Complaint : From Minor Moans to Principled Protests

by Baggini, Julian

• ISBN13: 9781846680571
• ISBN10: 1846680573
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-01
• Publisher: Profile Books Ltd

Summary

"Oh, wouldn't the world be dull and flat with nothing whatever to grumble at?"-W.S. Gilbert"This book could change the way we live . . . a relaxed, affable, yet startlingly lucid analysis of humanity's tendency to complain. It should be compulsory reading."-The Independent"An enjoyably astringent and wry read."-GuardianWe love to complain, as letters pages, phone-ins, and blogs demonstrate. But there has been no book on the subject-until now.Conversation would be extremely limited if we stopped complaining. But where once we complained about things that really mattered, now we groan about late trains and bad TV. Often our complaints are misguided: we think political parties should bicker less, but we also complain that there's nothing to choose between them.Ranging from God's protests toward Adam and Eve to the French and American revolutions and the reaction to the war in Iraq, this book examines why we complain, the different kinds of complaints we make, why men and women complain about different things, and why the British complain less than Americans.Julian Baggini is a British philosopher. His previous books include What's it all About?, The Duck That Won the Lottery, The Pig that Wants to be Eaten, and Welcome to Everytown. He is co-founder and editor of The Philosopher's Magazine.

Author Biography

Julian Baggini is the co-founder and editor of The Philosophers' Magazine.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
The Noble History of Complaint	p. 7
Divine complaint	p. 7
Religion	p. 12
The great complainers	p. 17
Impossible Complaint	p. 21
What we can't change	p. 22
Moving on	p. 29
Cathartic complaint	p. 32
Mistaken Complaint	p. 37
Contradictory complaints	p. 37
Self-defeating complaints	p. 42
Self-serving complaints	p. 45
Nostalgic and Luddite complaints	p. 49
Misdirected complaints	p. 54
Paranoid complaints	p. 64
Conformist complaints	p. 71
Empty complaints	p. 76
Quotidian Complaint	p. 81
Comparative complaintology	p. 89
Towards a future complaintology	p. 101
Complaint And Grievance	p. 103
Responsibility	p. 104
Freedom	p. 109
Entitlement	p. 112
The return to ethics	p. 118
Conclusion	p. 127
Appendix: The complaint survey	p. 131
Further reading	p. 137
Acknowledgements	p. 139
Notes	p. 141
Index	p. 145
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