it seemed) happily welcomed the hatred of his political foes. However, that era lasted from 1933 and 1969 and was generally a time when far more boats were floated than were sunk! Although many of Roosevelt’s opponents insist that the Depression didn’t really end until World War II, they never tell students in their FDR-bashing seminars that New Deal financing and administration actually enriched private enterprise enough to win World War II. 

There are several historical realities that made the two eras of good feeling stand out. History has generally been the province of the wealthy.  America was created and united not because the poor rebelled against George the Third, but because the aristocrats (planters, merchants, bankers and westward land speculators) were inconvenienced. They felt harassed by Britain’s demand that the colonists pay her back for the men and money she invested to save men like George  Washington, and Benjamin Franklin from the warlike French and indians between 1756 and 1763.

The rich have indeed done much to create our nation, but moneymaking isn’t necessarily socially or morally sustaining. Hence, another reality of a truly great people is their sense of contentment or happiness. Today we’re urged by the discontent to love our country but hate our government. No people encouraged to hate its government can ever expect to be a happy people especially if the government really and truly is “by, for, and of the whole people” — both poor and rich.

Ideally, both greatness and happiness should be our choice as well as our lot. However, great nations are seldom recognized as being great during their struggles.

While I was growing up, I often wondered if the people of Eastern Europe felt as continuously downtrodden as they were usually portrayed to be by our leadership. In other words, is happiness a product of a national ideology? Of course, it can be affected by repression, but happiness begins with you and me.

Okay, here I come leaping off the proverbial fence. Right now, I’m ready for a nice dose of happiness. I’m convinced that a happy people are in a much better position than a resentful and an angry people to launch and nurture a “great America.” 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY