We Strive to Make the People a Little Happier Every Day: Political Discourse and Practices of Happiness in Brazil and Argentina in Mid-Twentieth Century

Abstract

This chapter explores the narratives of happiness (with its attendant constellation of emotions such as joy, cheerfulness, and well-being) in the political rhetoric and practices of the governments of Getulio Vargas and Juan Domingo Perón in mid-twentieth century Brazil and Argentina. The study focuses not only on the rhetorical dimension and on the policies adopted and promoted by both governments, but also on their popular reception and on the people’s experience of happiness. It explores the role of happiness both in the legitimation of the political leaders and in the building of an emotional regime centered on happiness, an emotion that, nonetheless, was consistently strained by less pleasant feelings such as humiliation, contempt, resentment, and hatred toward/from those who, because of their condition of political opponents or ideological dissidents, were excluded from the community of happy beings.