Cultural Pessimism

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Cultural Pessimism

Bennett Oliver Bennett
Cultural Pessimism Book PDF

Author : Bennett Oliver Bennett
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2019-06-01
Category : LITERARY CRITICISM
ISBN : 9781474464345

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Cultural Pessimism by Bennett Oliver Bennett Pdf

Cultural pessimism arises with the conviction that the culture of a nation, a civilisation or of humanity itself is in a process of irreversible decline. In an incisive and wide-ranging analysis, Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World charts the growth of pessimism in the West during the last decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on studies from within a very broad range of fields, which include ecology, human rights, military history, international relations, criminology, history of science, cultural criticism and political economy, the author shows how cultural pessimism in the postmodern world can be related to the cumulative effect of four key narratives of decline:*Environmental decline*Moral decline*Intellectual decline*Political declineAfter a review of pessimism in other historical periods, each of these narratives is explored in depth. The book attempts to answer a number of questions: how are the narratives constituted and what are the conditions to which they refer? To what extent are those conditions historically unprecedented? To which cultures do the narratives relate? What values do they reflect? To what extent are the identified processes of decline seen as irreversible? Concluding that cultural pessimism is as much a matter of psychological and biological disposition as of intellectual judgement, Oliver Bennett's challenging book offers valuable new insights into how we view the prospects of the twenty-first century.Features:*Provides an authoritative account of how the postmodern world has been represented as one of decline. *Brings together different perspectives kept apart by professional and academic specialisation*Views culture in its broadest sense as 'a whole way of life'*Provides an historical overview of cultural pessimism, tracing its various manifestations from the modern period back to its existence in early religions*Examines the biological, psychological and sociolog

Cultural Pessimism

Oliver Bennett
Cultural Pessimism Book PDF

Author : Oliver Bennett
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : History
ISBN : 0748609369

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Cultural Pessimism by Oliver Bennett Pdf

A provocative and wide-ranging analysis of the cultural mood of anxiety and pessimism in the early 21st century.

Escape Into the Future

John Stroup,Glenn W. Shuck
Escape Into the Future Book PDF

Author : John Stroup,Glenn W. Shuck
Publisher : Baylor University Press
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Occupational prestige
ISBN : 9781932792522

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Escape Into the Future by John Stroup,Glenn W. Shuck Pdf

Escape into the Future analyzes the power of pessimism, showing links between present-day religious pessimism and the nihilism of popular culture. Stroup and Shuck rummage through an interesting and eclectic body of pop culture--from Fight Club to X-Files to the Left Behind series--pointing out the presence of pessimistic themes throughout. This volume identifies and illuminates the religious language used in these works to articulate America's need to escape from its present cultural path and, ultimately, provide hope that it might do so.

Pessimism

Joshua Foa Dienstag
Pessimism Book PDF

Author : Joshua Foa Dienstag
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2009-02-17
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781400827480

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Pessimism by Joshua Foa Dienstag Pdf

Pessimism claims an impressive following--from Rousseau, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, to Freud, Camus, and Foucault. Yet "pessimist" remains a term of abuse--an accusation of a bad attitude--or the diagnosis of an unhappy psychological state. Pessimism is thought of as an exclusively negative stance that inevitably leads to resignation or despair. Even when pessimism looks like utter truth, we are told that it makes the worst of a bad situation. Bad for the individual, worse for the species--who would actually counsel pessimism? Joshua Foa Dienstag does. In Pessimism, he challenges the received wisdom about pessimism, arguing that there is an unrecognized yet coherent and vibrant pessimistic philosophical tradition. More than that, he argues that pessimistic thought may provide a critically needed alternative to the increasingly untenable progressivist ideas that have dominated thinking about politics throughout the modern period. Laying out powerful grounds for pessimism's claim that progress is not an enduring feature of human history, Dienstag argues that political theory must begin from this predicament. He persuasively shows that pessimism has been--and can again be--an energizing and even liberating philosophy, an ethic of radical possibility and not just a criticism of faith. The goal--of both the pessimistic spirit and of this fascinating account of pessimism--is not to depress us, but to edify us about our condition and to fortify us for life in a disordered and disenchanted universe.

Escape Into the Future

John Stroup,Glenn W. Shuck
Escape Into the Future Book PDF

Author : John Stroup,Glenn W. Shuck
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1602580871

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Escape Into the Future by John Stroup,Glenn W. Shuck Pdf

Escape into the Future analyzes the power of pessimism, showing links between present-day religious pessimism and the nihilism of popular culture. Stroup and Shuck rummage through an interesting and eclectic body of pop culture--from Fight Club to X-Files to the Left Behind series--pointing out the presence of pessimistic themes throughout. This volume identifies and illuminates the religious language used in these works to articulate America's need to escape from its present cultural path and, ultimately, provide hope that it might do so.

