Perpetual Euphoria
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| Author | : Pascal Bruckner |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 256 |
| Release | : 2020-03-31 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 0691204039 |
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."
| Author | : Damien François |
| Publisher | : Editions Publibook |
| Total Pages | : 582 |
| Release | : 2007 |
| Genre | : Anthropology |
| ISBN | : 2748337972 |
Voilà désormais plus de 10 000 ans que la civilisation occidentale s'est installée et voilà 10 000 ans qu'elle viole le sens même de la nature : la vie. En s'appropriant sans concession ce qui l'entourait, l'homme de l'Ouest a vu son horizon ployer sous la charge de la destruction qu'il lui avait lui-même réalisée. Sommes-nous des lycanthropes ou des vampires? Ces monstres si terrifiants qui sortent de notre imagination sont-ils en réalité la copie de notre comportement dévastateur? Prédateurs, nous pompons sans remords les énergies qui nous entourent. Jusqu'où ira-t-on?.
| Author | : Pascal Bruckner |
| Publisher | : John Wiley & Sons |
| Total Pages | : 180 |
| Release | : 2021-02-03 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 1509544348 |
There is one fundamental thing that has changed in our societies since 1950: life has got longer. Over the last few generations, 20 or 30 years have been added to the duration of our lives. But after the age of 50, human beings experience a kind of suspension: no longer young, not really old, they are, as it were, weightless. It is a reprieve that leaves life open like a swinging door. The increase in life expectancy is a tremendous step forward that upsets everything: relations between generations, patterns of family life, the very meaning of our identity and our destiny. This reprieve is both exciting and frightening. The deadlines are getting shorter, the possibilities are shrinking, but there are still discoveries, surprises and upsetting love affairs. Time has become a paradoxical ally: instead of killing us, it carries us forward. What to do with this ambiguous gift? Is it only a question of living longer or living more intensely? To continue along the same path or to branch out and start again? What about remarriage, a new career? How to avoid the weariness of living, the melancholy of the twilight years, how to get through great joys and great pains? Nourished by both reflections and statistics, drawing on the sources of literature, the arts and history, this book proposes a philosophy of longevity based not on resignation but on resolution. In short, an art of living this life to the full. Is there not a profound joy in being alive at the age when our ancestors already had one foot in the grave? This book is dedicated to all those who dream of a new spring in the autumn of life, and want to put off winter as long as they can.
| Author | : Pascal Bruckner |
| Publisher | : Harvard University Press |
| Total Pages | : 295 |
| Release | : 2017-05-02 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 0674972279 |
Money is an evil that does good, and a good that does evil. It is wise to have money, says Pascal Bruckner, and wise to think and talk about it critically. One of the world’s great essayists guides us through the commentary that money has generated since ancient times, as he builds an unfashionable defense of the worldly wisdom of the bourgeoisie.
| Author | : John Kenneth Galbraith |
| Publisher | : Penguin |
| Total Pages | : 130 |
| Release | : 1994-07-01 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 110165080X |
The world-renowned economist offers "dourly irreverent analyses of financial debacle from the tulip craze of the seventeenth century to the recent plague of junk bonds." —The Atlantic. With incomparable wisdom, skill, and wit, world-renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith traces the history of the major speculative episodes in our economy over the last three centuries. Exposing the ways in which normally sane people display reckless behavior in pursuit of profit, Galbraith asserts that our "notoriously short" financial memory is what creates the conditions for market collapse. By recognizing these signs and understanding what causes them we can guard against future recessions and have a better hold on our country's (and our own) financial destiny.
| Author | : Pascal Bruckner |
| Publisher | : John Wiley & Sons |
| Total Pages | : 224 |
| Release | : 2018-11-26 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 1509530665 |
‘Islamophobia’ is a term that has existed since the nineteenth century. But in recent decades, argues Pascal Bruckner in his controversial new book, it has become a weapon used to silence criticism of Islam. The term allows those who brandish it in the name of Islam to ‘freeze’ the latter, making reform difficult. Whereas Christianity and Judaism have been rejuvenated over the centuries by external criticism, Islam has been shielded from critical examination and has remained impervious to change. This tendency is exacerbated by the hypocrisy of those Western defenders of Islam who, in the name of the principles of the Enlightenment, seek to muzzle its critics while at the same time demanding the right to chastise and criticize other religions. These developments, argues Bruckner, are counter-productive for Western democracies as they struggle with the twin challenges of immigration and terrorism. The return of religion in those democracies must not be equated with the defence of fanaticism, and the right to religious freedom must go hand in hand with freedom of expression, an openness to criticism, and a rejection of all forms of extremism. There are already more than enough forms of racism; there is no need to imagine more. While all violence directed against Muslims is to be strongly condemned and punished, defining these acts as ‘Islamophobic’ rather than criminal does more to damage Islam and weaken the position of Muslims than to strengthen them.
