Defining Puritanism

I've had for some time a vague recollection of seeing a bumper sticker somewhere with a cynical (and ironic) definition for puritanism. It seemed like such an obscure idea, and so unlikely that anyone would actually bother to produce (or purchase) a bumper sticker like this, that I couldn't remember whether I'd actually seen it or just made it up from a combination of other memories. Well, today I finally got around to googling the keywords I thought I remembered, and here it is:



Now I can't understand why someone who disagrees with what they think puritanism is would bother to take up space on their car to criticize it, since it's not exactly a philosophy that many people in our culture even recognize. But the more substantial issue is that this analysis of puritanism is a complete load of crap.

If we want to talk in these terms about what the puritans were really after, we'd be more honest to put it this way:

"Puritanism: The compelling conviction that most people are not nearly as happy as they ought to be."