Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

The Good Enough Life


Listen Later

Today’s book is: The Good-Enough Life (Princeton UP, 2022) by Avram Alpert. We live in a world oriented toward greatness, one in which we feel compelled to be among the wealthiest, most powerful, and most famous. This book explains why no one truly benefits from this competitive social order, and reveals how another way of life is possible—a good-enough life for all. Dr. Alpert shows how our obsession with greatness results in stress and anxiety, damage to our relationships, widespread political and economic inequality, and destruction of the natural world. He describes how to move beyond greatness to create a society in which everyone flourishes. By competing less with each other, each of us can find renewed meaning and purpose, have our material and emotional needs met, and begin to lead more leisurely lives. Alpert makes no false utopian promises, however. Life can never be more than good enough because there will always be accidents and tragedies beyond our control, which is why we must stop dividing the world into winners and losers and ensure that there is a fair share of decency and sufficiency to go around.

Visionary and provocative, The Good-Enough Life demonstrates how we can work together to cultivate a good-enough life for all instead of tearing ourselves apart in a race to the top of the social pyramid.

Our guest is: Dr. Avram Alpert, a writer and teacher. He is currently a research fellow at The New Institute, Hamburg. He previously taught at Princeton and Rutgers Universities. He is the author of three books, most recently The Good Enough Life. His work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Aeon.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

  • A Partial Enlightenment: What Modern Literature and Buddhism Can Teach Us about Living Well without Perfection, by Avram Alpert
  • Global Origins of the Modern Self, from Montaigne to Suzuki, by Avram Alpert
  • How to Human: An Incomplete Manual for Living in a Mess-up World, by Alice Connor
  • Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, by Celeste Headlee
  • Find the Good, by Heather Lende
  • A Wonderful Life: Insights on Finding a Meaningful Existence, by Frank Martela
  • Podcast on making a meaningful life
  • Podcast on belonging and the science of creating connection and bridging divides
  • Podcast on the knowledge unlocked by facing failure
  • Podcast on the benefits of doing less, and stressing less

  • Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us each week, where we learn directly from experts. We embrace the broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life, and are informed and inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy.

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store

    Princeton UP Ideas PodcastBy New Books Network

    • 4.4
    • 4.4
    • 4.4
    • 4.4
    • 4.4

    4.4

    10 ratings


    More shows like Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

    View all
    On the Media by WNYC Studios

    On the Media

    9,109 Listeners

    Political Gabfest by Slate Podcasts

    Political Gabfest

    8,492 Listeners

    The Political Scene | The New Yorker by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

    The Political Scene | The New Yorker

    3,916 Listeners

    99% Invisible by Roman Mars

    99% Invisible

    26,137 Listeners

    The LRB Podcast by The London Review of Books

    The LRB Podcast

    288 Listeners

    The New Yorker Radio Hour by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

    The New Yorker Radio Hour

    6,627 Listeners

    The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

    The Gray Area with Sean Illing

    10,636 Listeners

    The Good Fight by Yascha Mounk

    The Good Fight

    884 Listeners

    Politics Theory Other by Politics Theory Other

    Politics Theory Other

    154 Listeners

    Throughline by NPR

    Throughline

    15,947 Listeners

    Know Your Enemy by Matthew Sitman

    Know Your Enemy

    1,907 Listeners

    The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

    The Ezra Klein Show

    15,284 Listeners

    Ones and Tooze by Foreign  Policy

    Ones and Tooze

    343 Listeners

    Past Present Future by David Runciman

    Past Present Future

    309 Listeners

    The Opinions by The New York Times Opinion

    The Opinions

    384 Listeners