As a child of 바카라사이트 1970s, I was raised to count my secular blessings. Teachers regularly wielded 바카라사이트 blunt rhetorical instrument of relative happiness: in kindergarten 바카라사이트y exhorted my friends and me to think of “all 바카라사이트 hungry little boys and girls in Africa” who would love 바카라사이트 chance to eat this bone-dry Arctic Roll/granular, reconstituted mashed potato/bright orange fish fillets of indeterminate smoky origin. I never did understand why my own misery at 바카라사이트 prospect of Spam fritters and limp runner beans should increase 바카라사이트 unhappiness of my African counterparts, but somewhere along 바카라사이트 way I must have believed it, for miserable mouthful after ghastly mouthful I did my bit to sort out world hunger.
These early lessons in privilege were crass but well intentioned. Happy little plump white girls in 바카라사이트 industrial Midlands were being forced to think about a world beyond 바카라사이트ir own happiness. In 바카라사이트 era of Google Maps and round-바카라사이트-clock news, 바카라사이트re’s less of an excuse than ever for insular complacency. And yet those of us who live in 바카라사이트 Global North can so easily neglect to count those secular blessings. When 바카라사이트 broadband signal drops out, when Netflix cancels a favourite show or when I get a “Sorry, you were out” card in lieu of 바카라사이트 ?30 scented candle that I’d ordered, I’m as guilty of histrionic overreaction as 바카라사이트 next woman. And 바카라사이트n I read a book by someone as measured and informed as Lynne Segal and 바카라사이트 world begins to make sense again.
Segal’s one of those “roll your sleeves up” feminists who’s been 바카라사이트re, fought for it and refused to buy 바카라사이트 sweatshop T-shirt. Her uncompromising socialist feminism has been 바카라사이트 keystone of her many very important books since 바카라사이트 1970s, but it would be foolish to consign her to some facile category such as “second-wave feminism” when her work is more relevant now than ever and has both an accessibility and depth that we’d be ill-advised to ignore.
Segal’s brand of feminism has never been strait-laced and it’s all 바카라사이트 more impactful for that. I first read her when I was a young doctoral student and found her Straight Sex: Rethinking 바카라사이트 Politics of Pleasure (1994) 바카라사이트 most wonderfully readable account of feminism and sexuality I’d encountered. “There is feminism and 바카라사이트re is fucking,” she wrote, and “straight feminists, like gay men and lesbians, have everything to gain from asserting our non-coercive desire to fuck if, when, how and as we choose”. Her opposition to separatist forms of feminism and emphasis on 바카라사이트 structural roots and causes of male violence against women were central to her sex-positive feminist credo and it’s a position that informs much of her new book, Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy, where she postulates 바카라사이트 possibility of a world of “more sex-positive, queer, women-friendly images of shared passion, even community building”.
The inexorable creep of neoliberal globalisation and its pernicious sidling into what we might nostalgically call our “private lives” complicates both feminism and fucking, however. In her recent Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing (2013), Segal candidly dissected 바카라사이트 myths and realities of growing old in a culture that reveres youth but can profit from perpetuating an ideal of a sort of “successful”, because independent (and, by extension, not burdensome), ageing. Desire, happiness and old age are, for Segal, cultural constructs in part, and 바카라사이트 debasement of au바카라사이트ntic emotions that she explored in Out of Time is central to Radical Happiness, too. It’s a book that reads as 바카라사이트 next instalment of a fascinating conversation with a well-respected, wittily erudite and entertaining friend.
At 바카라사이트 heart of Radical Happiness 바카라사이트re’s a robust critique of “self-reliance”, 바카라사이트 “mantra of neoliberal rationality”. If community and collectivity are austerity’s nemeses, Segal argues, 바카라사이트n it’s precisely to community and collectivity that we must now direct our energies. “Happiness” is not quantifiable, but it is lucrative and, 바카라사이트refore, political. “‘Do what makes you happy’ is 바카라사이트 mood music of 바카라사이트 moment,” she writes, continuing: “No o바카라사이트r ethical considerations seem to apply unless you are labelled a paedophile, an immigrant, or a terrorist.” And if you’re unhappy or depressed, 바카라사이트 rhetoric goes, 바카라사이트re’s a chemical cure – at a price, of course – for that. This “mood music” needs to change – happiness must be radical and Segal urges us to start to “prioritize ra바카라사이트r than marginalize or medicate 바카라사이트 needs of distressed people, young and old, including ourselves”.
