Radikal Mutluluk

by Lynne Segal, Beyza Sumer Aydaş (Translator)

Mevcut yönetim aygıtları tarafından ölçülebilir ve tanımlanabilir hale getirilerek içi boşaltılıp fetişleştirilmiş bir mutluluk mefhumu, yoğunlaştıkça karmaşıklaşan duygular, çevremizi hızla saran anksiyete ve depresyon bulutu, ücretli emeğin doğasının değişmesiyle bir ihtimal dahi olmaktan çıkmış kamusal mutluluk...

Lynne Segal Radikal Mutluluk'ta mucizenin anahtarını sunmayı, mutluluğa ulaşmanın yollarını göstermeyi ya da popüler kültürün başat hak olarak lanse ettiği tüketime dayalı haz ve esenliğe kavuşmanın müfsit biçimlerini öğütlemeyi hedeflemiyor. Bilakis, bireyciliğin tırmandığı günümüz toplumundaki umutsuzluk ve tecrit çemberini kıracak olan müşterek neşenin yeniden keşfedilmesi gerektiğini, neşenin yüzyıllar boyu tecelli etme biçimlerinden hareketle, yaşamdan keyif alma olasılıklarını yitirmemize sebep olan düzenin reddini savunuyor. Ticari değerlerin ve çıkarların her yere nüfuz ederek genişlemesi hem özel hem de kamusal yaşamı derinden etkilerken, mutlu olup olmadığımıza saplanıp kalmanın feminist mücadele içerisinde yarattığı yılgınlığa da vurgu yapıyor.

Yaratıcılığımızı, kolektivizmi, dayanışmayı olduğu gibi kahkahamızı da yeniden kazanmaya yönelik tutkulu bir çağrı...

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Feminism, Politics, Social Justice, Theory, Sociology

302 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2020

About the author

Lynne Segal is an Australian-born, British-based socialist feminist academic and activist, author of many books and articles, and participant in many campaigns, from local community to international.

Reviews

[repollo_ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned more from happiness in tough times listening to “we found love una hopeless place” by Rihanna. The title of the book is clickbait.

[Gerj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Segal is a beautiful writer, but this is a book that loses its way and fails to live up to its original intention. For a book about “radical happiness” it spends the bulk (+80%) of it’s time synthesising the writings of others about why we are not happy.

The range of texts touched on this book is incredible and in the footnotes there are a plethora of wonderful sources that I will enjoy reading far into the future. But as a reader, constantly moving from text to text with little analysis brought in by the author herself felt cheeky at best and avoidant at worst. Where can collective happiness really be found? Where have we found it before? How do we reclaim it?

These are questions more or less left for the end of the penultimate chapter, which itself is something of a litany of contemporary wrongs and injustices. For a critical Marxist scholar, as well, I found her bland dismissal of the market economy generally lazy and relying on received wisdom.

Probably the largest miss in the whole book doe me was a lack of engagement with contemporary psychology and neurological research. For critiquing the British government’s blunt tools to measure happiness via self-reported surveys, the lack of a response with strong empirical data was disappointing. Angela Davis and William Wordsworth both have important lived experience and philosophy to nuance and grow our understanding of happiness, but they do not provide in and of themselves a total rejection of the neoliberal dogma that Segal is seeking to push back against.

Finally, like many others, I found Segal’s tacit dismissal of pharmaceutical solutions to depression troubling. Part of contemporary emancipatory politics has to be a recognition of human neurodiversity and that a variety of tools need to be at play. She tried to nuance this, but personally it often felt like she was holding back from saying “but don’t you see! Most mental illness would vanish if capitalism was gone.” Perhaps I am being uncharitable, but it was a sense that chilled me to her project notably.

If you’re open to using the book as an annotated bibliography or are of a mind to flip through chapters like essays, you can find value here. But perhaps borrow from the library rather than buy it — Segal and I definitely agree that libraries can and should be sites of collective joy.

