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In the West today, suffering has become a new sacred cow. Once a common feature of the human condition, it is now a special trait you can use to impress your contemporaries. It provides you with a borrowed identity, transforming you into an exceptional being who can show off on the public stage at little cost. Everyone flaunts their certificate of affliction, positioning themselves above their peers. Even those who are well-off and powerful seek to find a place in the aristocracy of the margins, creating new castes of the dispossessed at the expense of the truly unfortunate. Infused with bitterness, this cult of the victim glorifies the martyr figure and feeds into the passions of revenge and resentment. This is the message of our age: we are all victims and entitled to feel sorry for ourselves.
The submissive humanity of Christianity and the arrogant humanity of modernity have now been replaced by a victimized humanity allergic to distress. Pampered, coddled, raised in fear and sensitivity, how will younger generations be able to confront the chaotic world that awaits them, marked by war, violence, terrorism and climate chaos? Who will teach them the courage to endure, to face setbacks head-on, without faltering in the face of misfortune?
Prologue: An inverted Pantheon
Introduction: Thucydides and Jesus Christ
PART ONE: FACING MISFORTUNE
Chapter 1: ‘One day all will be well, so runs our hope’
Chapter 2. All kinds of awful
Chapter 3. Suffering produces laws
Chapter 4. The one-upmanship of martyrdom
PART TWO: VICTIMIST COMPETITION
Chapter 5. The thieves of suffering
Chapter 6. Putin, or the petty civil servant of crime
Chapter 7. Towards a generalised ‘gynocide’?
Chapter 8. Decolonise the decolonisers?
PART THREE: HOW CAN WE LIVE WITH OUR WOUNDS?
Chapter 9. Barbarity as a cover-up?
Chapter 10: Healing the past?
Chapter 11. The hero, an ambiguous antithesis
Chapter 12. Is this how men live? (Louis Aragon)
Conclusion
Notes
Description
In the West today, suffering has become a new sacred cow. Once a common feature of the human condition, it is now a special trait you can use to impress your contemporaries. It provides you with a borrowed identity, transforming you into an exceptional being who can show off on the public stage at little cost. Everyone flaunts their certificate of affliction, positioning themselves above their peers. Even those who are well-off and powerful seek to find a place in the aristocracy of the margins, creating new castes of the dispossessed at the expense of the truly unfortunate. Infused with bitterness, this cult of the victim glorifies the martyr figure and feeds into the passions of revenge and resentment. This is the message of our age: we are all victims and entitled to feel sorry for ourselves.
The submissive humanity of Christianity and the arrogant humanity of modernity have now been replaced by a victimized humanity allergic to distress. Pampered, coddled, raised in fear and sensitivity, how will younger generations be able to confront the chaotic world that awaits them, marked by war, violence, terrorism and climate chaos? Who will teach them the courage to endure, to face setbacks head-on, without faltering in the face of misfortune?
