In Pursuit of Happiness
- Program
- In Pursuit of Happiness
- Producing Organization
- Adult Education Association of USA
- Contributing Organization
- Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/512-sj19k46w7s
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- Description
- Program Description
- Featured on this program are the following people. Grace T. Stevenson is retiring president of the Adult Education Association. John Ciardi is professor of sociology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a prominent sociologist and author of The Passing of Society. Daniel Lerner is an American scholar of modernization. Edgar Anderson is Engelman Professor of Botany at Washington University, author of Plants, Man and Life and is currently studying on a senior Guggenheim Fellowship. Lyman Bryson is Professor Emeritus of Education at Teachers College of Columbia University. Lyman Bryson opens this program, indicating this will be an inquiry into the chief characteristics of America In Pursuit of Happiness. Each of the distinguished guest presents a prepared statement addressed to this subject. John Ciardi is the first speaker. Ciardi discusses Johnathan Swifts view of society as a Vanity Fair. He claims that present-day society is concerned with buying its way to happiness. Advertising exists to create desire faster than one can satisfy them, he continues. There are two extremes in his opinion: the materialistic extreme and the spiritualistic extreme, which is seen in the Eastern culture. Happiness is not to be confused with effortlessness, Ciardi notes. We demand difficulty even in our play, for without it there is no play. We find fun in winning within imposed limitations. He calls it a Western weakness that people believe in the idea that happiness can be given. Happiness is never more than a partial and it is derived in becoming. Daniel Lerner takes over from here and suggests that the post war years have seen a big change in society as we moved into a genuinely new way of living in which the primary economic question was to assure equitable distribution. Therefore, says Mr. Lerner, we must reconsider and revise some traditional ideas because we are largely the captive of ideas from an era of scarcity, in which striving and self-denial were the characteristics. Today, productive investment comes from surplus, not from savings, he notes, and we no longer believe that life is a struggle. We feel that many may survive at a level of contentment. We have not revised our morals and we talk and act differently. Lerner continues, I do not believe that swearing loyalty oaths to traditional ideas of morality is the best way we can be spending our time. He would like to see a flourishing of consumer mentality. The concept of the endlessly plastic human being will form much of the new bed rock of our new and more human attitude, concludes Lerner. Edgar Anderson is the concluding speaker in this program. He opens with the analogy of a girl chasing a boy and says, the more evident the pursuit, the less chance for success. Anderson feels that happiness seems to get along best in simple circumstances. He pokes fun at those who out of their way to seek weekend rusticity when they may be missing real happiness out of things they could have otherwise done. He notes that happiness for most persons has a curious relationship to comfort. He cites candlelight and firelight as being among lifes minor beauties. And lastly, he notes that the five day week has allowed amateurs to become professionals in avocations of their choosing. The second half of this hour-long special follows an intermission break in which we learn that the program is being seen from the Emery Auditorium in Cincinnati, Ohio, as part of the Adult Education Association Conference. Edgar Anderson is in the hot seat for the first question period. Ciardi takes exception with what he terms Andersons vegetable happiness. He claims all Andersons happiness is passive and receiving. Ciardi notes that for him thinking is hard work and a man is what he does with his attention. Here Anderson notes that thinking is an easy task for him. His favorite saying is Eggheads of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your yolk! Lerner takes the hot eat and the first question raised by Ciardi who asks, Why is this the age of anxiety? He also wants to know if Lerner agrees there is such a thing as installment plan neuroses. When Ciardi calls Lerners idea of happiness a bovine contentment, Lerner retorts that it is easy to say this if you dont look at society as it was in the past when men couldnt liberate themselves from concern about subsistence. He grants there is some standardization of taste today, but notes that one retains the rights to be irritated. Ciardi says that there is a drive in every human being to accomplish something and he doesnt think that giving everyone a degree of contentment is the way to help him satisfy this drive. Ciardi moves to the center position and is asked by Lerner to tie together his notion of achievement and effort with the idea of pain. Ciardi says he can only hope that one who has to suffer will have the fortitude to take it. He indicates that if he is able to select a difficulty which he wants to surmount, it is not torture to him. He finds writing a poem hard work, but it is still more rewarding to write the poem than to leave it unwritten. A self-imposed difficulty gives the best sense of achievement, he continues. Ciardi indicates a fear that being born into great comfort can be stultifying. This could become a nation of dilettantes, he concludes. Grace T. Stevenson comments on the statements and sums up the feeling of the Adult Education Association at the conclusion of the program. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Program Description
- 1 hour program, produced in 1959 by the Adult Education Association of USA, originally shot on videotape.
- Created Date
- 1959-00-00
- Asset type
- Program
- Rights
- Published Work: This work was offered for sale and/or rent in 1960.
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Credits
-
-
Guest:
Ciardi, John
Guest: Lerner, Daniel
Guest: Stevenson, Grace T.
Guest: Anderson, Edgar
Host: Bryson, Lyman
Producing Organization: Adult Education Association of USA
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2332303-1 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 16mm film
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: B&W
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- Citations
- Chicago: “In Pursuit of Happiness,” 1959-00-00, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 2, 2026, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-sj19k46w7s.
- MLA: “In Pursuit of Happiness.” 1959-00-00. Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. June 2, 2026. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-sj19k46w7s>.
- APA: In Pursuit of Happiness. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-sj19k46w7s