Spectres of Pessimism

Mark Schmitt
Spectres of Pessimism Book PDF

Author : Mark Schmitt
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 143 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2023-03-15
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783031253515

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Spectres of Pessimism by Mark Schmitt Pdf

This book argues that philosophical pessimism can offer vital impulses for contemporary cultural studies. Pessimist thought offers ways to interrogate notions of temporality, progress and futurity. When the horizon of future expectation is increasingly shaped by the prospect of apocalypse and extinction, an exploration of pessimist thought can help to make sense of an increasingly complex and uncertain world by affirming rather than suppressing the worst. This book argues that a cultural logic of the worst is at work in a substantial section of contemporary philosophical thought and cultural representations. Spectres of pessimism can be found in contemporary ecocritical thought, antinatalist philosophies, political thought, and cultural theory, as well as in literature, film, and popular music. In its unsettling of temporality, this new pessimism shares sensibilities with the field of hauntology. Both deconstruct linear narratives of time that adhere to a stable sequence of past, present and future. Mark Schmitt therefore couples pessimism and hauntology to explore the spectres of pessimism in a range of theories and narratives—from ecocriticism, antinatalism and queer theory to utopianism, from afropessimism to the fiction of Hari Kunzru and Thomas Ligotti to the films of Camille Griffin, Gaspar Noé, Denis Villeneuve and Lars von Trier.

Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodernism

Yaron Ezrahi,E. Mendelsohn,Howard Segal
Technology Pessimism and Postmodernism Book PDF

Author : Yaron Ezrahi,E. Mendelsohn,Howard Segal
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2013-03-07
Category : History
ISBN : 9789401108768

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Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodernism by Yaron Ezrahi,E. Mendelsohn,Howard Segal Pdf

HOWARD P. SEGAL, FOR THE EDITORS In November 1979 the Humanities Department of the University of Michi gan's College of Engineering sponsored a symposium on ''Technology and Pessimism. " The symposium included scholars from a variety of fields and carefully balanced critics and defenders of modern technology, broadly defined. Although by this point it was hardly revolutionary to suggest that technology was no longer automatically equated with optimism and in turn with unceasing social advance, the idea of linking technology so explicitly with pessimism was bound to attract attention. Among others, John Noble Wilford, a New York Times science and technology correspondent, not only covered the symposium but also wrote about it at length in the Times the following week. As Wilford observed, "Whatever their disagreements, the participants agreed that a mood of pessimism is overtaking and may have already displaced the old optimistic view of history as a steady and cumulative expansion of human power, the idea of inevitable progress born in the Scientific and Industrial Rev olutions and dominant in the 19th century and for at least the first half of this century. " Such pessimism, he continued, "is fed by growing doubts about soci ety's ability to rein in the seemingly runaway forces of technology, though the participants conceded that in many instances technology was more the symbol than the substance of the problem.

A Feeling of Wrongness

Joseph Packer,Ethan Stoneman
A Feeling of Wrongness Book PDF

Author : Joseph Packer,Ethan Stoneman
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2018-11-28
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780271083179

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A Feeling of Wrongness by Joseph Packer,Ethan Stoneman Pdf

In A Feeling of Wrongness, Joseph Packer and Ethan Stoneman confront the rhetorical challenge inherent in the concept of pessimism by analyzing how it is represented in an eclectic range of texts on the fringes of popular culture, from adult animated cartoons to speculative fiction. Packer and Stoneman explore how narratives such as True Detective, Rick and Morty, Final Fantasy VII, Lovecraftian weird fiction, and the pop ideology of transhumanism are better suited to communicate pessimistic affect to their fans than most carefully argued philosophical treatises and polemics. They show how these popular nondiscursive texts successfully circumvent the typical defenses against pessimism identified by Peter Wessel Zapffe as distraction, isolation, anchoring, and sublimation. They twist genres, upend common tropes, and disturb conventional narrative structures in a way that catches their audience off guard, resulting in belief without cognition, a more rhetorically effective form of pessimism than philosophical pessimism. While philosophers and polemicists argue for pessimism in accord with the inherently optimistic structures of expressive thought or rhetoric, Packer and Stoneman show how popular texts are able to communicate their pessimism in ways that are paradoxically freed from the restrictive tools of optimism. A Feeling of Wrongness thus presents uncharted rhetorical possibilities for narrative, making visible the rhetorical efficacy of alternate ways and means of persuasion.

