On The Pleasure Principle In Culture: Illusions Without Owners
- ISBN-10
- 1781682208
- ISBN-13
- 9781781682203
- Category
- Philosophy
- Pages
- 288
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-07-15
- Publisher
- Verso Books
- Author
- Robert Pfaller
Description
For many illusions, it is easy to find owners – people who proudly declare that they believe in things such as life after death, human reason, and self-regulation of financial markets. Yet there are also different kinds of illusions at work, for example, in art: trompe l’oeil-painting pleases its observers with “anonymous illusions” – illusions where it is not entirely clear who exactly it is that should be deceived. Anonymous illusions offer a universal pleasure principle within culture: they are present in games, sport, design, eroticism, manners, charm, beauty, etc. However it seems that this pleasure principle is increasingly subjected to misrecognition: the proud proprietors of certain illusions are no longer capable of recognizing that they too follow anonymous illusions. As a consequence, they mistake happy, polite others for naïve idiots or “savages” – as owners of stupid illusions; and consider their happiness an obscene intrusion – as something in which they could never share. Pfaller explores the strange properties of these shared illusions, and finds that they have a central and crucial role in our culture—and we need to better understand them in order to protect the public sphere.
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Other editions
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- 2014-07-15
- 386 pages
- Paperback
- Verso Books
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- 2014-07-15
- 305 pages
- Paperback
- Verso Books
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