The Pursuit of Happiness and the Orthodox Counter-Culture

Recently, I enjoyed reading a thoughtful exchange on a new up and coming blog, appropriately named, Domina Graecia.  It's mostly about current events and issues in Greece. The discussion on Domina Graecia centered around the increasing use of psychotropic drugs in that country, its lifestyle and the elusive search for happiness.  Now the search for happiness is something we Americans know something about.  It is our national pastime and indelibly inscribed in our Declaration of Independence. We have become so good at the business of happiness that we now find it necessary to export our version of it to every corner of the world. Happiness, unfortunately, is a tricky thing. The ancient Greeks were a little more realistic about the nature of happiness. They believed that happiness was either a condition characterized by having a well-disposed god, whose  concrete expression is prosperity or affected by fortune and chance, thus changeable and transitory (the good disposition of divine power is not guaranteed, so to speak, forever.)  Furthermore it was a condition relying on having good sense, that is, on being self-restrained and reverent toward gods. It required one to be content with what one had and to not seek more by going beyond what is within our reach.  Looking at it thus, happiness seems to be something both independent and dependent on our individual efforts, even our individual view of the world.

Although everyone seems increasingly intent on achieving happiness, we are confused about what constitutes happiness. Is it fame, wealth, the acquirement of bigger and better things, good health, beauty, the perfect spouse?   We read the newspaper  and are confronted  with daily examples that illustrate quite starkly that none of these elements, alone or together, seem to be enough for an increasing number of people. How does the pursuit of happiness fit in to my Orthodox faith? Trying to answer this question I came across a book by William Bush.

Professor Bush was born a Southern Baptist in 1929 in Florida. He embraced Catholicism at age 20. In 1955 an unforeseen encounter with a holy Russian woman in Paris revealed to him that Orthodoxy too might be embraced by those who were not born Orthodox. Three years residence in Paris (1956-1959) to write his Sorbonne thesis followed this decisive encounter, allowing him to steep himself in the Orthodoxy of the sizable Russian colony in Paris. Out of obedience, however, he did not seek admission into the Church before a ten year wait expired in 1967 when, at age 38, he was received into the Greek Orthodox Church. In 1977, Bush was co-founder of the Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Parish in London, Ontario, where he serves as chanter. Professor Bush is the author of The Mystery of the Church,  a book published by Regina Orthodox Press and excerpted here:

"The clash between Orthodox Christianity and the culture of the world has always been dramatic. The reaction of the world may vary, of course, but the inevitable basic challenge of Orthodox Christianity always representing a counterculture is always there for the lover of Christ...

Is the “pursuit of happiness” not, according to the myth created by the founding fathers of the American Republic, an “inalienable right?” That concept has, in fact, entered so deeply into the thought and conscience of generations of North Americans that it is difficult to question it without being suspected of being, if not actually some kind of foreign agent, at least “un-American.” The concept of “the pursuit of happiness” itself is, however, diametrically opposed to Orthodox Christianity’s view of the Christian’s fundamentally sacrificial and intercessory role in the cosmos, to say nothing of Christianity’s most basic tenant: the sacrifice of Christ is absolutely essential within the divine economy of His Incarnation.

“The pursuit of happiness” actually opposes, moreover, man’s intimate relationship with God and that total submission to God the holy fathers of Orthodoxy teach us is basic to the spiritual life. The true lover of Christ, in fact, can never take the concept of the “pursuit of happiness” seriously as something that might ever be incorporated into his own life in Christ.

The “pursuit of happiness” inevitably fosters a totally self-centered view of life, ignoring completely all cosmic sense of man’s place in the universe. It further ignores the inevitable, perennial and very basic dimension of sacrifice demanded of man at every level of his human existence. Whether in pursuing the bonds of love with a future spouse, or in bringing forth and rearing children, or in caring for those one loves, or in maintaining the well-being of one’s own family, sacrifice and suffering are far more basic necessities to human well-being than is the “pursuit of happiness.”

Whence then came this superficiality and shallowness postulating what a government should stand for in regard to its citizens? To a great extent, this shallowness can most certainly be attributed to the 18th century so-called “Enlightenment” of which, intellectually, the Fathers of the American Republic were the too-confident sons.

