The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes it Hard to be Happy
Michael Foley
Language: English
Pages: 174
ISBN: B01MTN763L
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In a wry take on how contemporary culture is antithetical to happiness, Michael Foley paints a philosophical but hugely entertaining portrait of the cultural landscape—and comes up smiling
The good news is that the great thinkers from history have proposed the same strategies for happiness and fulfillment—the bad news is that these turn out to be the very things most discouraged by contemporary culture. This knotty dilemma is the subject of Michael Foley's wry and accessible investigation into how the desirable states of well-being and satisfaction are constantly undermined by modern life. He examines the elusive condition of happiness common to philosophy, spiritual teachings, and contemporary psychology, then shows how these are becoming increasingly difficult to apply in a world of high expectations. The common challenges of earning a living, maintaining a relationship, and aging are becoming battlegrounds of existential angst and self-loathing in a culture that demands conspicuous consumption, high-octane partnerships, and perpetual youth. Ultimately, rather than denouncing and rejecting the age, Foley presents an entertaining strategy of not just accepting but embracing today's world—finding happiness in its absurdity.
Likely to be platitudinous. An alternative is to read only original thinkers and writers and to seek only exciting insights. This is the luxury of being an independent seeker. There is no requirement to be comprehensive or to persist with anything boring. And an element of surprise is needed to render an insight memorable and useful, to make it penetrate and lodge. There is no guarantee of finding common ground but it is exciting when original thinkers in widely different times, cultures and.
An authoritarian elite it justifies firm control of the essentially evil human brute and for the individual it justifies self-indulgence because this is inevitable in a fallen creature. Both are absolved of obligation. Attempts to improve either social conditions or personal behaviour would be equally futile. But has anyone ever argued that behaving well is determined? Has anyone ever protested: ‘Hey, it’s my nature, I just can’t help being good? Determinism is invoked only to excuse behaving.
Is why it is difficult to tear your eyes away from a screen and dauntingly difficult to switch off a television. The long-term consequences are that it becomes difficult to pay attention to anything static, slow moving or requiring prolonged concentration on a single topic or task. And, of course, reality becomes impossibly sluggish and dull. Experience is nothing other than what we decide to attend to, so the quality of experience depends on the quality of attention. But passive,.
Colleagues, photocopies all of a library book and then spends the day at his desk reading what appears to be a work document.235 But it is increasingly difficult to avoid being exposed. Any attempt to block glass-office frontage, for instance with filing cabinets, posters, calendars or notices, will be spotted and forbidden by zealous safety staff – often the colleagues most likely to be Pharisees. It must be the petty and largely prohibitive nature of safety monitoring that attracts the.
The fantasy is driven in turn by novelty and transgression, hence the fascination with anal sex – the anus is the new vagina – and the transgressive thrills of BDSM. It is certainly ironic, and possibly significant, that the age of liberation is increasingly turned on by bondage. One of the most popular products in the Ann Summers chain of sex shops is the Bondage Starter Kit. And the latest BDSM kick for the jaded is paying to have yourself kidnapped: as you walk along the street, a van suddenly.