Says Who? The Struggle for Authority in a Market-Based Society

Paul Verhaeghe

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English

Scribe Publications
03 July 2017

Society & Social Sciences; Cultural studies; Social issues & processes; The self, ego, identity, personality; Bargains

'We live in an extremely controlling society in which authority has disappeared . . . traditional authority is lapsing into brute force . . . and we ourselves must take the first steps towards creating a new social order.'

This was the trenchant diagnosis by Paul Verhaeghe at the end of his acclaimed book about identity, What About Me? Now he returns to investigate another aspect of our lives under threat- authority.

In Says Who? Verhaeghe investigates how authority functions and why we need it in order to develop healthy psyches and strong societies. Going against the laissez-faire ethics of a free-market age, he argues that rather than seeing authority as a source of oppression we should invest in developing it in the places that matter. Only by strengthening the power of horizontal groups within existing social structures, such as in education, the economy, and the political system, can we restore authority to its rightful place. Whether you are a parent or child, teacher or student, employer or employee, Says Who? provides the answers you need.

'Experience, common sense and audacity- those are the qualities that characterize psychiatrist Paul Verhaeghe, who ... once again delivers an urgent message.'- AD Magazine (four stars)

Praise for What About Me?

'Remarkable ... What About Me? is one of those books that, by making connections between apparently distinct phenomena, permits sudden new insights into what is happening to us and why.' -George Monbiot, The Guardian

'A well-considered and fierce indictment of the rat race we call our lives and the toll it takes on us.' -NRC Handelsblad

By: Paul Verhaeghe
Imprint: Scribe Publications
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 209mm, Width: 135mm, Spine: 32mm
Weight: 328g
ISBN: 9781925322231
ISBN 10: 1925322238
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 03 July 2017
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe is head of the psychoanalytical department at the University of Ghent. With his books Between Hysteria and Woman (1996) and On Being Normal and Other Disorders (2002) he gained international recognition as an expert on Freud and Lacan. He acquired a broad readership with Love in a Time of Loneliness (1998, updated 2011) and The End of Psychotherapy (2009), while The Effects on Identity of a Neoliberal Meritocracy won him a prize for the best essay of 2011 from Liberales. The American edition of On Being Normal and Other Disorders (2002) was awarded the Goethe Prize. His work What About Me? The struggle for identity in a market-based society was published in German, English, Chinese, Korean and Slovenian.