A direct descendent of Renaissance humanism, the 18th century Enlightenment had strong convictions about what was important and what was not. Man alone, not God, was to be taken seriously and served. Though God was somewhere up above, He was no longer one to reveal Himself to anyone as He did in those far-removed, superstitious, and ancient times of the Bible.

This point of view today still remains basic to the assumptions of officially legislated American culture, the various Christian coalitions so often spoken of in the press notwithstanding. When a conflict arises, such as the question of prayer in schools in America, it is the man-centered preoccupation with North America’s Enlightenment heritage that lies behind not only the exclusion of prayers, but even of the mention of God in public schools, as shocking as this would undoubtedly have proven to the deist fathers of the American Republic.

Be that as it may, these founding fathers still, being what they were, kept God at a very respectable distance in the official documents when the American Republic was being set up. This distant God might be invoked, but only to the extent to which He could be used for the benefit of man. Never did He exist for His own sake alone. He could be freely associated with “life,” “liberty” and “the pursuit of happiness,” since these were, after all, the personal aspirations of all sons of the Enlightenment.

Even in choosing to believe in God, the Fathers of the Republic still considered themselves the masters of this world and the center of their own self-appointed goal, something that has remained a very “American” characteristic.

Certainly, deist man was very far from viewing himself as existing for God, and for God alone, and therefore utterly dependent upon God’s grace even to exist. According to the deists, God had made man that man might enjoy the “pursuit of happiness.” No lowly sheep of God’s pasture, he! Whereas the true lover of Christ, of necessity, views man as fashioned by God, and existing for God alone and not for himself, Enlightenment man refused, and still refuses, such a Christian idea.

Having thus divorced himself from God incarnate in Jesus Christ, deist man was most certainly not about to entertain the possibility that God actually continues, in our modern age, to reveal Himself through Jesus Christ to the saints within the mystery of the Orthodox Church! That the God of the Bible, through divine revelation, actually reveals Himself to man was also completely foreign even to the deist clergy of 18th century France and England, who themselves laid the foundation for completely divorcing educated Westerners from the God of the Bible. Moreover, grave suspicion about revelations even being possible still holds, for the most part, in Western Christianity and can be found at the root of the “modernizing” adherents of Roman Catholicism who insist on official intellectual and scientific analyses, even of the miracles of the saints sent by God Himself.

For such self-centered and proud children of Renaissance humanism, it has become a natural reaction to maintain utter distrust and suspicion, if not downright disbelief, in anything coming from outside oneself. It is not without relevance that leaders of the French Revolution, such as Danton and Robespierre, had all been educated by deist clergy. Those misbegotten cleric-professors, being themselves imbued with the “new ideas,” successfully in turn imbued their pupils with far greater admiration for the heroes of ancient Rome than for the Roman martyrs and saints of the Christian Church.

Both Robes-pierre and Danton merely applied the ideas taught them by their deist cleric-professors. Could there be anything farther removed from the flesh-and-blood Incarnation of Jesus Christ and His mercy to sinners, so sublimely demonstrated in the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery, than that frigid, intellectual “virtue” Robespierre so passionately sought to impose? He was, after all, willing to guillotine anyone he conceived of as getting in the way of realizing his impossible dream of establishing a truly virtuous French republic. During the last six weeks of the Great Terror, Robespierre’s crusade for “virtue” sent 1,306 persons to the guillotine in Paris alone, among whom are found few aristocrats or clergy.

Paradoxically, the fruit borne by those 18th century deist cleric-professors is, moreover, not only to be found in the French Revolution, but also in its nefarious dissemination throughout the world, particularly in the rise of Communism. Many of those upheavals, by the vastness of the catastrophes resulting from them, cause the French Revolution to seem but a sort of tranquil prelude to an overwhelming, subsequent tragedy. Paris’s brief, four-month Reign of Terror under Robespierre is hardly worth mentioning when compared with the Ukrainian famine created by the Soviet Union, for example, or, more recently, the genocide produced by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Having rejected Christ and His saints, any idea of seeking to live within the mystery of Christ’s Church would necessarily have been regarded as something completely useless and irrelevant, as it still is by non-believers to this day.

