Italian author Vincenzo Latronico’s 2022 novel Perfection follows Anna and Tom, millennial university graduates whose vague left-wing politics are limited to Instagram stories condemning injustices in New York City. The couple moves to Berlin after viewing an online apartment listing, a shiny object that appears to be the key to a perfect new life. In Berlin, Anna and Tom spend their days surfing the web for graphic design commissions, a mark of their class as digital, nomadic creatives. At night, they frequent clubs and art shows with other Western expats (Anna and Tom are generically European), their whiteness shielding them from the stereotypes imposed upon other immigrants. Sometimes, they feel confident that their lives match the curated utopias they see on social media. Other times, they do not.
Over the course of the day, more out of place objects and signs of slovenliness would enter their vision… they would feel flawed, like imposters in a grown up world that would have caught them out if the lens had been any wider… the environment where they slept and worked, and which they themselves had chosen and shaped, was the one tangible manifestation of who they are, (Perfection, 20).
Anna and Tom’s self-worth is based on facetious aesthetics and social media mirages that are weak shadows of life. Anna and Tom’s lifestyle is not unique; the West in general is entrapped by teleological thinking. Originating in Ancient Greek philosophy, telos refers to the innate end purpose in every object and living thing. Aristotle believed that the telos of humanity was eudaimonia, which translates roughly to human flourishing. Through pursuing virtue, humans could journey closer to eudaimonia. Thousands of years later, the West still chases eudaimonia. However, the characteristics that define human flourishing have changed, dominated by consumerism and power. The West’s new version of eudaimonia is perfection. Whether it’s colonizing Mars or owning the newest designer handbag, the West accelerates towards its end purpose; a life dominated by efficiency and abundance. Anna and Tom’s lives are a microcosm of the West’s trajectory, as they cling to self-importance and ignore what does not fit into their vision of their ideal selves.
Through crumpled receipts and scattered forms, Latronico unearths what Anna and Tom’s curated lives obscure. The couple feels ashamed when their perfect image of the apartment is proven untrue. If they paid attention to the mess, they would have to grapple with their sense of self and complicity in the flaws of their true reality. Their aversion to recognizing the reality of the idealized Berlin apartment affects only Anna and Tom. However, failure to acknowledge realities of imperfection can be the difference between life and death when humans are treated like living room clutter.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad, the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction winner, shines light on how the West chases, sometimes violently, a perfect but false reality. After the October 7th attacks by Hamas, Israel launched a genocidal campaign, displacing or killing much of the Gaza Strip’s population. For many, the response to Israel’s mass murder of Gazans is to look away. A year after the book was published, the status quo remains, as politicians, the media, and commentators use watered-down language to make mass murder palatable to those living comfortably, oceans away. El Akkad hypothesizes that in the future, the word “genocide” will be common language for the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” He posits that the word genocide disrupts the status quo because it is associated with action. Recognizing the conflict as a genocidal action holds countries that pride themselves on values of liberty and justice to a moral obligation. To be who they claim they are, they must act in opposition to the genocide. Countries like the U.S also have to reckon with decades of complicity.
“Whose non-existence is necessary to the self-conception of this place, and how uncontrollable is the rage whenever that non-existence is violated?” (One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, 20).
Anna and Tom look away from their slovenly apartment because it arouses feelings of shame and inadequacy. It challenges who they are as people when their material facades crack. Similarly, acknowledging genocide means challenging the American identity. It demands recognizing the absence of moral purity, both national and individual, that defines Western foreign policy and Western life. It means ending the chase for perfection and looking reality in the eye. Choosing to disengage and ignore erases the lives of those who are murdered for the sake of the West’s idealized world.
El Akkad writes, “I watch an interview with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York. ‘I think right now what is happening in Gaza, I can’t, I just, I can’t go on every day seeing this. I don’t associate myself with what’s happening.’ I wonder what it must feel like. It must take such great courage to dissociate so fully, under such difficult circumstances,” (One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, 121-122).
To achieve the state of human flourishing, Aristotle advocates for a life filled with virtue, requiring a middle ground between excess and deficiency. Modern perfection benefits the few and exploits the many, hoarding excess for some and causing deficiency for others. Actions that bolster someone’s goal of achieving perfection often cause pain and destruction in another’s reality. For many who are shielded from suffering, the solution is ignorance. They dissociate from what does not fit in their idealized version of their own human flourishing.
Anna and Tom’s life in Berlin becomes increasingly unsatisfactory. They look outside and realize that the city is changing. At first, a wave of evictions does not worry them, as “grittiness” fits into their aesthetic understanding of the city. However, bars begin to sell expensive craft beers, and second-hand shoe stores become art galleries. They feel uneasy, though they drink at the bars and patronize the exhibits.
“They realized they had contributed to the problem that was starting to affect them, but they knew it in an unacknowledged, almost imperceptible way, like smokers when they think about cancer… gentrification, as they understood it, was something other people did,” (Perfection, 66).
Anna and Tom’s illusion of perfection positions them as good people. However, deep down, the couple knows that they are ignoring the suffering their own actions create. Because of their knowledge, as long as this suffering exists, they will never be able to reach perfection.
As time passes, narratives are changed. People attempt to erase the uncomfortable feelings of guilt after ignoring and even causing suffering. El Akkad examines the act of rendering whole populations invisible, wiping them off the map, and then altering how history is told in an attempt to uphold a perfect reality. As Anna and Tom’s lives show, ignoring suffering does not eliminate it from one’s awareness.
“Tomorrow more Palestinians will die, but the unsaid thing is that it is all right because that’s what those people do, they die. Just for a moment, cease to believe that this particular group of people are human,” (One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, 55).
The West will continue to obscure others’ suffering to hold on to illusions of perfection. Anna and Tom will never have a perfect life. They know too much to be satisfied with their facade. They can’t remain ignorant; they know suffering abounds beyond their apartment. El Akkad may have the answer to their problems – accepting reality and walking away from structures that require chasing perfection to function. Akkad calls this negative resistance, removing time, money, and effort from institutions that need participation to function. Walking away can also mean walking towards something else – using exit as a form of voice to advocate for a world where everyone exists, a world closer to “human flourishing” instead of an unsatisfactory illusion.
“That just as it has always been possible to look away, it is always possible to stop looking away,” (One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, 186-187).
