In Praise of Failure

FAIN: FZ-250414-16

Costica Bradatan
Texas Tech University (Lubbock, TX 79409-0006)

Offering a series of biographical essays on historical figures and their failures, the book explains how living with failure adds meaning to life.  The figures to be treated include Diogenes, E.M. Cioran, Gandhi, Che Guevara, and Yukio Mishima.

"In Praise of Failure" (under contract with Harvard University Press) makes the argument that, because of our culture’s obsession with success, we miss something important about what it means to be human, and deny ourselves access to a deeper, more meaningful layer of our humanity. A sense of what we are in the grand scheme of things, an openness towards the unknown and the mysterious, humility and reverence towards that which transcends and overwhelms us, the wisdom that comes from knowledge of one’s limits, the sense of personal redefining and self-fashioning that results from an encounter with a major obstacle – these are some of the rewards that a proper grasp of failure could bring about. Using a mix of phenomenology, intellectual history, biography, and cultural hermeneutics, the book proposes the notion that not only can we live with failure, we can also flourish; not only doesn’t failure kill us, but it can help us live more meaningful lives.

Associated Products

Why We Fail and How (Article)
Title: Why We Fail and How
Author: Costica Bradatan
Abstract: ...
Year: 2017
Primary URL: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/why-we-fail-and-how/
Access Model: open access
Format: Magazine
Periodical Title: Los Angeles Review of Books
Publisher: Los Angeles Review of Books

Are We Doomed to Fail? (Article)
Title: Are We Doomed to Fail?
Author: Costica Bradatan
Abstract: ...
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/predestined-to-fail-auid-1015
Access Model: open access
Format: Magazine
Periodical Title: IAI News
Publisher: Institute for Arts and Ideas

Philosophy has a lot to learn from film (Article)
Title: Philosophy has a lot to learn from film
Author: Costica Bradatan
Abstract: ..
Year: 2017
Primary URL: https://aeon.co/ideas/philosophers-have-much-to-learn-from-the-great-filmmakers
Access Model: open access
Format: Magazine
Periodical Title: Aeon
Publisher: Aeon Media

The Gifts of Humility (Article)
Title: The Gifts of Humility
Author: Costica Bradatan
Abstract: .
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-gifts-of-humility/
Primary URL Description: .
Secondary URL: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-gifts-of-humility/
Access Model: open acess
Format: Magazine
Periodical Title: Los Angeles Review of Books

In Praise of Failure Four Lessons in Humility (Book)
Title: In Praise of Failure Four Lessons in Humility
Author: Costica Bradatan
Abstract: Squarely challenging a culture obsessed with success, an acclaimed philosopher argues that failure is vital to a life well lived, curing us of arrogance and self-deception and engendering humility instead. Our obsession with success is hard to overlook. Everywhere we compete, rank, and measure. Yet this relentless drive to be the best blinds us to something vitally important: the need to be humble in the face of life’s challenges. Costica Bradatan mounts his case for failure through the stories of four historical figures who led lives of impact and meaning—and assiduously courted failure. Their struggles show that engaging with our limitations can be not just therapeutic but transformative. In Praise of Failure explores several arenas of failure, from the social and political to the spiritual and biological. It begins by examining the defiant choices of the French mystic Simone Weil, who, in sympathy with exploited workers, took up factory jobs that her frail body could not sustain. From there we turn to Mahatma Gandhi, whose punishing quest for purity drove him to ever more extreme acts of self-abnegation. Next we meet the self-styled loser E. M. Cioran, who deliberately turned his back on social acceptability, and Yukio Mishima, who reveled in a distinctly Japanese preoccupation with the noble failure, before looking to Seneca to tease out the ingredients of a good life. Gleefully breaching the boundaries between argument and storytelling, scholarship and spiritual quest, Bradatan concludes that while success can make us shallow, our failures can lead us to humbler, more attentive, and better lived lives. We can do without success, but we are much poorer without the gifts of failure.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674970472
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780674970472
Copy sent to NEH?: No

---