It is this rejection of Christ by the world that continues to make Orthodoxy radically countercultural, just as it always has, in fact, since the Prince of this world is not Christ. The challenge offered immigrant Orthodox Christians in regard to civil religion in America has always come, and still comes, from their desire not only to survive, but to “fit in” to North American cultural patterns and somehow not prove to be counter-cultural.

How many well-meaning immigrant Orthodox, wishing sincerely to pay grateful and quite genuine homage to the freedom they have received as American citizens, struggle gallantly to accommodate the American Republic’s officially enshrined ideal of the “pursuit of happiness” as a realistic goal for living out their life in the new country? Having experienced so many good things that were often denied them or completely impossible ever to achieve in an older and ethnically Orthodox country that, perhaps, had fallen under Communist control, they find themselves torn between the unswerving Orthodoxy of their grandmothers and the American idealism of the “pursuit of happiness” espoused by their energetic and successful Americanized offspring, of whom they are so justly proud.

The great national feast of Thanksgiving Day, always arriving with its “turkey and all the trimmings” in the midst of Christmas Lent, is perhaps the most notable conflict imposed on Orthodox Christians by America’s civil religion. I was told by a friend about a visit to some old Greek-American friends during Great Lent. He noticed that the parents were keeping the fast, but that their teenage children were eating meat. When asked why this was so, the parents answered him with confidence and great pride: “Americans do not fast, and our children are Americans!” For the convert-lover of Christ who opts for Orthodoxy, a fairly basic and all-inclusive question, therefore, must inevitably arise, sooner or later: “Is the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ worth sacrificing one’s whole life for?” Embodied in this question is the implacable challenge offered, at all times and in all places, to every believer by the ongoing mystery of the Church. This challenge takes us far beyond all the superficial details of Orthodox lifestyle and far beyond the American dream of the pursuit of happiness.

This question, in fact, uncompromisingly articulates the ongoing countercultural challenge required of anyone who, through Christ, seeks to understand the value not only of his own human life, but also the value of the life of all those around him. The historical fact that God was made man in Jesus Christ, therefore, becomes, in light of this question, “the still point of the turning world,” as T. S. Eliot put it. The Incarnation, that “still point of the turning world,” contains within itself the Logos and only-begotten Son and Word of God, the beginning and end of creation itself. The veritable challenge that must be faced squarely, day-by-day in Christian living is that of not allowing the demands of civil religion to alter our allegiance to Him Who is our Life and is the only means of saving each of us from the death that is our own nothingness.

In any case, living for Jesus Christ alone was, indeed, something fundamentally opposed to the thinking of the framers of the American Constitution, whatever their merits as lawgivers."

Comments

[Margaret]

Stavros,

First, it's been a glorious, glorious sunny weekend here with cloudless skies, and warm enough to sit outside at lunchtime to eat. We've had house guests (fellow conquerors of Mont Blanc) and went for a long walk along the coast with Wolf on his 3rd birthday. Happiness seems to be much as my Stone Age ancestors would have understood it - sunshine, warmth, family and friends, food, bonfires, a dog, the sea, and the beauty of the natural world.

I imagine you have come to the same conclusion, trying to reconcile The American Dream with your Orthodoxy. I often wonder whether someone with all my worldly possessions will ever fit through the eye of the needle, or be able to be part of the "counterculture", and whether my Roma activist friend, who turns his back on the world, is not, in many ways, much closer to Jesus. The network of dependencies that having a family create, and an instinctive impulse to make one’s children’s opportunities the best that they can be, makes it difficult, if not impossible, to avoid the lure of worldly happiness. I believe we just have to hold that worldy stuff lightly because, ultimately, it does not matter.

But I have another problem with the sacrificial notion of devotion (that includes submission and suffering) that Professor Bush sets out. I think it is often true that women know more about the sacrificial meaning of love than men do, so I am immediately on my guard and need to be persuaded that Bush has made the sacrifices for Jesus that he exhorts us to adopt.

