Depending on your interpretation of happiness, it can save or destroy a society.

The US has built a whole culture around the pursuit of happiness. But David Wootton, writing in Lapham’s Quarterly, considers this a futile, self-defeating enterprise as our interpretation of "happiness" could either save or destroy a society.

Lapham’s Quarterly goes into the past to help us make sense of the present. It dives into history, finding the roots of education, science, literary, political, and economic thinking. 

The impossible dream

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