Download or read book The Ethics of Authenticity written by Charles Taylor and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Charles Taylor is a philosopher of broad reach and many talents, but his most striking talent is a gift for interpreting different traditions, cultures and philosophies to one another...[This book is] full of good things.” —New York Times Book Review Everywhere we hear talk of decline, of a world that was better once, maybe fifty years ago, maybe centuries ago, but certainly before modernity drew us along its dubious path. While some lament the slide of Western culture into relativism and nihilism and others celebrate the trend as a liberating sort of progress, Charles Taylor calls on us to face the moral and political crises of our time, and to make the most of modernity’s challenges. “The great merit of Taylor’s brief, non-technical, powerful book...is the vigor with which he restates the point which Hegel (and later Dewey) urged against Rousseau and Kant: that we are only individuals in so far as we are social...Being authentic, being faithful to ourselves, is being faithful to something which was produced in collaboration with a lot of other people...The core of Taylor’s argument is a vigorous and entirely successful criticism of two intertwined bad ideas: that you are wonderful just because you are you, and that ‘respect for difference’ requires you to respect every human being, and every human culture—no matter how vicious or stupid.” —Richard Rorty, London Review of Books
Download or read book Diagnosing the Modern Malaise written by Walker Percy and published by Faust Publishing Company. This book was released on 1985 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Malaise of Modernity written by Charles Taylor and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 1991-11-01 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Malaise of Modernity, Charles Taylor focuses on the key modern concept of self-fulfillment, often attacked as the central support of what Christopher Lasch has called the culture of narcissism. To Taylor, self-fulfillment, although often expressed in self-centered ways, isn't necessarily a rejection of traditional values and social commitment; it also reflects something authentic and valuable in modern culture. Only by distinguishing what is good in this modern striving from what is socially and politically dangerous, Taylor says, can our age be made to deliver its promise.
Download or read book Only a God Can Save Us written by Henk J. Van Leeuwen and published by Common Ground Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the shadow of a looming global environmental catastrophe humanity is at an unprecedented crossroad where crucial and difficult decisions must be made about how we are to live. This book questions where the desire for certainty and mastery is taking us and argues that reliance on technology and information alone cannot avoid an ecological catastrophe. It attends to an existential poverty of spirit that, it suggests, is at the root of contemporary problems. It tackles the association between a metaphysical void, with its growing sense of meaninglessness, and the ecological predicament. While many find the consolations of traditional religion increasingly untenable, a hunger for a spiritual dimension in life persists. In a rare excursion, yet one which continues the uniquely human search for a transcendent ground of being, the book explores an unfamiliar kind of thinking which shelters and liberates the poetic imagination that counters the modern malaise. In a scholarly yet accessible account van Leeuwen uncovers from Martin Heidegger's middle/late philosophy an extraordinary pathway of transformative thinking where this imagination is nurtured.
Download or read book The Reactionary Mind written by Michael Warren Davis and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America Needs Reactionaries! Never have the American people been lonelier, unhappier, or more in need of a swift reactionary kick in the pants. There is a better way to live—a way tested by history, a way that fulfills the deepest needs of the human spirit, and a way that promotes the pursuit of true happiness. That way is the reactionary way. In this irrepressibly provocative book, Michael Warren Davis shows you how to unleash your inner reactionary and enjoy life as God intended it. In The Reactionary Mind, you’ll learn: Why medieval serfs were probably happier than you are Why we should look back fondly on the Inquisition Why all “news” is fake news How “conservatives” become “adagio progressives” You also get bonus lists of Reactionary Drinks, Reactionary Books—even Reactionary Dogs. If you want to be happy, you need to be a reactionary, and this book is your guide. It belongs on the bookshelf of everyone in America. (And, incidentally, a reactionary would build his own darn bookshelf, not buy one from IKEA!)