Like many women brought up in the Christian faith, I have found myself facing a strong moral imperative to sacrifice myself for others because of how I believe I should behave. Standing up for oneself (or seeking one’s own happiness) then begins to feel like a selfish impulse that has to be squashed by others who have no compunction in continuing to behave in a selfish way. What would Bush have us do? Continue to be put-upon?

Part of that growing up that I do not wish to revisit was a rejection of that abject sacrificial orientation to life that kills the will. Yet I have not rejected my sacrificial love altogether, but it is tempered by a strong conviction that we must not muddle sacrifices for our beliefs with sacrifices that others demand of us in their selfishness. The former is sacrifice from a position of strength, the latter from a horrible position of weakness.

[Stavros]

Margaret,

It is all about the basics I guess when it comes right down to the things that make most of us truly happy. The worldly attractions are difficult to ignore, I'm no exception. I don't think God condemns anyone for having riches though, they come to people from many sources, but He does warn people not to seek after them and trust in them more than in God. His greatest desire is for us to set our hearts on loftier goals and not on things of this earth.

I think all of us end making sacrifices in one way or another. I am not trying to say the way you feel might not be legitimate. It certainly is, yet ultimately it isn't about what others do to us or demand of us. It is how we respond. Perhaps the quality of our response might help us negotiate that ever important eye of the needle.

[Theophilos]

Stavros,
I've read this post quite closely and I've struggled with some of the thoughts thus provoked. The question of sacrifice leads to a tortuous road and it is one that I have difficulty with, although in daily practice I sacrifice more than I care to without too much thinking. As for the essence of happiness, most ancient Greek philosophers tried with no success. Perhaps I should return to this with a regular, lengthier post over at DG. Thanks for providing the impetus for some really serious thinking.

[Stavros]

Theophile,

I look forward to reading more. Please don't think that I am someone who is preaching nor do I think that William Bush is wagging his finger at us. This whole issue of happiness and sacrifice is central to the decay in our modern societies. We have got to grapple with it and get it out in the open. It is also central to me as an immigrant caught up between two worlds: the American and the Greek one. Although I am beginning to think that my Greek world is not the same one you are trapped in.

[Margaret]

Stavros,

Not sure about blog etiquette here and whether I am supposed to post lengthy supplementary comments on my own blog ... It seemed better here.

Aren’t we all saying more or less the same thing, you and me and Theophilos?

Thinking more about sacrifice, I suppose I am unhappy with sacrifices made because of our fear of other people’s reactions or our desire to please other people. And that when we make sacrifices because we believe that they are the right thing to do, then in an astonishingly liberating way, they cease to be sacrifices (in the sense of having given up something we wanted) because we know that had we done the thing which we have chosen not to do, it would have made us unhappy because we knew it was wrong. I think, having tested this on several examples in my head, that this is a rule I believe applies across the board, and is what I meant when I tried to draw a distinction between sacrifices made, or not made, from a position of power.

A few mundane examples:

A man with cabin fever is desperate for some physical exercise, but his wife needs him to listen to her (or his child needs him to help with a school project). He wants to go for a run, smack a squash ball around a court, or go to the gym. If he doesn’t do what his wife (or child) wants he can guarantee that they will be unhappy, make his life miserable, sulk, shout, scream, slam doors, call him selfish or whatever. If he chooses not to go to the gym because of the consequences, he makes that sacrifice from a position of weakness and is likely to feel resentful, bitter and unhappy. If he decides not to go to the gym because he thinks on this occasion that his wife’s (or child’s) should properly be given priority over his own, then he makes the sacrifice from a position of strength, but it also ceases to be a sacrifice because staying at home makes him feel good because he is doing what he believes to be right. It is possible that he might, equally, decide that he has listened to his wife every evening for the past week, and spent several hours already helping his son, in which case he would be better going to the gym.

A woman is tempted by an extra-marital affair which appears to meet all her un-met needs and which she feels is what she wants more than anything else. She decides to walk away not because she is frightened of her husband’s anger, or because she knows that her financial situation will be much worse if she leaves, or because she likes being married to a high-achieving man, but because she believes it is wrong. What seemed like an unbearable sacrifice until the exact moment of decision, appears as a liberating affirmation of her own power once she has taken the decision. One can easily imagine a similar situation where a man, tempted, is frightened that his wife will kill herself if he leaves, or that he will only see his children at weekends, or that his brother-in-law will never speak to him again, yet he decides to stay because it is the right thing not because he cannot bear the consequences of the alternative.

