The concept of human “happiness” is one of the most consuming explorations of the great philosophers of the ages. Delving into the concept of “happiness” is beyond an exercise of the mind, it is crucial to survival and amiable governance. Many have pointed to it being crucial to our relationship to the Divine and rightly so.
John Adams, the 2nd President of the United States, derived much inspiration by reading from the reformist political essayists of the Age of Enlightenment. It is interesting that challenges to the rightness of monarchist and feudal models had become so prevalent. The old order, a mainstay of governance throughout the planet’s history, came into controversy. Many thinkers of Adams’ era, and before, emphasized “the happiness of the People” as a guiding principle of a sustainable government. Adams stated his succinct belief that “the happiness of the People alone is the sole end of government“. In the same vein, he further noted that the “happiness” of the People had to be rooted in a copacetic concept that: the People themselves must agree to pursue a citizen’s obligation to sustain (as a collective), the values of “reason, morality, and the natural state of fitness”. In his mind, this balance formed a social contract of responsible government in promoting the Happiness of the entire society, but needed each citizen to agree also to a contract of rational behavior. It also implied that a government could be rated as to its effectiveness.
After John Adams’ term of office, the next and third President, Thomas Jefferson, came to the office. They often disagreed politically, but each man had admiration for the intellect of the other. They commenced a series of back-and-forth letters than continued for decades. Jefferson loved to distill his thoughts into a crystallized form. Here is a paraphrased example: “in a vacuum of virtue, happiness cannot be”. And, he offered many explanations and definitions of the concept.
The emphasis of most of the philosophers of that revolutionary era, as a faithful exploration can reveal, is not just an exploration of the state of “happiness”, but a corollary exploration of the need to embrace the aforementioned concept: “virtue”. I can point to the fact that both concepts had already been mindfully explored in the Beatitudes, about 1770 years earlier. This even more influential “philosopher” of a distant province of the Roman Empire eventually gained several billion adherents over time.
Human beings listen, they digest their reactions and thoughts, they ruminate on the meanings of ideas, and they sometimes feel compelled to alter their beliefs and their behaviors accordingly. The challenge has ever been in integrating the best-of-the-best teachings into, not only our daily lives, but our modes of governance.
These copious letters of former Presidents do honestly open their minds to us. In them they explore the relationship of the People and their optimal mode of Governance. Ironically, after helping forge a fledgling great nation, they both died on the same day, July 4, 1826.
Everything is subject to change in the Universe, all might agree. Modern discoveries related to progressive Science & Technology have opened portals into the fuller relationship of human Happiness and human Governance. Virtue is not a term commonly ascribed to Governance any longer. The People have learned that Trust and Reliability can be compromised by those that are supplicants to the God of Gold. Ironically, human learning has also progressed to find avenues to a better comprehension of historical fallacies of governance. The internet has opened portals, to an extent. But the incredible successors to it, soon to be available to the masses, are agents of truth above all lies. Those dispossessed of “virtue” as a driving principle of their leadership are being revealed in a most unsavory light, and this is to continue. The various -isms that emerged in the modern era, especially in the 20th century (some uncorrected to this very day), are to be terribly exposed as steeped in corruption and insensitivity to humanity at large. At the same time, literally hundreds of millions of souls devoted to humanity have acted to balance the ship. For every deed that harmed, there have been a thousand that have benefited and aided the People. There is the strange feeling common in our collective zeitgeist that something has been fundamentally out of kilter. For a long time. The ship has been careening at a seriously dangerous angle for too long.
Virtue indeed. The “Love of Money” indeed, too, smacks of cynicism and even treason; the understanding that the “Tool-that-is-Money” is a lifeline for humanity (i.e. the People) must prevail. Please, find a harmonious relationship in your many dealings that exemplify “Virtue” as a pre-condition.
And, by the by, there is no Money in Heaven. But there are legions of angels, and galaxies of ascended human souls. Some of them are most refined.
