has published extensively on the subject and developed a novel theoretical model of boredom that sheds light on its complicated nature and diverse psychological, behavioral, and social effects. In his written work, he explores the function, value, and dangers of boredom and strives to offer clear, precise, and critical explications of aspects of our mental lives that often remain hidden from us. He is the author of Propelled: How Boredom, Frustration, and Anticipation Lead Us to the Good Life (2020) and numerous other publications.
Elpidorou applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, The Anatomy of Boredom, and shared the following:
If a reader were to open The Anatomy of Boredom to page 99, they would be cognitively disoriented—perhaps even lost. Isolated from its context, page 99 offers little insight into either the book’s objectives or its subject matter. The page appears in section 2 of Chapter 3, which belongs in Part I of the book. In this part, the book makes a sustained case—one that unfolds in three chapters—that boredom is, in some crucial sense, a unitary phenomenon. What boredom is, the book argues, is its function: the role that it occupies in our mental, behavioral, and social economy; that is, the ways in which it affects our minds and bodies and drives our actions and opinions. There are many things we have called, and continue to call, “boredom.” As long as they share the same functional core, they count as boredom—even if their psychological, physical, or social expressions differ.Visit Andreas Elpidorou's website.
Page 99 is concerned with one of many arguments advanced in this part of the book. It addresses a worry that has been raised by recent psychological studies. Psychologists have observed that the experience of boredom is often associated with different bodily states and levels of arousal. Does this suggest that there are distinct kinds of boredom—perhaps a low-arousal, apathetic type and a high-arousal, agitated type? This section argues that there is no need to divide boredom into distinct affective states on the basis of their associated arousal. Differences in arousal reflect physiological or contextual contingencies, not conceptual or essential distinctions. Boredom’s identity is linked not to its effects on our bodies but to its functional role in our cognitive and behavioral economy. As such, there is unity in boredom despite variation in its somatic expression.
I am not sure there’s a perfect page—one that, if opened at random, would provide not just a concise summary of the main arguments of the book but also a clear view of its methodological commitments. But even if such a page does exist, it isn’t page 99. What page 99 does well is to attune the reader to the level of conceptual and empirical detail that is necessary in order to engage with a phenomenon as complicated and elusive as boredom. This value, however, comes with a cost. The page dwells in the particulars but fails to reveal the bigger picture—page 99 is just one very small part of the fascinating complexities that constitute boredom. It isn’t even a tree, but a bush—perhaps a single flower—in the forest of boredom.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
