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Idiocy is all around us, whether it's the uncle spouting conspiracy theories, the colleagues who repeat your point but louder, or the commuters who still don't know how to use an escalator. But what is the answer to this perpetual scourge?Here, philosopher Maxime Rovere turns his attention to the murkiest of intellectual corners. With warmth, wit and wisdom, he illuminates a new understanding of idiots, one which examines our relations to others and our own ego, offers tools and strategies to dismantle the most desperate of idiotic situations, and even reveals how to stop being the idiots ourselves (because we're always someone else's idiot).
Expertly translated by David Bellos, this is an erudite, enjoyable and much-needed solution to a most familiar vexation.
About the author
Maxime Rovere is a philosopher who has dedicated his life to studying the ways we interact, through both the history of philosophy (Spinoza and others in the Early Enlightenment) as well as in contemporary ethics, and now in turning his attention to the scourge of all ages: idiots. Associate Researcher at the École Normale Supérieure (Lyon), he lectures regularly at the universities of Buenos Aires and Montreal and was Council of Humanities Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in 2019.David Bellos is a translator and biographer, and is Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of French Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. His book, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? is a brilliant account of the way translation is at the heart of everything we do.
Summary
The international bestseller that offers an alternative to chucking your most irksome idiot out of a window.
Foreword
The international bestseller that offers an alternative to chucking your most irksome idiot out of a window
