Perpetual Euphoria - On the Duty to Be Happy

Happiness today is not just a possibility or an option but a requirement and a duty. To fail to be happy is to fail utterly. Happiness has become a religion--one whose smiley-faced god looks down in rebuke upon everyone who hasn't yet attained the blessed state of perpetual euphoria. How has a liberating principle of the Enlightenment--the right to pursue happiness--become the unavoidable and burdensome responsibility to be happy?

Hardcover. English. Princeton University Press. 2011. ISBN: 9780691143736. 257 pp. Good with dw. Book No: 55948