A man decides to leave his well-paid job in the City to become a youth-worker. He sacrifices his status amongst other men, his ability to buy the shiniest American Dream for himself and for his family, his hope for world tours in retirement not because he believes he will be rewarded in heaven, but because he believes it is the right decision. His sacrifice turns out not to be a sacrifice.

I am all in favour of strong sacrifices, but think weak sacrifices are a thoroughly bad thing for all concerned, if that makes any sense. But notice also, how dependent my distinction is on a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong, … which is an even bigger subject but one closely tied up with happiness, I think.

[Hermes]

"As for the essence of happiness, most ancient Greek philosophers tried with no success".

Most serious theoreticians today believe otherwise. Most of them believe that still the best understanding of happiness were by the Greeks.

Here is one example: http://vaindesires.blogspot.com/index.html

[Theophilos]

OK, let me simplify... I mean really simplify:
Happiness is the combination of the following:
1. Iron health
2. Not feeling pressured by money worries
3. Being reasonably free to do things that please you, including having work that does not feel like the world's burden
4. Having a partner that understands and empathizes (if you feel the need for a partner, that is)
5. Breathing clean air, drinking clean water, and eating healthy food

I stop here. Note how I have not provided for any "spiritual" or "intellectual" needs.

[Stavros]

M,

Excuse the delay in responding. Part of the beauty of these discussions is that we get to think about our answers. Yes, I agree that the three of us are basically saying the same thing. I don't believe our versions of happiness are very different, just the road we take to reach that happiness. You make a persuasive argument about the quality of one's sacrifice, i.e. whether it is made from the heart or from a sense of guilt. The former is always more preferable than the latter, although I think the final result is what counts.

Elder Paisios says it much better than I ever could. He counseled that the torment of man is egotism. Real wisdom and ultimately happiness in this life is found through humility and love for others. Now of course this is the exact opposite of what the world teaches us and our children. Paisios strongly believe that people, from an early age must be guided to understand the deeper meaning of life, which is to be united with God and to rejoice truly. This union with God brings Divine Grace and sheltered by that Grace man has nothing to fear and thus achieves a true, lasting happiness.In order to achieve this unity we must free ourselves from our proud egos. This is extremely difficult for all of us, myself included, in the world we live in. I am sure that within this blog there have been numerous examples of my inability at times to overcome my own ego.

I would recommend a wonderful book for children written by Mersine Vigopoulou and available in English. The title is from "I-ville to You-ville" and it is about a little boy who lives in an imaginary place where it is all about individual egos and suddenly finds himself on a journey to another imaginary place where the inhabitants are focused on others rather than themselves.

This book is able to illustrate complex ideas into a form that children can understand. I recommend it highly:

http://www.sainthermanpress.com/catalog/chapter_twelve/from_iville_to_youville.htm

T,

Let's say that we achieve all those things, are we truly happy? I think there is more to true happiness. How can we feel fulfilled without achieving some type of inner spiritual peace with ourselves? I also wonder why we spend so much time writing our thoughts in our blogs. Could it be that we all crave some of the intellectual stimulation that they bring us. Leaving the last two elements out I feel is ignoring the key to the search for enlightenment if not happiness.

H,

The Greeks may have asked all the right questions about happiness but we are still trying to answer them to our satisfaction.

[Hermes]

Theophilos's list of things seems a little self centred. I would not fully advocated the Orthodox position but loving and taking care of loved ones is very satisfying. I think it is called fulfilling one's duty. Also, culture appears to be missing. A culture with rituals, ceremones, signposts, artifacts, symbols which are not emptied of meaning and are continually given new meaning is also very satisfying and brings happiness.

