I was thinking for some time about what you say, because in my opinion, maybe I'm wrong, the goal of society can be precisely to seek the greatest possible amount of happiness for the associates. Whether this or not, it doesn't matter. But if it seems to me that in the most successful society possible, all people are happy, and in the most degenerate and corrupt society possible, all seem to be happy. That's the difference, between being and appear.
Modern society has an obsession with appearance and is an unfortunate sign of weakness. This is the reason why many people infamously want to force us, not to be happy because it is impossible, but to pretend it. I think that's also why Hollywood plays such an important role. Or very well the case of political correctness, which seeks, not to eradicate the problems, but to disguise them.
And I also think that many times oneself sin of these things, when do things to pretend and not because they should be done in that way, and when in another case, ask others (explicitly or implicitly) to appear and not that act naturally. In short, when we want to change others instead of changing ourselves.
Interesting point. Yes people do pretend to be happy to fulfill the status quo. But the biggest problem to me isn't between pretending and being but rather the authenticity of the being. In a "Brave New World", in order to avoid uncomfortable feelings like anxiety, loneliness anger etc, people ingested a drug known as "soma".
This is important because today we have a lot of soma type drugs and liquids freely consumed by the public; alcohol, xanax, cocaine, CBD oil etc.
These drugs make people believe that they are happy. Almost like a psychological trick. These drugs bypass the natural power process of human growth and development to create artificial happiness.
Let's suppose that there is a real life soma available and no one has to feel unhappy again. A solution that will "cure" the pretenders when the aforementioned drugs do not. A perfect dystopia. One would then have to consider the first point of your post.
Is the perfect society one where everyone is eternally happy or one where everyone is human, exercising the full range of their emotions?
Perhaps the perfect society is this, and the past, and the next. All perfect for different times and circumstances. Eternal happiness is unattainable for the human, at least it seems to me, but the goal is always to have the greatest degree of it.
But I agree with what you say, and I cannot help but see the error of my first comment, and is that society can't seek the highest degree of happiness, because the nature of happiness implores not to be sought. If you are looking for something, it is precisely because you don't have it, and therefore a society that "seeks happiness" is unhappy. In the same way, I would not consider someone who takes drugs to be happy a truly happy person.
The drugs that seek to deceive the senses of man to make him feel certain emotions try to deny reality and build a fictional world so that the human feels more comfortable. This is the biggest externalization; try to make reality adapt to you so that you are happy, instead of adapting yourself to reality to be happy. Big problem.
It seems that happiness itself can be an evil if it is not given in the right conditions.