" The goal of festivity is to make us forget that we are alone, miserable, and destined for death. Said otherwise, to transform us into animals. That's why the primitive has a very developed sense of festivity. A good flambée of hallucinogenic plants, three tambourines, and that's all they need: a trifle amuses him. On the other hand, the average Westerner only attains an insufficient ecstasy that comes from interminable raves from which he emerges deafened and drugged: he doesn't have any sense of festivity at all. Deeply self conscious, radically foreign to others, terrorized by the idea of death, he is quite incapable of reaching any synthesis. Nevertheless, he persists. The loss of his animal condition saddens him, he considers it shame and spite, he would like to be a party animal, or at least seem like one. He's in a nasty situation. "

― Michel Houellebecq , Ein bisschen schlechter