How to be a Failure and Still Live Well

Beverley Clack is Professor in the Philosophy of Religion at Oxford Brookes University. Her publications include: Interrogating the Neoliberal Lifecycle: The Limits of Success, co-edited with Michele Paule (2019); Philosophy of Religion: A Critical Introduction, co-authored with Brian R Clack (3rd edition 2019); Freud on the Couch (2013); Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Critical Readings, co-edited with Pamela Sue Anderson (2004); Sex and Death: A Reappraisal of Human Mortality (2002); and Misogyny in the Western Philosophical Tradition (1999). From 2012-16 she was City Councillor for St Clements Ward in Oxford, and from 2016-2018 she was a member of the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum. She is a member of the Methodist Church’s Faith and Order Committee, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

• Acknowledgements Introduction: Failure: And How to Live Well Chapter 1: Success, Failure, and the 21st Century Good Life Chapter 2: Women, Failure, and the Fear of Loss Chapter 3: Death and Sickness, Loss and Failure Chapter 4: Factoring Out Failure, Factoring Out Humanity: Bureaucracy, Metrics, and the Loss of Spontaneity Chapter 5: From Homo Economicus to Homo Religiosus: Remaking the Human Chapter 6: Accepting Failure, Embracing Loss Conclusion: Being a Failure and Living Well Bibliography

Nothing succeeds like success? Perhaps not. How to be a Failure and Still Live Well is a powerful rejection of the language of ‘success' that dominates contemporary neo-liberal culture. Blending philosophy and personal experience Beverley Clack gives a moving defense of the necessity of loss and failure in building relationships, identity and a meaningful life. This splendid book gives us a picture of the kind of fuller existence we can aspire to as individuals who choose our own response to tragedy and as members of a community that does not rely on false optimism or selfish calculation to bind itself together.