I grew up in the United States, and at school they made me memorise part of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. I still remember it now because they made it into a song we sang at a school assembly:
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.
At the time, it felt like just another thing adults made us learn. One of those historical rituals you repeat without thinking too hard about why.
And yet those words have stayed with me.
The country I was born in, and the wider world, feels complicated, divided, and often frightening right now. Institutions feel less stable. Public conversation feels louder but less thoughtful. People seem quicker to choose sides and slower to listen. And still, I find myself coming back to this short piece of text I learned as a child.
Not because I think it’s perfect. Not because I think the people who wrote it lived up to its ideals. And certainly not because I believe any single historical document has all the answers. But because it asks questions that still feel alive.
The famous line, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, is often quoted as if it’s self-explanatory. But the more I think about it, the more complicated it becomes. What does “liberty” mean when our choices affect each other? Whose happiness gets prioritised? How do you protect life without restricting freedom? These are not solved questions. They might never be.
And that’s exactly why they interest me.
I’ve realised that when the world feels noisy and chaotic, I instinctively want to return to first principles. Not to find certainty, but to remind myself what we’re even trying to build together.
For me, two big themes emerge from the declaration.
The first is the idea of basic human rights: people are entitled to certain things simply because they are human.
The second is the idea that power should have limits: that authority is legitimate only when it serves the people, and that systems should include checks, balances, and accountability.
These ideas are not uniquely American, of course. The UK has its own long tradition of arguing about power and rights, from the Magna Carta onward, and every democratic society wrestles with versions of the same questions. The details differ, but the underlying tension is familiar everywhere: how do we live together fairly, safely, and freely?
Over the next few posts, I want to explore the ideas inside that famous phrase in more detail:
- What do we mean by life in a complex modern society?
- What does liberty really look like when we don’t all agree?
- And what does the pursuit of happiness mean in a world that often feels unequal, anxious, and uncertain?
Eventually I want to circle back to the bigger question underneath it all: how societies place limits on power, and what happens when those limits feel fragile.
I don’t have neat conclusions. I’m not writing from a place of certainty.
I’m writing because these ideas still feel like a compass. They don’t point to easy answers, but they do help me orient myself when everything feels confusing.
Maybe that’s what old texts are for. Not to tell us what to think, but to remind us what questions are worth asking.
The Mum Reviews 