The Pursuit of Happiness - JEFFREY ROSEN - President & CEO of the National Constitution Center

Interviewed by Mia Funk & Virginia Moscetti

What is the true meaning of the pursuit of happiness? What can we learn from the Founding Fathers about achieving harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery, and pursuing the public good?

Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.

JEFFREY ROSEN

That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Can you describe the overall organizing principle of The Pursuit of Happiness, the 12 virtues, and how you went about selecting the Founding Fathers that you chose to write about?

ROSEN

I was moved to organize the book according to 12 virtues by noting the incredible synchronicity that both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson made lists of 12 or 13 virtues for achieving happiness. And I knew about Franklin's famous system for achieving moral perfection, which he writes about in his autobiography, where he made a list of virtues for self-mastery. But I was just struck by the coincidence of seeing on the wall of The Boar's Head Inn in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the UVA campus, a list of 12 virtues that Jefferson had drafted for his daughters. And they were almost identical to Franklin's. And then, of course, I wanted to tell the stories through people because that's the best way to relate to and attempt to practice self-mastery and see how people achieved it in their own lives. Then, I chose different founders to associate with different virtues. You could have chosen a different organization there, but it seemed like a good way of telling the stories through their life's journeys.

The Importance of Deep Reading

The habits of deep reading are themselves the most tangible expression of the virtues. In that sense, the virtue of industry is the one that I still take with me. So many of the Founders did, too. They fell short of so many virtues, as we all do every day. But it was the habits of deep reading and writing, keeping up a consistent daily schedule, and setting aside time for deep reading and writing that they maintained until the end of their lives.

And that's the most tangible way in which the project changed my life. The pandemic is over, but each morning, I'm still setting aside time for deep reading and writing and creative work as well, where I'm not allowed to look at screens or to browse or do all the things that I'm tempted to do, of course, every, every minute. And that habit of industry is something that I'm really grateful for.

Writing Sonnets for Personal Transformation and Reflection

Being moved to write the sonnets was an unexpected gift that I was given. I certainly didn't expect that unusual practice, but I found myself moved to sum up the wisdom in concise and distilled form just by taking notes on the daily reading that I'd done each morning after watching the sunrise. And I was surprised to learn after starting the project that many people who read this wisdom during the Founding Era were also moved to write sonnets, including Phillis Wheatley, the great poet, Mercy Otis Warren, Alexander Hamilton, and John Quincy Adams, who would read the Tusculan Disputations in the original and read Cicero in the original in the White House for consolation, write sonnets, and watch the sunrise and walk along the Potomac. That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Despite being aware of these virtues, the Founding Fathers, when faced with issues of slavery and abolition, couldn't find it within themselves to have that level of self-mastery.

ROSEN

Slavery is the most glaring, notorious, and important hypocrisy to discuss. How was it possible that these Founders, all of whom acknowledge that slavery violated natural rights and natural justice, themselves owned slaves? And it was striking to discover that they didn't even try. That Patrick Henry quote is so significant. He said: is it not amazing that I myself who believe that slavery is immoral, myself own slaves? I will not justify it. I won't attempt to. It's simple avarice or greed. I can't do with the inconvenience of living without them.

And that idea that these men who insisted that virtues like industry and frugality were so important and that avarice or ambition were such sins themselves just couldn't be bothered to give up the lifestyle, that it was indeed their addiction to the ease that enslavement made possible that led to this hypocrisy.

Practicing the Classical Virtues

When I tried to practice the Franklin 13 virtues, which I did a couple of years ago at the recommendation of a rabbi who suggested the Hebrew version. A Hasidic rabbi in the 19th century had translated Franklin's virtues into Hebrew. And a friend and I tried to practice them without actually knowing that they came from Franklin. I found that separating them or disaggregating them, as Franklin recommends, focusing on temperance one week, for example, and industry another, is less successful than thinking of them holistically. Really practicing the virtues, it's more of a vibe, if I can use that word, than a checklist. And in that sense, it's a feeling of alignment, harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery that you achieve once you've internalized the wisdom.

Personal Self-government and Political Self-government

The Founders thought it was imperative that people seek out information, listen to arguments of different perspectives, and deliberate with their fellow citizens before making up their own minds. That crucial right is also a duty to think as you will and speak as you think.

Challenges of Modern Media to Democracy

The idea of being moved by opinion rather than fact and expressing allegiance to an ideology rather than being open-minded to evidence is the definition of a faction. A faction is any group, either a majority or a minority, animated by passion rather than reason, devoted to self-interest rather than a public good. And that's exactly what the algorithmic rabbit holes and filter bubbles and echo chambers encourage. And it's a serious threat.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

It’s interesting to hear you write about that note of beauty and harmony, which seems to be lost in political discourse these days. We’re so in conflict that the idea of being like artists all working together for a collective vision seems to be lost.