[Margaret]

Here's my favourite list:

Security — safe territory and an environment which allows us to develop fully
Attention (to give and receive it) — a form of nutrition
Sense of autonomy and control — having volition to make responsible choices
Being emotionally connected to others
Feeling part of a wider community
Friendship, intimacy — to know that at least one other person accepts us totally for who we are, “warts 'n' all”
Privacy — opportunity to reflect and consolidate experience
Sense of status within social groupings
Sense of competence and achievement
Meaning and purpose — which come from being stretched in what we do and think.

It's from a list of "human givens" which you can read more about here.

http://www.hgi.org.uk/archive/human-givens.htm

Practically, performing an "audit" of those needs enables you to see what is missing and, hopefully, take steps to fill the gap (link at the bottom right of the page above). I think it's pretty easy to work out where the gaps are. It works well with teenagers who are down in the dumps (I know). I use it as a check-list with my children, and for myself too, and my GP friend uses it in her practice now and finds it works well.

The Human Givens Handbook is excellent and expands on the list - charitable work, for example, is seen as an important part of feeling connected to a community. There are some pretty big claims made about depression and addiction falling away if these needs are met. The specialist books in those areas make a convincing case against the medical model of depression, but I do not know whether it is as easy as they make it sound to make the necessary changes when in the grip of a depression or addiction. I do wish everyone would read the books!

I suppose, though, as Hermes says it is not far removed from the ideas of Greek philosophers, particularly about eudaimonia or flourishing, since happiness is a by-product of a series of individual goals.

[Margaret]

S, got carried away with writing what I wanted to write, and forgot to acknowledge your reply to me, which, of course, I've read carefully. The book looks wonderful indeed - the illustrations look right up Lola B's street (she'd like to be an illustrator) so I'll try to track down a copy that will ship to the UK. Looks like a good present for godchildren too. Thank you.

I sort of agree with what you've written about the ego - but worry that I do not do my children (for example) any favours if I give in to them always, or always allow them to put their needs first.

We teach them to have regard to the needs of others, including their parents' needs (for solitude, for couple time, for time with friends) which is only a smidgeon away from crying "What about me?" ...

And sometimes I need to say "What about me?".

[Stavros]

Many thanks for bringing my attention to this particular site. Although I have an aversion to checklists I think that this might be helpful. I am surprised that the list does not include a spiritual element, perhaps it is the last one "meaning and purpose." I guess my problem is this: it takes for granted that all these elements are under our control. That we are totally in charge of our fate. I don't mean to discount the importance of individual effort. So much depends on us. What I am getting at is that eventually in order to be really happy we need to acknowledge God and his role in our lives. If our world. as we know it, fell apart tomorrow and we are thrust into events that are totally beyond our control, what then? How do we cope without going crazy?

True, lasting happiness is the byproduct of letting God into our lives so that even when family and community let us down we never feel alone.

Take depression for instance. It is a debilitating condition often beyond the control of the person afflicted with it. It cannot be ignored. Currently it is treated by using a combined approach, medication and pschotherapy. These have their rightful place, but what about the deeper spiritual causes?

Metropolitan Hierotheos:

http://www.pelagia.org/htm/b0niben.htm

has written a very useful book:

http://www.pelagia.org/htm/b02.en.orthodox_psychotherapy.000.htm

in this regard.

I think Lola B (and your God-daughter) will like the other book. It is richly illustrated and written in a way children will understand. Hope it's available in the UK.

I think you are right not to give in to their every whim. Nothing drives me crazier than to see parents showering kids with gifts, undue attention or trying to meet their spurious demands. Kids need to understand that as much as we love and adore them, the world does not revolve around them. Too many parents feel guilty about parenting these days. Parents are not responsible for entertaining their children nor do they have to spend every waking moment at their side. It seems that kids nowadays either get too much attention or no attention at all.

Making sacrifices for our children is one thing, feeling like our relationship with our spouse and our personal needs should ALWAYS take a backseat is quite another. That type of thinking does no good for anyone involved.

It's OK to say "what about me." In fact it's just as essential for your children as it is for you to do so. I'll stop now because I am starting to feel like Dear Abby (a syndicated columnist who solves everyone's problems).

[Margaret]

Dear Abby,

Did anyone tell you, you have a superb blog too.

[Stavros]

Margaret,

A blog is only as good as its readers and in this regard I have been very lucky.