
Be Happy: The American Refusal to Deal with Suffering by Jude Acosta is worthwhile article addressing the issue of happiness in American culture. When I've asked audiences of young people, "Do you have a right to be happy?" most all of the hands go up. Trying to gently explain to them that they, in fact, DO NOT have that right doesn't settle well with many of them. Having to actually work for it, such a bother.
And why wouldn't they believe in a right to be happy? The linked article points out that in modern times, sadness and suffering are for losers. I've also found a fascinating number of people who believe that anyone who is not happy is probably to blame for such a fault. This new-age guilt trip leads to a belief people getting what they deserve. There's a popular sentiment that fate is not something to fight against, it is inevitable.
The virtue of hope has only temporary standing with this sort of mindset. If not immediately rewarded any effort will be discarded as something that was false, even deceptive. This attitude helps explain the constant turnover in self-help, self-esteem gurus, books and talk-show topics. Afraid to go and look back at what was lacking in those once popular ideas, we rush forward into the next great idea that will take away your worries.
What can be said for a society that treats sadness as a disease to be treated with industrial strength meds –backed up by industrial strength marketing?
Update: Can Money Buy Happiness?, an article by Arthur C. Brooks explaining that in fact, it does not. I suspect that this really doesn't have much to do with money, but with the expectations that we attribute to money. I have often heard pretentious people say that money is the root of all evil. It is not. It's the love of money that roots us so deeply in unhappy things.