Darrin McMahon
Darrin McMahon
Darrin M. McMahon is a historian, author, public speaker, and currently a professor of History at Dartmouth College...
begun beings created happiness human modern natural obligation recently relatively type ways
It's only relatively recently that human beings have begun to think of happiness as not just an earthy possibility, but also in some ways as an obligation or entitlement, a natural human right. I think this has created a new and very modern pressure, even a new type of unhappiness: the unhappiness of not being happy.
expected people perverse relatively religion since
It's only relatively recently, since the 18th century, that people expected religion to make them happy. In a way, it's a perverse affirmation of the Enlightenment.