Paul Rand: From the University of Chicago, this is Big Brains, a podcast about pioneering research and pivotal breakthroughs that are reshaping our world. Lauren Berlant: Insofar as I work with art and work with theory, my interest is in trying to produce better ways of thinking about what a good life would be that didn't depend on achievement and success and these kinds of very, kind of beef-jerky-like models of how people live. But she wants to find a way to reshape things. Paul Rand: Berlant says that our society and individual sense of place in the world have been shattered in the last few decades. Lauren Berlant: There's this whole question of being deserving, which I find so terrifying with so much a part of the politicization of the good life. She spent her career theorizing and writing about finding meaning in American life and whom our society decides gets to be included, the citizens. Paul Rand: Lauren Berlant is a professor of English at the University of Chicago. Lauren Berlant: Starting in the 1970s, the image of the good life as an economic good life started losing its traction. Paul Rand: But what if that promise, that you can have the good life if you just work hard enough, is a lie? Tape: To those who know the good life, comes from the moments you live, not the things you own. Tape: What is the good life? It's about being totally alive in every fiber, every thought, every moment. Tape: A great vacation starts with a great airline.

Paul Rand: What gets you out of bed in the morning? What motivates you to go to a job you may not love, save up to buy a house or a luxury car? For most Americans it's a desire to attain the quote-unquote “good life.”

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(Episode published November 4, 2019) Recommended: Subscribe to Big Brains on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify. But Berlant wants to try and reshape things. But Berlant says the Presidency of Donald Trump has completely shattered our understanding of what it means to have a public and a shared connection as citizens. But what if our attachment to that desire is the very thing holding us back? Lauren Berlant is a theorist and English professor at the University of Chicago and the author of “Cruel Optimism” a book about when you're attached to forms of life that fundamentally get in the way of the attachment you brought to them.īerlant has been writing about finding attachment and belonging in America her entire career. For most Americans, the driving force in their personal and public life is a desire to attain the “good life”.

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