| Author | : Carl Cederström |
| Publisher | : John Wiley & Sons |
| Total Pages | : 200 |
| Release | : 2015-02-04 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 0745688713 |
Not exercising as much as you should? Counting your caloriesin your sleep? Feeling ashamed for not being happier? You may be avictim of the wellness syndrome. In this ground-breaking new book, Carl Cederström andAndré Spicer argue that the ever-present pressure to maximizeour wellness has started to work against us, making us feel worseand provoking us to withdraw into ourselves. The Wellness Syndromefollows health freaks who go to extremes to find the perfect diet,corporate athletes who start the day with a dance party, and theself-trackers who monitor everything, including their own toilethabits. This is a world where feeling good has becomeindistinguishable from being good. Visions of social change havebeen reduced to dreams of individual transformation, politicaldebate has been replaced by insipid moralising, and scientificevidence has been traded for new-age delusions. A lively andhumorous diagnosis of the cult of wellness, this book is anindispensable guide for everyone suspicious of our relentless questto be happier and healthier.
| Author | : Hélène Hagège |
| Publisher | : John Wiley & Sons |
| Total Pages | : 338 |
| Release | : 2019-07-30 |
| Genre | : Education |
| ISBN | : 1786303663 |
Changing your mind to change the world is the general principle proposed to educate for responsibility. Using an interdisciplinary scientific approach, this book dissects the functioning of the ego, that is to say the belief in a self, an illusion that causes disharmony. After an original modeling of the notion of responsibility, the author deduces that it is incumbent on all of us to become aware of the relationship between our own minds and the world. Thus, gaining consistency and awareness, everyone would have the potential to free themselves from the illusion of the ego and contribute to a more harmonious world. This book therefore proposes psychospiritual skills, favored in particular by different forms of reflexivity and by meditation (and mindfulness), which can serve as a basis for a curriculum to educate for responsibility. This academic connection between meditation and ethics is a major innovative contribution.
| Author | : Dick Taverne |
| Publisher | : Biteback Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 197 |
| Release | : 2014-03-20 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 1849547270 |
In 1973, Labour MP Dick Taverne caused a national sensation when he stood against his own party as an independent to win a historic by-election in Lincoln. Demonstrating the power of the individual against party politics, his bold move was a forerunner for the formation of the SDP some eight years later and cemented his own place in political history. Peppered with entertaining anecdotes, Against the Tide sets Taverne's political battles in the context of a rich and varied life. After studying at Oxford University, Taverne juggled a legal career while taking his first steps in politics, before serving in Harold Wilson's government during the 1960s. His later achievements included the launch of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the founding of the charity Sense About Science, whose objective of advancing public understanding of science continues to inform public debate today. Still an active member of the House of Lords, Dick Taverne presents a thoughtful and compelling memoir, as well as a measured account of fraught and turbulent times.
| Author | : Jeffrey Bolden |
| Publisher | : CooL Kidd |
| Total Pages | : 52 |
| Release | : 2015-02-21 |
| Genre | : |
| ISBN | : 1310255245 |
Money. Murder. Drugs. For all of Saint's life, that is all he had ever known. After Saint was taken from his abusive household and adopted, Saint grew to become Harrogate , TN's very own outlaw, the modern equivalent of Wiley "Little" Harpe. For Saint, life is all about three things. Doing what he absolutely has to do to survive, the love he has for Shia, Saint's adopted brother's ex-girlfriend, and his dream of becoming a great artist. Saint had just murdered a couple Knoxville drug dealers for the drugs and money to survive. He had just been offered a scholarship to the University of Tennessee. And Shana, Shia's ex-girlriend, is showing subtle interest in Saint, leaving the murderous Saint with two paths to walk down. Does he walk down the dark and lonely road of a killer who lusts after his older brother's girlfriend or does he take the path of his namesake and chase his dream? And what will be the repercussions of his decision?
