I Suffer Therefore I Am
eBook - ePub

I Suffer Therefore I Am

Portrait of the Victim as Hero

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

I Suffer Therefore I Am

Portrait of the Victim as Hero

About this book

In the West today, suffering has become a new sacred cow.  Once a common feature of the human condition, it is now a special trait you can use to impress your contemporaries.  It provides you with a borrowed identity, transforming you into an exceptional being who can show off on the public stage at little cost. Everyone flaunts their certificate of affliction, positioning themselves above their peers. Even those who are well-off and powerful seek to find a place in the aristocracy of the margins, creating new castes of the dispossessed at the expense of the truly unfortunate. Infused with bitterness, this cult of the victim glorifies the martyr figure and feeds into the passions of revenge and resentment.  This is the message of our age: we are all victims and entitled to feel sorry for ourselves.

The submissive humanity of Christianity and the arrogant humanity of modernity have now been replaced by a victimized humanity allergic to distress.  Pampered, coddled, raised in fear and sensitivity, how will younger generations be able to confront the chaotic world that awaits them, marked by war, violence, terrorism and climate chaos?  Who will teach them the courage to endure, to face setbacks head-on, without faltering in the face of misfortune?

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Yes, you can access I Suffer Therefore I Am by Pascal Bruckner, Stephen Muecke in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Philosophy History & Theory. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Polity
Year
2025
Print ISBN
9781509567164
eBook ISBN
9781509567171

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Prologue: An inverted Pantheon
  8. Introduction: Thucydides and Jesus Christ
  9. Part One: Facing Misfortune
  10. 1. ‘One day all will be well, so runs our hope’
  11. 2. All kinds of awful
  12. 3. Suffering produces laws
  13. 4. The one-upmanship of martyrdom
  14. Part Two: Victimist Competition
  15. 5. The thieves of suffering
  16. 6. Putin, or the petty civil servant of crime
  17. 7. Towards a generalized ‘gynocide’?
  18. 8. Decolonize the decolonizers?
  19. Part Three: How Can We Live with Our Wounds?
  20. 9. Barbarism as a cover-up?
  21. 10. Healing the past?
  22. 11. The hero, an ambiguous antithesis
  23. 12. Is this how men live?
  24. Conclusion
  25. End User License Agreement