Patrick J. Deneen - Essay Example

The idea of America according to Patrick J. Deneen is one filled with regret, the regret of a life not lived. It is one that looks at life retrospectively, questioning why one made certain choices in life as opposed to others and ended up living a life that they had no desire to be a part of. The person questioning themselves in this instance is a character in the movie American Beauty. The character is called Lester Burnham. Through his life we get to see Deneen’s characterization of America; one without depth, full of longing, and finally regret when it realizes that all that it ever wanted was there all along, they were just blinded by the idea that they should have had an alternate life. (Deneen)

This alternate life that they are always after seems to promise happiness to whoever embraces it, it is one of youth. Deneen equates it to reckless abandon when you did as you please without consequence. Lester states of his youth “a time when all I did was party and get laid, I had my whole life ahead of me…” (Spacey)

When he finally gets it in the form of a youthful girl, he realizes that he does not want it, because pictures of his life flash before his eyes, of his wife and children. It is too late though because he ends up getting shot and dies. At the end of the movie when Lester is dying, he is heard stating “I guess I could be pretty pissed about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Then I remember to relax and stop trying to hold onto it. Then it flows through me like rain. I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what am talking about I’m sure. But don’t worry-you will, someday.” (Spacey)

From his words one gets a sense that Lester is going through regret, acceptance, and then realization. Regret that he went through life not seeing that he had all along been happy but he always wanted more; acceptance that after all this, he finally realizes his mistake and he is ready to accept his fate; realization that it is too late for him and he knows that it will be too late for you because humanity will always want what is on the other side of the fence, hence they will all fall into Deneen’s idea of America, one of regret that you were happy but you never saw it, and then it is too late. (Thoreau)

Jon Gertner

The idea of America according to Jon Gertner is one where people are in pursuit of happiness, all trying to do one more thing so as to attain it. He postulates that every individual thinks that they will attain happiness if they perform a particular act or acquire a particular thing. They tend to imagine that that is what is what is missing from their lives and acquiring it will solve all their problems. He puts forward the argument that we imperfectly imagine what we want and how we will cope with it. He states that this is never the case because people always overestimate the impact that acquiring that particular thing or performing that particular act will have on their lives. (Gertner)

The problem is that we falter when it comes to imagining how we will feel about something in the future. He states that individuals experience a dimming excitement in response to whatever they thought would be the answer to all their problems calling the gap between what we predict and what we ultimately experience ‘the impact gap’. “The problem”, he postulates “is not whether you will be happy after attaining that goal, but figuring out which of those futures is going to have the high payoff and is really going to make you happy.”  Through various studies, he has established links between prediction, decision-making, and well-being stating that “it is a common assumption that we would be happier with an option to change our minds when we are in fact happier with closure.” Gertner draws his work from George Loewenstein who stated that “Happiness is a signal that our brains use to motivate us to do certain things. And in the same way that our eyes adapt to different levels of illumination, we’re designed to kind of go back to the happiness set point. Our brains are not trying to be happy. Our brains are trying to regulate us.” (Gertner)

My Opinion

Jon Gertner’s argument resonates with me because humanity from its inception has always been seen to want more than they have, they always desire to go over the fence and indulge in the neighbor’s wares, only realizing later that what the neighbor had is exactly what they had or in most instances, does not measure up to what they thought the neighbor had in the first place. This usually makes them want to go back from whence they came, but it is usually too late at this point and the damage usually has already been done. Man cannot be satisfied.

Conclusion

Taking into consideration what both writers have put forward in the form of arguments for and against happiness and how to go about achieving it, one can analyze both of the theories and look at their lives through the eyes of both writers and analyze your life and the lives of the people surrounding you with a view to explaining to them why they perceive things as they do, in the long run helping both them and yourself attain happiness.