Synopses & Reviews
Why do we sometimes risk happiness and success? Newspapers regale us with breathtaking reversals of fortune: Think of the self-induced falls from grace of Richard Nixon, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson, and Martha Stewart. We too can be imprudent-occasionally stumbling and falling through life-and not because we were pushed. John Portmann argues that we are often our own worst enemies, and that the most painful suffering of all is that which we bring upon ourselves.
This edgy and altogether original exploration illuminates self-destructive behavior. It helps us understand how we crash and burn without any help from others and carry the seeds of our own destruction. Portmann observes that people frequently prefer feeling guilty to feeling powerless and therefore resolve to take life by the horns. The stage is then set for trouble.
From time to time, we crave the forbidden or the dangerous. Walking the fine line between what is expected of us and what we ache to experience can be thrilling. Portmann looks at the raves twenty-somethings flock to in order to analyze moments when we take leave of our senses and defy social mores. While some of us practice a hard-core lifestyle, indulging in unsafe sex, snorting cocaine, or having affairs, others take satisfaction in milder indulgences, such as streaking nude across a college campus or feigning sickness to miss work. Looking for love may compel us to post compromising pictures on the Internet; those who find our postings may take advantage of our vulnerability. Raving invites an intriguing spectrum of risks, most of which qualify as "a temporary vacation from the self."
In Bad For Us, Portmann urges us to "take a lesson from those who fall back to earth." Our very happiness is at stake: If we choose wisely, we will savor life through little rebellions; if we choose foolishly, we will swallow a bitter pill. This book is a beacon for cautious rebels.
Review
"Portmann, author of three other provocative books on bad behavior When Bad Things Happen to Other People (a serious study of schadenfreude), Sex and Heaven: Catholics in Bed and at Prayer, and In Defense of Sin tackles another important, if disquieting, topic here the human propensity for self-harm. Less concerned with obvious self-inflicted wounds (cutting, for example), the author broadens the category to include socially self-destructive impulses (insider trading, shoplifting, illegal drug use) and other activities once thought to be personally and socially harmful and/or dangerous (masturbation). That so many people do what's bad for them fascinates me, he writes, and well-chosen case studies make this page-turner not only entertaining but also highly instructive. Portmann is a serious scholar who grapples with big issues, writes about them in clear and compelling prose, and encourages his readers to think beyond cliché and received wisdom. Drawing on everything from the Bible to Kant, contemporary TV series to observed examples, St. Augustine to Proust, Leo Steinberg to Sandra Cisneros, Portmann combines detail and theory in this study in an attempt to encourage us all to ask, Who am I? What do I want, and what can I do?
Can we, indeed, control our impulses? Can we avoid doing what is bad for us? Are we our own worst enemies? The questions have no easy answers, and Portmann provides no road map to better behavior, but he does make us understand more completely why we do what we do, the individual and social implications of such behavior, and the intense humanity that such behavior reveals. This is a smart, engaging, and thoroughly original book." Reviewed by d T. Gies, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
Why do people do things that are blatantly bad for them? Think of the falls from grace of Richard Nixon, Gary Hart, Rob Lowe, Martha Stewart, and Kobe Bryant. Portmann argues that we are often our own worst enemies, and that the hardest kind of suffering to bear is what we inflict upon ourselves. This groundbreaking book is a wide-ranging exploration of self-destructive behavior and self-injury. It helps us better understand how and why we engineer our own downfalls, and why dizzying reversals of fortune often leave a trail that leads back to people who should have known betterlike Jayson Blair and his blatant plagiarism or Bill Clinton and his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
After developing an exciting philosophical categoryraving”in which we take leave of our senses and refuse to act according to societal mores, Portmann observes that we all occasionally crave the forbidden or the dangerous. While raving takes varied forms, from streaking nude across a college campus to indulging in unsafe sex, it is best described as a temporary vacation from the self.” Cautioning that our very happiness is at stake, Portmann exhorts us to choose wisely. This rare book is the North Star for cautious rebels.
Bad for Us is an engaging book that explores a social and moral paradox. Drawing from thinkers ranging from Immanuel Kant to Thomas Sowell to Madonna, John Portmann deeply explores a topic all but taboo among modern writersthe dual need each of us feels to develop and maintain a sense of self-control, and to lose it from time to time.” William N. Eskridge, Jr., author of Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet and John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School
About the Author
John Portmann is the author of When Bad Things Happen to Other People and Sex and Heaven, as well as the editor of In Defense of Sin. He teaches at the University of Virginia and lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.