Socrates, in his ironical and relentless way, has been maneuvering a young hothead named Thrasymachus into contradicting himself. That’s because Thrasymachus has been saying that there is no such thing, really, as justice. It’s only a word for leverage, to fool people with. “Conscience is but a word that cowards use,” says the wicked King Richard III on the morning of the Battle of Bosworth Field. He says it in the morning, but he won’t say so in the evening. He won’t live long enough to say it. In any case, Socrates has compelled Thrasymachus to admit, though he doesn’t like it and we sense that he’s just saying yes to get Socrates off his back, that justice is necessary if the soul is to fulfill what a soul is supposed to be. “Did we not agree,” says that old bald cobbler, “that the excellence or virtue of soul is justice and its defect injustice?” Thrasymachus grants it. That means that the just man will have a good life, and the unjust man a miserable one. “He who lives well,” Socrates says, drawing the conclusion, “is blessed and happy, and he who does not is just the opposite.” Which means, of course, that “the just is happy and the unjust is wretched.”
There’s our Word of the Week, happy — but there’s something odd going on here. If we’re talking about the feeling, the Greek noun that Plato uses is eudaemonia, which means that you have a good spirit, you are high-hearted, you want to whistle a merry tune. But if we’re talking about a state of being, the adjective Plato uses is makarios, which means blessed, fortunate. It’s the same word Matthew and Luke use, when Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” I assure you that neither the soaring Plato nor the flat-footed Aristotle ever bound up happiness with being poor. After all, if you are materially poor, you have to worry about where your next meal is coming from. Jesus did say that we were to regard the birds of the air, that neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, but our heavenly Father feeds them — and we are worth more than the birds are. But I am sure that Jesus, a hard-working carpenter in the dusty village of Nazareth, knew very well what it was like for somebody to sweat from day to day just to feed his own belly, let alone those of his wife and his children. Somehow we must combine the two fields — the free and full rejoicing of the heart, and blessedness, and see them where man seldom seeks for them, away from power, wealth, fame, rank, and the pursuit of pleasure.
The word happy itself reaches out to both fields. What do you see in your mind’s eye, when you think, let’s say, of a happy little child? Here’s what I see. I see myself as a small boy, going up to my grandfather’s chicken coop to get a couple of eggs from out under the hens. Or there I am sitting next to the ditch on our dead-end street, using a stick to trace out letters in the sand. How could I not be happy? I had a mother and father, my grandparents across the street, ten aunts and uncles and a lot of cousins nearby, a nice day, some sand, and a stick. You might say I was blessed. You’d be right. Something of the sense of good fortune shows up in a lot of languages, when people think about happiness. Think of German glücklich, meaning “happy,” but it’s also closely related to our word lucky. Or there’s Italian felice, describing the sunny mood, the fine spirit, the racing of the heart; and yet that word comes from Latin felix, as when we sing in the great Easter hymn, “O felix culpa,” “O happy fault,” the sin of Adam that brought for us so great a Redeemer. Surely we’re singing not about our feelings but about the providence of God — about our being blessed, and in the very fall of man himself.
Is to be happy, then, to be happy-go-lucky? What a wonderful phrase that is! But I think it’s a little off, here. The phrase mostly describes a child whom nothing ever seems to trouble, all full of smiles and good-hearted playfulness. By the way, when was the last time you saw a happy-go-lucky child? And yet, the happy-go-lucky boy whistling down the street is closer to the happiness or the blessedness that Jesus has in mind than is the man who has just made a killing on Wall Street and is drinking a beer to celebrate it, because the kid takes the world as a gift, while the man tries to force happiness, to wrest it to his intelligence and power. And the kingdom of heaven is not to be had that way.
The word happy does or did once suggest luck, as it is related to what happens: hence we call something a happy coincidence, meaning that it is fortunate, a chance that works out well. A roll of the dice feels haphazard to the gambler who’s got too much on the line. Once I was driving home from high school and an old man pulled out from behind an oil tanker and stopped right in the middle of the highway, broadside: that was a mishap, and it could have been much worse.
And of course we know that in our Declaration of Independence, we Americans are advised that all men have certain rights they can’t divest themselves of even if they want to: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson read his ancient philosophy, and knew that happiness wasn’t the feeling, it wasn’t what you happen to enjoy, but was the ultimate of human ends, the one we seek for its own sake and not for any farther purpose. He also knew that you cannot have it apart from virtue. The Christian believer will say even more than that. And so I wish to all our readers that happiness that passes all understanding, even that of the greatest philosopher — and even that of the little boy with the stick.
Word & Song by Anthony Esolen is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymn, poems, films, and popular songs, as well a weekly podcast, alternately Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. Subscribe below.
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