Law,Courts, and the Judicial Process

Abstract

In I Am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe explores how precarious the pursuit of happiness is in our liberal society, which provides insufficient moral support for individuals to resist following popular opinion in their pursuit of happiness. For Wolfe, the first step of the pursuit of happiness requires the courage to resist popular opinion and to seek an answer to what happiness is for oneself. As Wolfe shows, our universities are neglecting their task to prepare individuals with a liberal education to guide them on how to live as politically and morally free beings who are responsible for pursuing happiness. Despite appearing to be proud and independent, Charlotte Simmons's education fails to provide her with the moral courage to resist peer pressure. At her university, she adopts scientific viewpoints that undermine political and moral liberty and teach her that her superior intelligence and education are tools of domination. Charlotte puts them in service of gaining popularity. Instead of bringing her happiness, her pursuit of popularity leads to discontentment. Since liberalism provides incomplete moral guidance, Wolfe turns to ancient thinkers to find support for the courage to use political liberty to think about what happiness is and how it is to be pursued. In contrast to Charlotte, Jojo, a star basketball player, turns toward the pursuit of a liberal education to live as a free being and to seek happiness.