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The Politics of Disappointment

Failure as an Ideological Principle

The Politics of Disappointment cover

The Politics of Disappointment

Failure as an Ideological Principle

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Pre-order. Available May 04 2027
$28.44 RRP $35.55 Website price saving $7.11 (20%)

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Description

It is no longer time to defend victory or success, but to defend disappointment.

Rather than attempting to regain the lost hope of the 20th century's progressive social movements, this book critiques the history and legacy of our success-oriented culture, and offers a radical alternative: the embracing of disappointment itself. Through a series of chapters critiquing our understanding of failure, the politics of feeling, and contemporary capitalist logic, the book tracks a history of disappointment and its political possibilities today;it places Marx, Schelling and Nietzsche into dialogue with Badiou, Lacan, Althusser and Jameson, among others, and raises a compelling argument for failure as containing the seeds of a new mode of public and private fulfilment.

With diverse references, from our belief in ghosts and Ibsen's A Doll House, to Valentine's Day and Wall Street, the book offers a persuasive analysis of widespread political apathy and how it might be transformed into a credible philosophical and political force. Via a comparative reading of political economy, continental philosophy, and psychoanalysis, the book reconsiders the meaning and role of disappointment in contemporary politics, and how this prickly and undertheorized feeling can translate into real political force and even transformation.

Critiquing the very real structures that leave us constantly seeking more, yet remaining undernourished and dissatisfied, The Politics of Disappointment offers a roadmap out of failure and into the radical potential that lies dormant in everyday life.

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Is there Such a Things as Politics Today?

1. For the Love of Politics! Or For the Politics of Love

2. Post-Populism, or the Disappointment of Late-Stage Capitalism

3. Indeterminate Interventions

4. The Ontology of Disappointment

Conclusion: The End of the Beginning

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published May 04 2027
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Pages 256
ISBN 9781350639010
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Series Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Rafael Holmberg

Rafael Holmberg is a political writer, social theo…

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