ROSEN

I love Leonard Bernstein's excitement in talking about how he says, for Beethoven, was he the best harmonist? No. Was it his orchestral abilities? Absolutely not. It was just that each note that he chose was exactly the right note to follow the note that proceeded it as if he had "a private telephone wire to Heaven" and that he was channeling the note that created and mirrored the divine harmonies of the universe.

And it was so striking to see John Adams compare the harmonies of a great piece by Handel to the harmonies of the State. And harmony is truth, which is reason, which is the Divine, according to the classical authority. And we have not only a right, but a duty to live according to reason in order to align ourselves with the divine harmonies of the universe.

And that's why seeking that kind of harmony through art and nature is as important, more important than trying to achieve harmony through politics. And that's why the quest for individual and collective self-mastery is really a search for harmony.

Well, it's important that although you can disaggregate the virtues, they're really clusters of the same quest that they're all glosses on the four classical virtues of temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. And they're all attempts to achieve self-mastery, and in that sense, tranquility, moderation, these are different ways of expressing the ideas of prudence and temperance. It's striking that Adam Smith translated the Roman word temperance with virtue as a kind of tranquility of the soul.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

What are your reflections about the beauty and wonder of the natural world and how does that inspire you as you plant trees for the next century?

ROSEN

There's no more beautiful experience in the world than watching the sunrise and the daily practice of waking up to watch the sunrise and being full of wonder at the extraordinary beauty that awaits us each day. Recapitulating each morning the harmony of Creation, it's incredibly exciting. And then, I just developed these practices of trying to do something creative along with the sunrise. During COVID, it was writing sonnets. Before that I'd been writing other kinds of poems. Recently, I've started writing songs, and there's just something about the golden hour of the sunrise that waits for us each day and, whatever else is going on in the world or in our lives, allows us to recommit to and experience once more the glorious beauty and harmony of the universe.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Given the way that you designate time away from technology for creative pursuits or the kinds of activities that strengthen self-mastery, to what extent do you believe that owning our attention makes us autonomous?

ROSEN

There's no more empowering act for me than simply turning the devices off. The simple rule that I'm not allowed to browse in the morning until I've done my reading has opened up worlds. So much of tech and the net are designed to capture our attentions, to turn us into consumers rather than citizens, to fan our base passions and emotions, and to send us down rabbit holes. That the best thing we can do is to turn it off.

"The pictures in our minds", I guess that was Walter Lippmann, are confirmed by the enlightenment empiricists like John Locke, who insists that our reality is shaped by our external sensations and what we put into our minds. And then, of course, we are what we think. Life shaped by the mind, as The Dhammapada states. And then, the great injunction that my dad used to quote from Paracelsus, "As we imagine ourselves to be, so shall we be." So it's so important to exercise autonomous self-control over the pictures and images that we put into our minds. And the best thing we can do is to turn them off.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Who have been the important teachers in your life?

ROSEN

I'm so grateful to these great teachers every day. They are with me every day. My father, the great hypnotherapist guru, who died at 95, just as I was finishing the book, was with me at every stage and his empowering message helped me see the connections between the hypnotherapy that he practiced and the great wisdom traditions. And then in college, I just had the extraordinary privilege of studying with great humanists in history and literature. Walter Jackson Bate, who wrote the towering biography of Samuel Johnson and taught the age of Johnson, insisted that the humanities could be put to use and could teach us how to live. And, through his love of poetry and prose of the 18th century, both taught me how to write and hear the music and language and also inspired in me this urgent belief in the necessity of the humanities to teach us how to live.

These interview highlights have been edited for clarity and concision.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and and Virginia Moscetti with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and and Virginia Moscetti. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Scientists, Artists, Psychologists & Spiritual Leaders Share their Stories and insights on the importance of connecting with nature, preserving the environment, embracing diversity, and finding harmony in the world.

JAY JORDAN & ISABELLE FRÉMEAUX

Artists, Activists & Anarchists Seize Wetlands from the French Republic
Authors of We are ‘Nature’ Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones
the story of a 40-year struggle to preserve 4,000 acres of wetlands from being destroyed to make way for an airport

DOUG LARSON

Award-winning Scientist · Ecologist · Professor Emeritus · University of Guelph
Author of Cliff Ecology · The Urban Cliff Revolution · The Dogma At My Homework

I think one thing I learned from looking at the ancient trees is that there is no great benefit to anything of growing quickly and accumulating vast resources. Growing slowly and patiently and with fewer demands on the environment in which you live is just as healthy and perhaps more healthy than the endless hunger for more and more and more, which we see as a characteristic of our species.

