Читать книгу Livin' la Vida Barroca. American Culture in an Age of Imperial Orthodoxies онлайн

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That being enduringly happy on the individual level is, more than anything else, about learning to know and govern your fears and anxieties in such a way that other things and, more importantly still, other people are allowed to become something more than a screen upon which to play out your personal needs, desires and impulses.

That the libido is much more than what our media culture, with its desire to make us believe that all is ultimately saleable and thus controllable tells us it is. Yes, the libido is about sex. But, more fundamentally, it is about freedom and creativity. It is the force that impels us to do things against our better judgment, to talk to the person we “shouldn’t” talk to, to take up the leisure or vocational pursuit “we have no business” taking up, to express the thoughts that no prudent person one “in his or right mind” should ever utter in public.

That constantly putting your moist finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing (and building a political system around this “principle”) is not only quite boring, but ultimately quite soul-deadeningas is assuming, in the face of all historical evidence to the contrary, that the rules and pressures that govern you life today (including the vaunted two party system) more or less eternal and that, in the light of this “reality,” you’re best off, trying to cut the best deal you can with the parade of false and unsavory characters around see around you.