What Now of the Future?

The Rise of the American Dream and the Death of Happiness

Christopher Gardner (played by Will Smith) in The Pursuit of Happyness

In Steven Conrad’s 2006 drama, the Pursuit of Happyness, the protagonist, Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith), lays the thesis of the film, and more so, what Aristotle might call modern man’s the final cause, at the feet of the viewers when he says,

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he that?

Inspiration for the film is derived from what James Truslow Adams, in his book The Epic of America, coined the American Dream. Writing in 1931, he describes it as "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”¹