THOMAS CROWTHER

Ecologist · Founder of Restor
Co-chair of the Board for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

Global restoration really means finding and empowering the millions of local communities, indigenous populations, and farmers who are promoting biodiversity. Restor is a digital platform, sort of like Google Maps, but for restoration. So rather than seeing coffee shops and supermarkets, you will see conservation projects and Indigenous-led restoration initiatives. And that means you can find a currently on Restor - I think we have around 140, 000 - so you can go on there for free right now and find thousands and thousands of these amazing heroes of nature. And you can zoom in and you can see every single tree on the ground. You can see every bush and you can fund them or you can buy their coffee or you can go visit their projects and do ecotourism. There's a myriad of ways that we can all support their efforts by also improving our own lives.

We need to be cutting our emissions so that we can allow nature to thrive and help us along the way. For far too long people have been squabbling about emissions. We should do this or we should do that. Climate change is way too big for us to be squabbling about things. We need to do everything now. When we grow the same crops every year, the soil gets more depleted and all the nutrients are lost. I've heard quotes that if we cannot find agricultural systems that rejuvenate the soil instead of depleting it, we are signing our death warrant. It's like we need to be promoting healthy soils if we're going to have any agriculture in the future.

PETER D. DITLEVSEN

Professor of Physics, Ice, Climate & Earth at the Niels Bohr Institute

What happens if we lose the Greenland ice sheet and pass the tipping points and Earth systems shut down?

If that shuts down, roughly speaking, the climate of Northern Europe would be like the climate of Alaska. So, climate models that actually simulate what happens when it's shut down, would say that England becomes like Northern Norway, which means that food security and things like that will be threatened because you cannot grow many crops in Northern Norway. And other models say precipitation changes, so places that are wet might become dry, and so on. So, these are of course severe consequences for Europe, but in some sense, this is going in the opposite direction of global warming. We're all talking about we're getting into a warmer world, but I'm talking about a cooling here. But the warm water that does not then flow from the tropics into the North Atlantic will stay in the tropics. And there, you're not contra-balancing global warming. There you will have the heating on top of the global warming. And that I see as maybe the largest problem we have is that the tropics become even warmer. And we have to realize if you live in a place where mean temperatures are maybe late thirties Celsius and or rise to the forties livelihood becomes very difficult.

DR. BARRY SCHWARTZ

Psychologist · Author of Why We Work
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

In 2004, the internet was just getting started in a major league way, and already the choice overload was a problem. I would say that from the modern perspective, 2004 seems like the 18th century, and as near as I can tell, all of these changes, every single one of them has made the problem substantially worse. The idea that you can get information to help guide you through - well, yeah, but what information do you believe? What's trustworthy? What's being motivated by an opportunity to sell you something? So there is a haze, there is this fog that we're operating in. And I think we just sort of give up in resignation and look at recommendations and hope that they're legitimate because how else do you get through the day?

KOHEI SAITO

Author of Slow Down! How Degrowth Communism Can Save the World
Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism

The Green New Deal presents itself as a kind of radical policy. If you look at the content, it's just simply the continuation of what capitalism wants to do. It's a massive investment in new, allegedly green industries, with the creation of more jobs with higher wages, but these are not the things that socialists or any environmentalists should be actually seeking because we recognize that capitalism is basically the root cause of the climate crisis and the misery of the workers. If so, I think it is high time to imagine something radically very different from business-as-usual capitalism.

The Long Tradition of American Jewish Critiques of Israel & Their Suppression

American Jews were interested and involved in Palestinian rights all the way back to 1948. There's this idea that it came about just now or in the 1970s, but actually as long as there's been a Nakba. As long as there's been Palestinian refugees, there’s been American Jews concerned with that, too. I would say that a lot of times these American Jews were very well informed and spent time in the region, and they came to these conclusions often not in the United States, but over there where they were talking to the Israeli left and meeting Palestinians and seeing a situation that they don't feel is ethical or sustainable.

BEN FRANTA

Founding Head of the Climate Litigation Lab
Senior Research Fellow at University of Oxford’s Sustainable Law Programme

For 40 years, the American Petroleum Institute has hired economists to argue it would be too expensive to try and control fossil fuels and that climate change wasn't that bad. The same go-to consultancy firm has been involved in every major climate policy fight from the very beginning and hired by the fossil fuel industry, but what are the courts going to do? It's not just the historical deception. It's an ongoing deception.

MICHAEL STICKA

President/CEO of the GRAMMY Museum

It's actually right in our mission statement that “we celebrate the music of yesterday and today to inspire the music of tomorrow.” And we do it through our exhibits. We have 35,000 square feet of galleries. We travel exhibits, really, all over the world over the world for the past 15 years. And through our education programs, we really focus on the next generation of music's creators and leaders. We do that through really specific curricula that is designed to educate particularly young people, K-12, about the business of music, especially for those who want to go into the industry.

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