When the social pressure around happiness depresses and costs more than anything else. This search for bliss sells personal development books, “detox” juice cure “boxes”, courses to become Zen or learn to hug trees… A search legitimized by the staging representing this ” happiness” on social networks. The race is frantic, the depression too.
“Absurd”, sometimes “perverse” injunctions
“These tendencies which are above all symptoms, those of an era where consumerist religion is pushing on the head, desperately seeking a meaning that is increasingly slipping away”, write the authors Jennifer Murzeau and Saphia Azzedine in the illustrated essay Trends, published by Robert Laffont. “Absurd” injunctions, sometimes “perverse”, and “which, by claiming to give us the keys to happiness, reduce us to the role of consumer, and make simulacra of our lives”. Jennifer Murzeau, co-author of this book, is the guest of this episode of “ Wait a minute ! “.
“In these trends, not everything is to be thrown away, begins Jennifer Murzeau in this interview. Walking in the forest, hugging trees, in itself is not a problem. What we find problematic is that it be systematized and that it be instructions for use. Drinking juice is fine. But drinking them in the hope of a form of redemption, of purifying oneself of all the harm one inflicts on oneself because one lives in extremely polluted cities, eating industrial crap, is problematic. »
“We think it’s extremely abusive to pretend to give instructions for being happy,” adds Jennifer Murzeau. I think we are living through a period of neglect, of perdition, because before there was religion (…) so we cling to other idols, which are linked to the consumer society. And it’s killing us. Because the consumer society has an extremely expensive environmental and energy price to pay (…) So the keys to happiness are obviously an illusion. Listen to this exchange with Jennifer Murzeau above.
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