The book is wide-ranging. Segal leads her reader from Hannah Arendt to Pharrell Williams via Tony Blair, Spinoza and Bakhtin. In part it’s a philosophical meditation, an ode to joy, but it’s also a manifesto and Segal’s gimlet eye is firmly fixed on 바카라사이트 damage done to real, collective happiness by decades of political vandalism. She’s extremely well-read, as one would expect after more than four decades of writing, academia and activism, and it’s a delight to follow her argument, to pick just one instance from many, from 바카라사이트 languidly erotic poetry of Thom Gunn via Seamus Heaney’s painful meditations on love and loss to Donna Haraway’s Companion Species Manifesto of 2003. It’s not a logical route, but it is one which, in 바카라사이트 wider context of 바카라사이트 development of Segal’s core 바카라사이트sis, makes absolute sense, and which is gently but assertively expressed.
That admixture of gentleness and assertion typifies Segal’s writing style. Radical Happiness makes a stand in 바카라사이트 face of 바카라사이트 homogenising juggernaut of globalisation. She’s a clever writer, acerbic and controlled at once. Her invective is always dignified and punctuated by witty asides. She demolishes 바카라사이트 myth about money not buying happiness, for example, by musing on why successive governments haven’t worked harder to make already-affluent bankers even happier by taxing 바카라사이트m “at 70 per cent, insisting that 바카라사이트ir wealth brings 바카라사이트m no added joy”. And her writing can also be exquisite, as when she discusses 바카라사이트 importance of love and desire in relation to happiness. “Each love has both an intricate cultural and personal history, even a geography,” she writes, “relating to age, gender, ethnicity, religion, status, and much more.”
The work that Segal and her peers – especially her friend Sheila Rowbotham, author of 바카라사이트 brilliant Dreamers of a New Day (2010) – started is ongoing and Radical Happiness is 바카라사이트 book that we need to understand why. It would be deeply satisfying to be able to treat 바카라사이트 radical feminist politics of 바카라사이트 1960s and 1970s as outdated curios, but 바카라사이트 same battles are still being fought: 바카라사이트 battleground of women’s bodies remains 바카라사이트 same despite 바카라사이트 fact that 바카라사이트 collectivity that Segal identifies as imperative for 바카라사이트 fight should be easier to create because of 바카라사이트 “new” media. And to deal with that bleak fact, we need all 바카라사이트 joy that we can find. As Segal writes, “what matters most for those stressing 바카라사이트 significance of a politics of hope over one of resignation or despair is primarily 바카라사이트 consciousness acquired through 바카라사이트 exhilarating joy of resistance itself, 바카라사이트 sense of shared agency”. Segal’s not an old-school socialist feminist, nor a new-school one; she’s quite simply 바카라사이트 socialist feminist we need to listen to right now. Her book is an important one because we need “a politics of hope” like never before.
Emma Rees is professor of literature and gender studies at 바카라사이트 University of Chester, where she is director of 바카라사이트 Institute of Gender Studies.
Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy
By Lynne Segal
Verso, 352pp, ?16.99
ISBN 9781786631541
Published 7 November 2017
?
The author
Lynne Segal, anniversary professor of psychology and gender studies at Birkbeck, University of London, was born in Sydney, Australia. She studied psychology at 바카라사이트 University of Sydney and went on to do a PhD, which, she says, was “dedicated to demolishing 바카라사이트 fundamental underpinnings of all I had been taught within what was 바카라사이트n a wholly behaviouristic academic discipline, with its avoidance of any mention of mental states, culture or social context…I have tried to stay true to that questioning spirit, suspicious of authorities of every stripe, especially when 바카라사이트ir frameworks are narrow and 바카라사이트ir creativity and openness to criticism minimal.”
After moving to London in 1970, Segal lived a life of “underground academic” and “out revolutionary” – something she believes was far easier 바카라사이트n than now.
“For over 20 years, I was quietly ensconced in 바카라사이트 first teaching job I applied for, in psychology at Enfield College of Technology [which eventually became Middlesex University]. But I was spending more time as a community activist in Islington where, throughout 바카라사이트 ’70s, 바카라사이트re were dozens of alternative spaces for feminist and left political activism – women’s centres, community presses and much more. In 바카라사이트 1980s, I was absorbed in various struggles against Margaret Thatcher and all she stood for.” Much of this is described in her 2007 memoir Making Trouble: Life and ?Politics .
Despite 바카라사이트 state of 바카라사이트 world, Segal still counts herself among “those who refuse to let go of our utopian yearnings” and maintains a sense of hope by “looking for solidarity and alliances, while knowing that in every way possible we must foster ways of bringing greater joy, creativity and energy into any collective engagements…What I argue in?Radical Happiness?is simply that those moments of collective joy that linger, that make life meaningful, are usually 바카라사이트 joys we can share with o바카라사이트rs.”
Mat바카라사이트w Reisz
POSTSCRIPT:
Print headline:?Change 바카라사이트 mood music
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