[D R · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted and expected to like this book, given the topic, the publisher, and the title/blurbs, which made it sound like a very interesting and much needed antidote to all the individualistic tracts on happiness that have been written in recent years. But the reality of the book was very disappointing.

As others have noted, it's mostly just a literature review—and a predominantly descriptive, cursory one at that. There's very little depth, as each book or author Segal touches on usually gets just a sentence or two – a paragraph at most – before she moves onto the next. And there's very little analysis, reflection, criticism, interpretation, etc..

While some of the specific texts and authors might be unfamiliar to the reader, the general drift of the ideas and history she traces will be very familiar to just about anyone who is the type of person who reads Verso books. There are sections of the book that read as if she's introducing the social movements of the 1960s, witch hunts, and Freud to the reader for the first time.

I normally wouldn't use the word "boring" to criticize a book, since that's usually a reductive, vague, and kind of childish way of expressing one's dissatisfaction with something, but honestly, that's the first and last word that comes to mind in thinking of this book. It was just plain tedious to read page after page of descriptive, cursory summaries of already well-trodden ground.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book peers into the minds of feminists and other thinkers and talks about the current ills of the world, how activism and other community- or group-focused projects can help people feel more connected (and therefore happier and healthier), and how some examples from the past can help us to see a way forward. It's not light reading, but it isn't so academically dense that it is unreadable or unpleasant reading. While the topics are complex, the tone doesn't alienate the reader. However, it is worth digesting in chunks, particularly if you want to supplement your reading with googling about the events and people mentioned. Extensive footnotes help emphasize the backgroun work that went into this book, which provides foundation or supplement for the serious and intriguing concepts Segal presents.

[Molly Roach · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book, but it was not what I needed it to be. This read like a very long literature review. She touched on many many sources, but didn’t delve deep enough into the subject matter. Without reading the sources she mentions, you don’t get that much out of this book. The first 2 chapters were bland and boring, the middle 4 were ok, and the last one was long and boring. I wouldn’t classify this as a book about happiness, but rather a review of why we as a society are not happy. That would be fine if she had touched even a bit on how to achieve collective happiness but unfortunately that doesn’t happen. Overall a disappointing read.

[Morgan]

you have to wonder about the motivations of people who dismiss things like cognitive behavioral therapy, a painstaking years or decades long process, as a quick fix and while spilling a lot of ink on the external economic factors that affect people's moods and emotions, choose to focus their critique on the idea of therapy and modern psychiatry and not on the powerful people who immiserate us. it's as if they think the first step to utopia is the eradication of therapeutic and pharmaceutical intervention in mental health. imagine making this kind of argument about someone rehabbing a shoulder injury

probably the least useful project of the left

[AM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely book, but felt directionless at points

[Roxy Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both gentle and angry and moving, an account of the idea of happiness, a leftist history of hope and struggle. Particularly good to read at this moment to remind us what we must continue to hope and struggle for
"Happy endings can be joyfully pursued when we feel empowered together with others, alhtough as we sutely should know by now, such endings can never be said to have finally arrived"

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of all sorts of theorists related to the idea of collective joy. Doesn't quite go deep enough for my liking, but it has added several authors/books to my tbr pile, in particular some feminist writers I wasn't aware of.

[Ola Hol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting ideas, but I feel like there should be more to it. Good for activists with bornout as it can help regain the hope and the belief that the "permanent struggle" that Angela Davis and not only advocates makes sense. Well-grounded in research also feminist.

[nis · Rating 3 out of 5]

by no means the best critical treaty on the subject but some parts of it do be hittin' right. the same litany against neoliberalism you've heard before, featuring all the usual subjects and talking points but with a heavier emphasis on the redeeming power of collectivity

[Jay Green · Rating 2 out of 5]

Handy as an overview of the previous literature around the subject but adds nothing new of any value and barely even touches on the subject of the title. I strongly recommend Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Dancing in the Streets” as a better option.

[Carmilla Voiez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure - I probably rated this lower than it deserves because I was expecting something else from it.

