I Suffer Therefore I Am

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The submissive humanity of Christianity and the arrogant humanity of modernity have now been replaced by a victimized humanity allergic to distress.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

"Pascal Bruckner is a singular prose stylist and �moralist� par excellence: the heir to a venerable French literary tradition that was honed during the grand siècle by La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère and emulated by Nietzsche in Human, All Too Human (1878). In an age of obligatory groupthink, Bruckner�s talents as a witty expositor of human folly have become invaluable. I Suffer Therefore I Am exemplifies Bruckner at his very best!"
Richard Wolin, Graduate Centre, City University of New York

"Reparations, Bruckner explains, have replaced redemption in our secularized world. To demonstrate this claim, Bruckner brings to bear a formidable arsenal of fascinating examples from contemporary life – political, cultural, social, and psychological – to make the point, quite forcefully in fact. Some examples are troubling, others so ludicrous as to make the reader literally laugh out loud. An important, erudite book."
Richard J. Golsan, Texas A&M University

"Masterful"
Simon Heffer, The Daily Telegraph Pascal Bruckner is the bestselling author of many books including The Tyranny of Guilt, Perpetual Euphoria and The Fanaticism of the Apocalyse.