Unforbidden Pleasures
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Much has been written of the forbidden pleasures. But what of the "unforbidden" pleasures?
Unforbidden Pleasures is the singular new book from Adam Phillips, the author of Missing Out, Going Sane, and On Balance. Here, with his signature insight and erudition, Phillips takes Oscar Wilde as a springboard for a deep dive into the meanings and importance of the unforbidden, from the fall of our "first parents," Adam and Eve, to the work of the great psychoanalytic thinkers.
Forbidden pleasures, he argues, are the ones we tend to think about, yet when you look into it, it is probable that we get as much pleasure, if not more, from unforbidden pleasures than from those that are taboo. And we may have underestimated just how restricted our restrictiveness, in thrall to the forbidden and its rules, may make us. An ambitious book that speaks to the precariousness of modern life, Unforbidden Pleasures explores the philosophical, psychological, and social dynamics that govern human desire and shape our everyday reality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Phillips (On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored), a British psychoanalyst, explores the tension between "forbidden" and "unforbidden" pleasures in this dense, erudite book. Going back to the story of Genesis and to Milton's retelling of it in Paradise Lost, he argues that modern Western culture remains constrained by the association between the pleasurable and the taboo. In reality, Phillips asserts, people often draw more pleasure from the ordinary things in life a morning cup of coffee, one another's company, kindness than from forbidden acts. He goes on to name more unforbidden pleasures, including self-criticism and obedience, noting about the latter that "whom we obey and how we obey and what we are doing when we obey will be the defining factors in our lives." Philips suggests that people can become less judgmental about permissible types of pleasure by changing their moral vocabulary. In this, he draws inspiration from the writings of Oscar Wilde, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud, each of whom, he shows, recommended the replacement of certain words with others "beauty" rather than "goodness," "delight" rather than "duty" in order to reshape people's underlying ideas. Digressive and often paradoxical, this slim volume is rich in psychological, philosophical, and literary insight.
