The happy adventures of capital

Abstract

In order to form a valid assessment of the manner and extent to which happiness has emerged as a conspicuous lingua franca in present Anglo-American society, a robust philosophical framework must first be established. This chapter presents an interrogation and expansion of existing correlative theoretical perspectives, which, when conjoined, enable the analysis of the spread and dynamics of such mass-discursive, cultural phenomena. These academic antecessors include actor-network, rhizomatic and Foucauldian theories and, as their principal structure and expositional exemplar, Thrift’s seminal body of work on the global cultural circulation of capital (2005a).

Thoughts survive if they work, if they propagate, if they find an appropriate milieu, a welcoming territory … There are thoughts that repeat themselves over and over again, positioning themselves as unquestionable obstacles. There are thoughts that attempt to ground themselves in other successful thoughts and bring an affective reward. There are thoughts that organise human life so successfully that they manifest their own truth in their performance.

(Goodchild, 1996: 211 cited in Thrift, 1999: 31)