It’s important that social openings are always offered to others. For example, you might offer a high-five when a handshake is expected, or break up the routine of the checkout line with a witty joke. An awesome individual creates a “social opening” when they break out of these norms in ways that express their individuality. Our lives are usually governed by social norms, more-or-less fixed modes of behaviour and standard ways of doing things. Riggle explains what it means to be awesome in terms of a key notion: the “social opening”. Riggle’s book covers a great deal of ground: we find him developing a nuanced taxonomy of awesomeness and suckiness presenting vivid examples of the awesome in art, sport, and civic life mapping the cultural history of awesomeness and arguing for the vital importance of not sucking. It’s an ethical system that emphasises expressing oneself as an individual in creative and novel ways while also learning to recognise and appreciate the individuality of others. This outlook differs from more traditional ethical outlooks, which focus on rightness, fairness, or duty instead, the ethics of awesome is fundamentally about cultivating and appreciating individuality. In this book Nick Riggle presents an accessible, entertaining introduction to the “ethics of awesome” – an ethical outlook which Riggle claims is latent in our culture, and can readily be understood if we reflect on our usage of the antonyms “awesome” and “sucks”. you may say you can't give into your deepest/most intense feelings because you won't get a high-paying job, but Romantics would say 'screw it' because you only have one life to live → it's fine if relationships fall apart because you're pursuing your passionsĪt the beginning of the episode, Lacy smiles a lot, and so an observer might assume that she is 'following her heart' and doing what makes her happy.On Being Awesome: A Unified Theory of How Not to Suck, by Nick Riggle (Penguin, 2017), £14.99, $20 (three main layers to this answer) Rousseau talked about how (1) we are all innately good - in that case, if we all act towards our deepest & most intense desires, we wouldn't be hurting others // we want other people to suffer 'Noble savage' (?) Specific kind of goodness: we're happy when others are happy and sad when others are hurt The only reason we lose that capacity (and become comfortable with hurting others, or sitting idly as others are hurt) is because we have been socialized to think that's okay The worst harms to oneself and others are only possible in societies, according to Rousseau (2) People will be selfish in a healthy way & will be compassionate, unless they're socialized out of it (3) What people think may be harmful about embracing Romanticism may actually not be all that harmful → ex.

On being awesome riggle