Outrageous fortune : gloomy reflections on luck and life / William Ian Miller.
2020
PS3613
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Details
Title
Outrageous fortune : gloomy reflections on luck and life / William Ian Miller.
ISBN
9780197530887 (electronic book)
Published
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2020.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (192 pages).
Call Number
PS3613
Dewey Decimal Classification
818.608
Summary
This text is a drolly pessimistic and vaguely misanthropic account that gives it a unity of voice, of view, and of several interlaced themes: the scarcity of good, that most of happiness comes in the morally questionable form of Schadenfreude, or is experienced mostly as relief that some expected bad thing did not materialize. It deals extensively with those tinges of ominousness that accompany good luck, and the related widespread belief, or feeling in the gut, that people's mere desires and wishes provoke the gods to thwart their wishes. Are good things subject to a law of conservation, so that they must always be paid for and sum out at just about zero or less?
Note
This text is a drolly pessimistic and vaguely misanthropic account that gives it a unity of voice, of view, and of several interlaced themes: the scarcity of good, that most of happiness comes in the morally questionable form of Schadenfreude, or is experienced mostly as relief that some expected bad thing did not materialize. It deals extensively with those tinges of ominousness that accompany good luck, and the related widespread belief, or feeling in the gut, that people's mere desires and wishes provoke the gods to thwart their wishes. Are good things subject to a law of conservation, so that they must always be paid for and sum out at just about zero or less?
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on October 19, 2020).
Series
Oxford scholarship online.
Available in Other Form
Print version: 9780197530689
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