How do Americans today define the “pursuit of happiness,” as set forth in the Declaration of Independence? This year, the New York Times asked that question, and hundreds responded. A common theme jumped out across every class and category of Americans: Being an American meant striving for “something better, something more fulfilling, could be within reach if you are willing to chase it.”
In America, the pursuit of success is the point — no matter how one defines it, whether it is material, professional, artistic or spiritual.
A few responders disagreed: “A lot of times, we focus on the results, on the outcomes,” noted Frank Bennett, a pastor in Georgia, “when we actually need to focus on the process.” There’s no question he’s right: Of course, we should be measuring our lives by the quality of our daily life and not defining success as an external contest judged by achievements, status and measurable outcomes.
But at least we have the freedom to decide. Looking back in history, that wasn’t always the case, as I remember from reading Erich Fromm’s “Escape from Freedom” in college, a prominent humanistic philosopher and psychologist.
Although they lacked the freedom to determine their own destiny, Fromm suggested that individuals in the Middle Ages experienced greater happiness than we do today. He argued that being born into a specific station — such as a knight, lord or peasant — provided a sense of security, identity and belonging that modern individuals often lack. This structure allowed people to fulfill their roles without the anxieties that come with the freedom of choice in contemporary society.
Fromm’s point was not that medieval life was objectively happier or easier. He fully recognized that it was often harsh, marked by poverty, disease and rigid social hierarchies. Rather, his argument was psychological: people experienced less existential anxiety because they did not bear the modern burden of continually defining themselves, competing for status, or creating their own identity.
Fromm’s analysis of our complex psychosocial relationship with liberty remains relevant, offering insight into what is happening today in America and around the world. It helps explain why, in times of crisis, individuals might willingly submit to authoritarianism to ease the psychological burden of autonomy.
The fact is, sometimes the angst of figuring out who we are supposed to be is paralyzing. That’s particularly true today because most of us no longer have bedrock beliefs to fall back on, previously instilled in us by religion and participation in close-knit communities.
When both are gone, we are left lonely and alone.
And that is only part of the problem. Our capitalist free-market economy creates a paradox of choice that is psychologically numbing due to an excess of options. I know that’s how I feel in the supermarket, trying to make a choice, transfixed by a seemingly endless assortment of toothpaste in brightly colored boxes, all vying for my attention.
That applies not only to consumer goods but also to love, according to Atlantic Magazine: “A 2009 study in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior tells a whole story in its title: ‘More Options Lead to More Searching and Worse Choices in Finding Partners for Romantic Relationships Online.’”
Information, in particular, is a commodity that our economy produces in gluttonous excess. Americans are well aware of this, as Mariah Faith Continelli discovered when she polled the readers of her Substack, “The New Unhinged.” One question she asked was: “What do you think we know too much about now?” A surprising number independently arrived at the same answer: “We know too much about nothing.”
I loved that answer, naming as it does the absurdity of our situation — and that’s even before we get to the subject of AI.
Jean Stimmell, retired stone mason and psychotherapist, lives in Northwood and blogs at jstim.substack.com.