IN PRAISE OF FAILURE

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

Author Costica Bradatan, a professor of humanities and philosophy, provides rich contemplative fodder in his recent book, “In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility” (Harvard University Press, $29.95).

The four subjects he selects are French intellectual Simone Weil, Mahatma Gandhi, Romanian philosopher E.M. Cioran, and Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. 

“Gleefully breaching the boundaries between argument and storytelling, scholarship and spiritual quest,” runs the jacket copy, “Bradatan concludes that while success can give us a shallow sense of satisfaction, our failures can lead us to humbler, more attentive, and more fulfilling lives. We can do without success, but we are much poorer without the gifts of failure.”

Maybe … but these are failures that are willed, to one degree or another; controlled; failures that were meant to sidestep real failure and thus have the last word.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.