{"product_id":"9781781682203","title":"On The Pleasure Principle In Culture: Illusions Without Owners","description":"For many illusions, it is easy to find owners – people who proudly declare that they believe in things such as life after death, human reason, and self-regulation of financial markets. Yet there are also different kinds of illusions at work, for example, in art: trompe l’oeil-painting pleases its observers with “anonymous illusions” – illusions where it is not entirely clear who exactly it is that should be deceived.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnonymous illusions offer a universal pleasure principle within culture: they are present in games, sport, design, eroticism, manners, charm, beauty, etc. However it seems that this pleasure principle is increasingly subjected to misrecognition: the proud proprietors of certain illusions are no longer capable of recognizing that they too follow anonymous illusions. As a consequence, they mistake happy, polite others for naïve idiots or “savages” – as owners of stupid illusions; and consider their happiness an obscene intrusion – as something in which \u003ci\u003ethey\u003c\/i\u003e could never share.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePfaller explores the strange properties of these shared illusions, and finds that they have a \u003ci\u003ecentral and crucial role\u003c\/i\u003e in our culture—and we need to better understand them in order to protect the public sphere.","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47114621124848,"sku":"9781781682203","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781781682203_p0.jpg?v=1763716855","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781781682203","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}