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.

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.