Bruckner Perpetual Euphoria

On the Duty to Be Happy
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-3597-3
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten

How happiness became mandatory—and why we should reject the demand 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? How did we become unhappy about not being happy—and what might we do to escape this predicament? In Perpetual Euphoria, Pascal Bruckner takes up these questions with all his unconventional wit, force, and brilliance, arguing that we might be happier if we simply abandoned our mad pursuit of happiness.

Gripped by the twin illusions that we are responsible for being happy or unhappy and that happiness can be produced by effort, many of us are now martyring ourselves—sacrificing our time, fortunes, health, and peace of mind—in the hope of entering an earthly paradise. Much better, Bruckner argues, would be to accept that happiness is an unbidden and fragile gift that arrives only by grace and luck.

A stimulating and entertaining meditation on the unhappiness at the heart of the modern cult of happiness, Perpetual Euphoria is a book for everyone who has ever bristled at the command to "be happy."

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bruckner, Pascal

Weitere Mitwirkende

Rendall, Steven

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Invisible Penitence 1

Part I: Paradise Is Where I Am 7

Chapter One: Life as a Dream and a Lie 9

Chapter Two: The Golden Age and After? 27

Chapter Three: The Disciplines of Beatitude 39

Part II: The Kingdom of the Lukewarm, or The Invention of Banality 67

Chapter Four: The Bittersweet Saga of Dullness 69

Chapter Five: The Extremists of Routine 84

Chapter Six: Real Life Is Not Absent 106

Part III: The Bourgeoisie, or The Abjection of Well-Being 129

Chapter Seven: "The Fat, Prosperous Elevation of the Average, the Mediocre" 131

Chapter Eight: What Is Happiness for Some Is Kitsch for Others 149

Chapter Nine: If Money Doesn't Make You Happy, Give It Back! 163

Part IV: Unhappiness Outlawed? 181

Chapter Ten: The Crime of Suffering 183

Chapter Eleven: Impossible Wisdom 206

Conclusion: Madame Verdurin's Croissant 227

Index 233

Über Autor(innen)

Pascal Bruckner is the award-winning author of many books of fiction and nonfiction, including the novel Bitter Moon, which was made into a film by Roman Polanski. Bruckner's nonfiction books include The Tyranny of Guilt (Princeton), The Temptation of Innocence, and The Tears of the White Man.