We Have Met the Enemy by Daniel Akst

What do economists, psychologists, philosophers and clergy have in common?  They are all in interested in self-control.  Akst explores research and writings of all of these people and more in exploring what self-control is in the modern world.  Be it harmful addictions or a simple inability to sit down and attend to the work at hand, self-control is what gives us the discipline to eat, sleep, and enjoy our lives.  About America's the recent economic collapse, he says, "Suddenly we were all Emma Bovary, bored, entitled, and aghast when the piper at last demanded to be paid.  'It is because she feels that society is fettering her imagination, her body, her dreams, her appetites," Mario Vargas Llosa writes in The Perpetual Orgy, 'That Emma suffers, commits adultery, lies, steals, and in the end kills herself.'"

No one is spared.  If you are at all interested in why we do, or do not do, what we should be doing, read this.