With a title like Radical Happiness, I approached this text expecting something uplifting, hopeful, and teeming with suggestions for how we might achieve collective joy. Joy seems in very short supply at the moment, and I was looking for examples of such.

Instead, the book explores the reasons why we aren't happy both in macro-economic and personal contexts. It also reveals the unhappiness industry which both raises our expectations from life to unrealistic heights then sells us pills or toys to help us cope with our guilt and self-blame that we cannot or do not feel happy.

Parts spoke to me, like the idea that our festivals and carnivals, the things that helped society survive poverty and maintain strong interrelationships, have been suppressed and banned by monarchs and governments. I felt this tied into white jealousy and the resulting resentment and even hatred many feel witnessing more cohesive cultures outwith our own.

It is interesting and well referenced, it simply wasn't what I anticipated or wanted.

[Sydney · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a little disappointing. I did not enjoy that this book was mostly synthesis, read like a literature review, and lack a clear thesis. I will say, the book's structure means that now I feel like I have an excellent resource to find other resources on collective joy and political economy because Segal's writing is so well-researched and cites heavily. As broad and heavily cited it was, I also feel like some points were undeveloped and under researched. For an example, Segal describes the very corporatized, reformist Black Lives Matter movement as a decentralized, non-hierarchical, radical movement.

I did like the two chapters on utopian thinking! These chapters were probably the strongest, in my opinion, because they strayed closest to the loosely-defined main thesis on the utility, possibility, and radical potential in collective joy.

Also, the breadth wasn't all bad! Segal mentions many interesting concepts, including anarchism, ecofeminism, and the weaknesses of direct democracy.

[Maciek · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed, since this seems more like a collection of essays with a common theme of (collective) happiness, rather than a systematic take on the topic. The chapters share a similar structure - each begins with a historical analysis of stuff like happiness, depression, desire, utopian thought, welfare, etc., and then moves on to offer some more contemporary criticism. Many of the ideas presented here are very powerful (chapter 5 about love), and smart (chapter 7 on contemporary utopias), and as much as I appreciate the rational socialist tone, I believe that this attempt at presenting the political dimensions of happiness is filled with too many gaps. Too often the chapters end, as soon as they get really interesting. Perhaps this was Segal's plan - get those inspiring ideas out there, and let the reader figure out the rest.

[Ramzey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rated this book two stars because I was expecting something different.
For a book about “radical happiness” it spends alot of time synthesising the writings of others about why we are not happy.

Segal’s answer is that joy is found in collective meaning-making that often comes about from the shared struggle toward creating a better future. She argues that overcoming the mundane and finding democratic agency in collective movements is part of joy.

Some stuff that I haven't thought about is how festivals and carnivals have helped society survive poverty and maintain strong interrelationships which have been suppressed and banned by monarchs and governments.

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts of well and then gets terribly distracted, with the topic of happiness (or joy) becoming completely sidelined in exchange for a pretty general critique of neoliberalism that pretty much fails to ever recover its focus on happiness. Not really much in here that's new, though the references are strong and the text helpfully signposts towards some interesting stuff. Just could have benefited from a clearer understanding of its own project tbh.

[Montse Castellanos · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a lot of interesting content from other writers but I felt that it is almost too many quotes and outside resources without enough analysis. Segel does a great job of linking ideas from several writers, theorists, and/or philosophers but I wish there wasn’t so much that it reads like a textbook. Despite this, this book is a worth a read if only at least to discover different ideas of happiness.

[M McCready · Rating 4 out of 5]

for a book about happiness this was lowkey sad, the first chapters especially made me think a lot about my depression and get quite introspective. i’m glad i kept going as i learnt a lot and i think the central message of collective joy is rly important!

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lynne Segal takes an historical eye to defining happiness in this book. She brings readers on a journey through historic approaches to sadness and mental health, desire, love, utopia, alternative living, and the formation of neo-liberalism.

