TY - BOOK AU - Pfaller,Robert AU - Rosenblatt,Lisa AU - Eckler,Charlotte AU - Nielsen,Camilla TI - On the pleasure principle in culture: illusions without owners SN - 9781781681749 U1 - 306 PY - 2014/// CY - London, New York PB - Verso KW - Culture KW - Play KW - Perception N1 - Originally published: Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp, c2002; Includes index; Introduction -- Ch. 1. Interpassivity: Fleeing from enjoyment, and the objective illusion -- Ch. 2. Belief: Octave Mannoni and the two forms of conviction, Croyance and Foi ('Belief' and 'Faith') -- Ch. 3. Play: Johan Huizinga – The suspended illusion and sacred seriousness -- Ch. 4. The condition for greater fascination: ambivalence – 'Knowledge' is Hatred -- Ch. 5. Dialectics: Sigmund Fred – Ambivalence and the loss of play in culture -- Ch. 6. The pleasure principle: all culture enjoyment is Fetishistic' – The other's illusion: civilization and its contentments -- Ch. 7. Asceticism: Ascetic ideals and reactionary masses – On the organization of the libido in the belief and faith -- Ch. 8. Happiness: Happiness and the obstacles: one's own illusions -- Ch. 9. Appearance: The invisible other – Theory of the naive observer N2 - In this fascinating work of cultural theory and philosophy, Robert Pfaller explores the hidden cost of our contemporary approach to pleasure, belief and illusion. Sports, design, eroticism, social intercourse and games – indeed, all those aspects of our culture commonly deemed "pleasurable" –seem to require beliefs that many regard as illusory. But in considering themselves above the self-deceptions of the crowd, those same sceptics are prone to dismissing a majority of the population as naive or misguided. In doing so, they create a false opposition between the 'simple' masses and their more enlightened rulers. And this dichotomy then functions as an ideological support for neoliberal government: citizens become irrational victims, to be ruled over by a protective security state. What initially appears to be a universal pleasure principle – the role of "anonymous illusions" in mass culture – in this way becomes a rationale for dismantling democracy ER -