Perpetual euphoria
Subtitle: on the duty to be happy
By: Pascal Bruckner ; translated by Steven Rendall.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Princeton
Language: eng
Number of pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9780691143736
Subjects: Happiness -- History -- 19th century; Happiness -- History -- 20th century; Happiness -- Social aspects
Work titles: Euphorie perpétuelle.
Description: 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.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Life as a dream and a lie; title: The golden age and after?; title: The disciplines of beatitude; title: The bittersweet saga of dullness; title: The extremists of routine; title: Real life is not absent; title: "The fat, prosperous elevation of the average, the mediocre"; title: What is happiness for some is kitsch for others; title: If money doesn't make you happy, give it back!; title: The crime of suffering; title: Impossible wisdom; title: Conclusion Madame Verdurin's croissant.