This meandering journey centers on the question—what is to be done in the face of so much institutional and structural human suffering and misery? How does one not sink into despair while looking into the face of oppression?

Segal’s answer is that joy is found in collective meaning-making that often comes about from the shared struggle toward creating a better future. Despite the uncertainty of definitive success in the face of these forces, she argues that transcending the mundane and finding democratic agency in collective movements is part of joy.

I found myself needing the historical context to understand my own state of despair. I also needed Segal’s numerous examples of how different groups have imagined a better future together to find personal momentum and hope to meaningfully enter activist spaces.

Despite activists’ mixed success throughout history, her point remains that the mere act of imagining and creating joy in collective spaces is a radical move toward a better future. She writes, “Such joy may be fleeting, but it gives rise to new types of political perceptions and possibilities, perhaps to enable even the most threatened to feel more grounded and alive in the claims they need to be able to make.”

In this year of bleak challenge after challenge, Segal’s work is necessary for those feeling burnt out and unsure of how to continue this marathon toward a more whole society.

[thalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly the perfect pairing for “Pleasure Activism”, and “The Cultural Politics of Emotion”, more academic and rooted in history /theory than the former, yet far more accessibly readable than the latter. Each of these three texts speak so well to the ideas of what pleasure, joy, happiness, and at its base what even entails emotions, as in how do we define what emotions are, and what are the political, economic, etc motivations behind these definitions. They trace lineages, histories, constructs, restrictions, etc, through anti racist, feminist, queer, and decolonial lenses. Segal in particular offers a sweeping history of the terms and ideas behind these concepts of joy and happiness, stretching back through western history. Perhaps its only short-coming is that for being as in depth as it is, it holds a somewhat myopic scope, focusing almost exclusively on the history of happiness and joy from continental Europe, and occasionally from socialist movements internationally. That said, to do an internationally applicable project of this depth would take countless volumes! Also, it could have done more to incorporate madness and disability (making one think that “Care Work” or other such disability justice texts might play an important role in the conversation with the aforementioned texts), though I do think that the text offers important contributions to the work of madness studies (I incorporated it heavily into my mad research).

[Yahya · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5
"Hayatta trajik olandan asla kaçamasak da mutluluğu aramak kaderimizde var."
Bu kitabı geçen sene memlekete giderken yanımdaki yolcudan görüp almıştım. bir senenin ardından okuma fırsatım oldu.
Kitap beklediğim gibi başlasa da, devamında başka bir yöne doğru ilerledi. Ama çok şaşırdığımı söyleyemem. Lynne Segal başlangıç olarak mutluluk kavramından ne anladığımızı sorgulayarak başlıyor. Ve günümüzde nasıl anlaşıldığında bahsediyor. Daha sonra geriye dönerek kavrama belli bir tarihi perspektiften inceliyor. Toplum içinde " ötekiler" diye dışlanan (kadınlar, feministler, lgbt+ bireyler ve göçmenler yani sol bir bakış grupların bakış açısından bir inceleme mevcut. Kitap bu grupların tarihsel olarak gelişimini, toplum içinde yaşadıkları ayrımcılıkları ve bunun mutlulukla bağlantısını inceleyerek ilerliyor. Kitabı okumak isteyenler bunu göz önünde bulundurarak okursa daha iyi olur. Zaten yazar da kendisini bu gruba dahil ediyor.

"Hayal ettiğimiz hedeflerin çoğunun genellikle, en azından kısmen elimizden kaçacak olması sürpriz olmamalı. Ancak günümüzün kötülüklerine razı olmak yerine karşı çıkmak için bir miktar ütopyacı ruh, her şeye rağmen daha iyi gelecekler yaratmaya çalışmanın karmaşıklığını kabul etmek için her zaman gerekli. Hem bireysel hem de kolektif olarak kör noktalarımızın ve yetersizliklerimizin olması kaçınılmaz fakat hem bunlara rağmen hem de bunlar yüzünden inatçı bir iyimserliğe ihtiyacımız var."

