If art and entertainment were any reflection, then the 1980s marked the beginning of a genuinely frightening era of casual and horrifically graphic violence. Then, too, who can forget what the 1980s signaled in terms of inner-city violence, where twelve- andthirteen-year-old children murdered one another with absolutely no compunction whatsoever; hence, the chilling resonance of such terms as “drive-by shooting” and “gangbang.”
It was into this morally bereft landscape, then, that L. Ron Hubbard presented his The Way to Happiness in 1981. Typically, his approach was both historically and culturally broad. Just as all ancient cultures required a moral code to help sustain their fabric, he declared, so too did our own; for old values had been broken yet not replaced by new, while religiously based codes of ages past demanded a faith many could no longer muster. Nor, he concluded, were theories that children would naturally assume a moral stance any more reliable. Thus he wrote The Way to Happiness.


The work stands alone as the only moral code aimed at a pragmatic, high-tech and highly cynical society. The first work of its kind based wholly on common sense, it is entirely embracive. It carries no other appeal than to the good sense of readers and is designed to help them actually apply itsprecepts in their daily lives. Beneath the many differences of national, political, racial, religious or other hue, each of us as individuals must make our way through life. Such a way, The Way to Happiness teaches, can be made better if the precepts it presents are known and followed.
Life in an immoral society can be more than simply difficult when basic human values are held up to ridicule. To counter such declining moral trends, Mr. Hubbard’s The Way to Happiness contains 21 separate precepts—each constituting a rule for living relevant to anyone in our global village. Indeed, more than one hundred million copies of the booklet in better than two hundred nations and a hundred languages are presently in circulation, with no end in sight. The work has further inspired scores of United States Congressional recognitions and many more heartfelt endorsements by police, civic leaders, businessmen and educators. It forms the basis of the highly successful “Set a Good Example” and “Get Drugs Off School Grounds” campaigns, involving over twelve million American students, parents and teachers in upwards of twelve thousand elementary, junior high and high schools. These campaigns, in turn, additionally earned endorsements from some 90 state governors and state legislators, as well as directors of drug abuse programs and departments of education in hundreds of American communities.

For more information  http://www.lronhubbard.org/