Nietzsche's Struggle against Pessimism

Patrick Hassan
Nietzsche s Struggle against Pessimism Book PDF

Author : Patrick Hassan
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 291 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2023-11-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781009380270

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Nietzsche's Struggle against Pessimism by Patrick Hassan Pdf

A detailed account of Nietzsche's critique of pessimism is elucidated in its appropriate historical context, disentangling its various strands.

Cultures of Optimism

Oliver Bennett
Cultures of Optimism Book PDF

Author : Oliver Bennett
Publisher : Springer
Page : 231 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2015-01-02
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781137484819

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Cultures of Optimism by Oliver Bennett Pdf

What are the functions of optimism in modern societies? How is hope culturally transmitted? What values and attitudes does it reflect? This book explores how and why powerful institutions propagate 'cultures of optimism' in different domains, such as politics, work, the family, religion and psychotherapy.

The Cultural Industries

David Hesmondhalgh
The Cultural Industries Book PDF

Author : David Hesmondhalgh
Publisher : SAGE
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2007-04-25
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1412908086

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The Cultural Industries by David Hesmondhalgh Pdf

The Cultural Industries places transformation in the cultural industries in long-term political, economic and cultural context. In doing so, Hesmondhalgh offers a distinctive critical approach to cultural production, drawing on political economy perspectives, but also on cultural studies, sociology and social theory.

The Politics of Pessimism in Ecclesiastes

Mark R. Sneed
The Politics of Pessimism in Ecclesiastes Book PDF

Author : Mark R. Sneed
Publisher : Society of Biblical Lit
Page : 358 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2012-02-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781589836358

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The Politics of Pessimism in Ecclesiastes by Mark R. Sneed Pdf

Scholars attempt to resolve the problem of the book of Ecclesiastes’ heterodox character in one of two ways, either explaining away the book’s disturbing qualities or radicalizing and championing it as a precursor of modern existentialism. This volume offers an interpretation of Ecclesiastes that both acknowledges the unorthodox nature of Qoheleth’s words and accounts for its acceptance among the canonical books of the Hebrew Bible. It argues that, instead of being the most secular and modern of biblical books, Ecclesiastes is perhaps one of the most religious and primitive. Bringing a Weberian approach to Ecclesiastes, it represents a paradigm of the application of a social-science methodology.

Optimism & Pessimism

Edward Chin-Ho Chang
Optimism Pessimism Book PDF

Author : Edward Chin-Ho Chang
Publisher : Amer Psychological Assn
Page : 395 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Medical
ISBN : 1557986916

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Optimism & Pessimism by Edward Chin-Ho Chang Pdf

Through the examination of cultural, biological and psychological factors, this volume illustrates a dynamic interplay between optimism and pessimism and enables readers to recognize the importance of balance in understanding their relative powers.

Guardians of the Humanist Legacy: The Classicism of T.S. Eliot's Criterion Network and its Relevance to our Postmodern World

Jeroen Vanheste
Guardians of the Humanist Legacy The Classicism of T S Eliot s Criterion Network and its Relevance to our Postmodern World Book PDF

Author : Jeroen Vanheste
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 562 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2007-07-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9789047420088

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Guardians of the Humanist Legacy: The Classicism of T.S. Eliot's Criterion Network and its Relevance to our Postmodern World by Jeroen Vanheste Pdf

The T.S. Eliot of the 1920s was a European humanist who was part of an international network of like-minded intellectuals. Their ideas about literature, education and European culture in general remain highly relevant to the cultural debates of our day.

The Uses of Pessimism

Roger Scruton
The Uses of Pessimism Book PDF

Author : Roger Scruton
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2010-10-04
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0199798990

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The Uses of Pessimism by Roger Scruton Pdf

Ranging widely over human history and culture, from ancient Greece to the current global economic downturn, Scruton makes a counterintuitive yet persuasive case that optimists and idealists -- with their ignorance about the truths of human nature and human society, and their naive hopes about what can be changed -- have wrought havoc for centuries. Scruton's argument is nuanced, however, and his preference for pessimism is not a dark view of human nature; rather his is a 'hopeful pessimism' which urges that instead of utopian efforts to reform human society or human nature, we focus on the only reform that we can truly master -- the improvement of ourselves through the cultivation of our better instincts. Written in Scruton's trademark style-- erudite, sweeping in scope across centuries and cultures, and unafraid to offend-- this book is sure to intrigue and provoke readers concerned with the state of Western culture, the nature of human beings, and the question of whether social progress is truly possible.