How to Be a Failure and Still Live Well: A Philosophy

ISBN-13: 9781350030695 / Angielski / Miękka / 2020 / 264 str.

Beverley Clack

Opis

In western consumer economies, success has increasingly been defined in terms of material attainment and the achievement of status. This model of 'the good life' avoids recognising the shadow that haunts success: that is, the possibility that one may not succeed and as a result be deemed 'a failure'. How to be a Failure and Still Live Well explores that often neglected theme of failure, not just as the opposite of achievement, but also, and more importantly, how it has been conflated with loss: that which haunts all transient, mortal human experience. Understanding loss as a form of failure affects our ability to cope with the everyday losses that permeate existence as a result of the natural processes of ageing, death and decay. Engaging with loss, thinking about what it inevitability means for our lives and commitments, allows different values to emerge than those connected to success as attainment. Relationship, spontaneity and generosity are explored as qualities which arise from taking seriously our vulnerability and which form the basis for richer accounts of what it might mean to 'live well'.

Recenzje

Nothing succeeds like success? Perhaps not. How to be a Failure and Still Live Well is a powerful rejection of the language of 'success' that dominates contemporary neo-liberal culture. Blending philosophy and personal experience Beverley Clack gives a moving defense of the necessity of loss and failure in building relationships, identity and a meaningful life. This splendid book gives us a picture of the kind of fuller existence we can aspire to as individuals who choose our own response to tragedy and as members of a community that does not rely on false optimism or selfish calculation to bind itself together. Joshua Foa Dienstag, Professor of Political Science & Law, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Spis treści

AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Failure: And How to Live WellChapter 1: Success, Failure, and the 21st Century Good LifeChapter 2: Women, Failure, and the Fear of LossChapter 3: Death and Sickness, Loss and FailureChapter 4: Factoring Out Failure, Factoring Out Humanity: Bureaucracy, Metrics, and the Loss of SpontaneityChapter 5: From Homo Economicus to Homo Religiosus: Remaking the HumanChapter 6: Accepting Failure, Embracing LossConclusion: Being a Failure and Living WellBibliography

O autorze

Beverley Clack is Professor in the Philosophy of Religion at Oxford Brookes University. Her publications include: Interrogating the Neoliberal Lifecycle: The Limits of Success, co-edited with Michele Paule (2019); Philosophy of Religion: A Critical Introduction, co-authored with Brian R Clack (3rd edition 2019); Freud on the Couch (2013); Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Critical Readings, co-edited with Pamela Sue Anderson (2004); Sex and Death: A Reappraisal of Human Mortality(2002); and Misogyny in the Western Philosophical Tradition (1999). From 2012-16 she was City Councillor for St Clements Ward in Oxford, and from 2016-2018 she was a member of the Labour Party's National Policy Forum. She is a member of the Methodist Church's Faith and Order Committee, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.