It's a Good Life? Adorno and the Happiness Machine

Busk, Larry Alan

doi:10.1111/1467-8675.12256

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Breaking silences head-on on the other hand did not entail such diplomacy, and instead mobilised the environmentalist killjoy as a gendered risk-taker to break through norms of convivial conversation. The environmentalist killjoy can be situated within consumption-based notions of ‘the good life’, designed by capitalist institutions and architecture which socially mandate optimism and faith in the promised happiness of goods and services, while pathologising pessimistic affect (Busk, 2016; McKenzie, 2016). While this context works to stifle dissent and re-entrench goals and practices towards ‘life as normal’ and ‘business as usual’, it appears activists have identified chinks in this armour to normalise climate talk with friends and family and hence keep climate change on the table as a political topic for future discussion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breaking climate justice ‘silence’ in everyday life: The environmentalist killjoy, negotiation and relationship risk

Howard

2023

The Sociological Review

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The moral and justice dimensions of climate change are uncomfortable and commonly avoided in the conversations of day-to-day UK life. This ‘silence’ impedes the genesis of a public discourse to drive justice-oriented social and political change. Two social realms identified as silence-breaking are social movements and personal relationships, yet the potential of this intersection has yet to be explored. This article applies Goffman’s theories of interaction to a qualitative study of UK-based climate activists to show how silence around climate justice is often a means to avoid relationship conflict, and the ways in which this is negotiated within everyday interactions. Activist participants faced conversational resistance through normative avoidance of climate-related death talk, and from negative environmental activist stereotyping. In efforts to protect relationships while promoting their climate politics, participants backgrounded their activist identity, slowly ‘chipped away’ at climate obstruction through social and sustainable practices, and prioritised humour. Breaking silences required taking relationship risks through radical environmentalist ‘killjoy-talk’: a deliberate, politicised transgression of polite conversation norms. The article reflects on the normativities and loci of power discursively obstructing a moral engagement, and the potential for activists’ practical and discursive strategies to work against these to normalise politicised climate talk.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breaking climate justice ‘silence’ in everyday life: The environmentalist killjoy, negotiation and relationship risk

Howard

2023

The Sociological Review

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“…Here it is Busk (2016) that takes an Adornian take and drives it home while commenting on capitalism as a happiness machine: 'This doctrine operates on the principle that "inner health" is identifiable with happiness in one's situation, and that successful treatment amounts to successful adjustment to the demands of work and painless integration into society. The objective character of this situation is left to one side, as if unhappiness and maladjustment were not or could not be expressions of a degrading social and material reality but only "disorders."…”

Section: Variations 21 | 2018mentioning

confidence: 99%