How do puritanism and the right to pursue happiness coexist?

14 comments

1. *Puritans played an important role in American history, but they no longer influenced American society after the seventeenth century.*

   https://www1.udel.edu/dssep/tools_hist/hist-puritans.htm

2. I don’t really view us as puritan, personally. There may be some sects like very conservative religious groups who view themselves that way. But not Americans in general.

3. I don’t think too many of the founders would have thought a happy and meaningfully life was one where one got drunk and went to parties.

4. The puritans haven’t had a say in American culture for a few centuries, dude.

   In order for puritanism to coexist with something, it needs to *exist* in the first place.

5. I think you’re confusing “declaration of Independence” by Tom Jefferson with “fight for your right” by the beastie boys

6. [I’ll just leave this with you](https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=etas)

   Seriously though. Puritans are not an influence on modern day society much.

   Puritans clearly believed that what they were doing *was* the pursuit of happiness.

   Our government undeniably allows people to follow non-puritanical routes to happiness.

   Also, the way you phrase your question you seem to be asking about hedonism which is not necessarily the same as happiness.

7. The actual Puritans who settled New England probably saw reading as the “fun” activity. There were more printing presses in Colonial Massachusetts (mid 1700s) with a few hundred thousand inhabitants, than then entire Ottoman Empire, with millions of inhabitants. Mass towns were required to operate what we’d now consider public schools, so literacy was widespread.

8. >But for a non-American like me, the US is also the country of puritanism

   You should come visit because you don’t have a good handle on what it’s like here. Also maybe read more history because even when the declaration of Independence was written it wasn’t like that here.

   The Puritans and puritanism didn’t have absolute control over anything because we’re a free country. They barely had any power at all

9. Puritans were largely confined to New England and no longer really exist any more.

10. Just change puritans to evangelicals and you’ll be relevant

11. Wow, someone is judgmental.

12. It’s true, the puritans were among the first cultural waves in settlement, but were already pretty much out of the picture by the time we got to the constitution and independence.

    I think why we get a rap for continued ties to a puritanical founding is bc every so often we do have evangelical type waves that sweep through. Even now, very conservative Christian ideologies are actively amd visibly effecting legislature.

    Most contemporary Americans are in no way puritanical but compared to most Europeans I’ve befriended what I notice is our cultural perception of nudity, pornography, sexuality, alcohol consumption and gambling are all more conservative… that is due in part to a culture and government which have prioritized those issues *as governable*. The puritans were maybe the first to do it here but we’ve continued to have non-puritans pursuing similar ends, so it’s disingenuous or just deluded for Americans not to at least see the connection, imo.

13. The premise of this is pretty ridiculous.

    Also I hate to clue you in, the idea that living with no rules and restrictions is how you are “happy” has been pretty solidly proven to be false.

    I’m not saying people should be puritans, but people pretty much do anything they want now, and they are definitely not happy in general.

14. The Puritans haven’t been relevant in centuries.