[Sian Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging, educated and considered argument for the importance of community in collective happiness. Lynne references the work of numerous other scholars across time to explore the meaning of joy, the role of utopia in imagining a better future and the power of groups. This is all set against a backdrop of the current political state - an individualistic society of divisive politics, making this book feel more relevant now than ever. Through the lens of feminism, she reflects on the power of collective political organising throughout the 70s feminist wave, and how we need to instil this into modern movements.

Lynne is humble, her arguments considered and well thought out, the writing easy to understand. I didn't gobble up the entire book in one sitting, as it is still a fairly heavy political text, but I was not bored by any means.

[Bethany Moody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the beginning of this book to be totally riveting and in keeping with the title, however as the book progresses Segal veers off into recounting detailed histories of feminist and labor movements that are tedious and dry. About halfway through the book I was really trudging through the sea of dates and movement names. History is obviously an important tool in articulating collective joy but the title selection did not indicate half of the book would be spent historicizing. Segal tightened it up again toward the end when writing on utopic thinking, but failed to imagine a utopia herself. Comparing how enthralled I was at the beginning to how thoroughly bored I was in the middle, this book was a bit of a disappointment. Far too much navel gazing at the author’s second-wave feminist roots and not enough forward-thinking toward possible futures.

[Emma Goldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although published some years ago, the book is still relevant today, perhaps even more so now. The author moves through the 1900s, covering the changes in political, social, and public attitudes in detail, with full references at the back of the book. 'Joy' is distinguished from 'happiness', the former being a brief experience and only retained in memory, whilst the latter (also linked to the word 'contentment') may cover a longer period. Reference is also made to the abrupt change from paternalistic conservatism to Thatcher's brutal denial of 'society', emphasising her view of personal self-interest only, and the gradual acceptance by voters of the abandonment of care and welfare as two important parts of good government. Privatisation is also discussed at length, as is neo-liberalism.

[Re · Rating 4 out of 5]

The opening chapters on collective happiness, the dangers of positive psychology the intersection between love, happiness and the political were well crafted and, as topics I had not read about much, I appreciated Segal's approach, effectively an extensive literature review, leading to many more things on my to-read list. She writes beautifully, but I was slightly disappointed when the book continued on this trajectory until the end, without offering much in the way of analysis to synthesise what had already been written into something new. Nonetheless, a good introduction to the topic of joy and the politics of happiness, and perhaps how we can collectively find some more of both.

[Ivan Labayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://chopsueyngarod.wordpress.com/...

Not chicken, but the welling up inside the heart, the butterflies in one’s guts and the gusto palpable in one’s voice—bodily manifestations of Joy. What Anne Sexton welcomed in her poem “Welcome Morning” is the possibility of sharing Joy, because as she learnt, “The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,/ dies young.” In Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy, Lynne Segal just kept on quoting elated authors, sometimes Sexton, sometimes Auden: “In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag” (79).

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great synthesis of philosophical and political literature that intersects of joy. It’s reads like going to dinner with a professor who is giving you recommendations for some good books. Great quotes and pieces of poetry.

It may not be quite as personable as you expect for a book with happiness and joy in the title. Be prepared for heavy on analysis between the UK state and citizens. However if your up for a critical look of joy and happiness, it can be an excellent road map into some very thoughtful authors.

[Schopflin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned this one. I don't disagree with the premis that consumerism doesn't make one happy, but in places Segal conflates Depression with sadness, which makes her descriptions of happiness through collective political action grate a bit. And while I agree that diagnoses and drug prescribing are connected that doesn't mean that clinical depression isn't real. Happy to hear from anyone who has had better luck with this book.

[Frank Karioris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read all but one chapter with a physical copy. That copy is now left behind in Kyrgyzstan. So I had to find the rest of it to read virtually.

As most people know, I love Segal; and have read multiple of her previous books multiple times. This book, though, just didn't do it for me as much. It could be that I was not as happy as need be to get the most out of the volume.