Cruel Optimism

In *Cruel Optimism*, Lauren Berlant explores the concept of 'cruel optimism' as a relation where something desired is actually an obstacle to one's flourishing.

The book examines how people in Europe and the United States survive neoliberal postwar restructuring by clinging to fantasies of the good life, such as upward mobility, job security, political and social equality, and durable intimacy.

Berlant argues that these attachments become cruel when they impede the very aims they were meant to achieve.

The book delves into affective and aesthetic responses to the dramas of adjustment in times of precarity, contingency, and crisis, and critiques the idea of the good life within the context of liberal-capitalist societies.