Download or read book All Things Shining written by Hubert Dreyfus and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspirational book that is “a smart, sweeping run through the history of Western philosophy. Important for the way it illuminates life today and for the controversial advice it offers on how to live” (The New York Times). “What constitutes human excellence?” and “What is the best way to live a life?” These are questions that human beings have been asking since the beginning of time. In their critically acclaimed book, All Things Shining, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly argue that our search for meaning was once fulfilled by our responsiveness to forces greater than ourselves, whether one God or many. These forces drew us in and imbued the ordinary moments of life with wonder and gratitude. Dreyfus and Kelly argue in this thought-provoking work that as we began to rely on the power of our own independent will we lost our skill for encountering the sacred. Through their original and transformative discussion of some of the greatest works of Western literature, from Homer’s Odyssey to Melville’s Moby Dick, Dreyfus and Kelly reveal how we have lost our passionate engagement with the things that gave our lives purpose, and show how, by reading our culture’s classics anew, we can once again be drawn into intense involvement with the wonder and beauty of the world. Well on its way to becoming a classic itself, this inspirational book will change the way we understand our culture, our history, our sacred practices, and ourselves.
Download or read book Le Malaise Cr ole written by Rosabelle Boswell and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does one explain the poverty and marginalization of a group that lives in a remarkably successful economy and peaceful society? A native anthropologist, the author provides critical insight into the dynamics of contemporary Mauritian society. In her meticulously researched study of ethnic, gender and racial discrimination in Mauritius, she addresses debates carried out in many developing societies on subaltern identities, ethnicity, poverty and social injustice. The book therefore also offers important empirical material for scholars interested in the wider Indian Ocean region and beyond.
Download or read book A Secular Age written by Charles Taylor and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-17 with total page 889 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.
Download or read book Signposts in a Strange Land written by Walker Percy and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-04 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At his death in 1990, Walker Percy left a considerable legacy of uncollected nonfiction. Assembled in Signposts in a Strange Land, these essays on language, literature, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, morality, and life and letters in the South display the imaginative versatility of an author considered by many to be one the greatest modern American writers.
Download or read book The Decadent Society written by Ross Douthat and published by Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bad Religion, a “clever and stimulating” (The New York Times Book Review) portrait of how our turbulent age is defined by dark forces seemingly beyond our control. The era of the coronavirus has tested America, and our leaders and institutions have conspicuously failed. That failure shouldn’t be surprising: Beneath social-media frenzy and reality-television politics, our era’s deep truths are elite incompetence, cultural exhaustion, and the flight from reality into fantasy. Casting a cold eye on these trends, The Decadent Society explains what happens when a powerful society ceases advancing—how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemate, and demographic decline creates a unique civilizational crisis. Ranging from the futility of our ideological debates to the repetitions of our pop culture, from the decline of sex and childbearing to the escapism of drug use, Ross Douthat argues that our age is defined by disappointment—by the feeling that all the frontiers are closed, that the paths forward lead only to the grave. Correcting both optimism and despair, Douthat provides an enlightening explanation of how we got here, how long our frustrations might last, and how, in renaissance or catastrophe, our decadence might ultimately end.
Download or read book Forever Young written by Marcel Danesi and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The excessive worship of adolescence and its social empowerment by adult institutions is the deeply rooted cause of a serious cultural malaise. So argues semiotician Marcel Danesi in Forever Young, an unforgiving and controversial look at modern culture's incessant drive to create a 'teen-aging' of adult life. Written for the general reader and based on five year's worth of interviews with over 200 adolescents and their parents, Danesi begins by asserting that one of the early causes of this crystallization of adolescence as an age category can be traced back to theories of psychology at the turn of the twentieth century. Since then, the psychological view of adolescence as a stressful period of adjustment has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This, in tandem with the devaluation of the family by the media and society at large, has led to a maturity gap - a fissure in family dynamics that is eagerly and ably exploited by the mass media. Unlike many academic digressions into the malaise of modern culture, Forever Young provides concrete answers on how the 'forever young syndrome' can be addressed. One solution is to dispel the myth that experts and professionals are the people best equipped to give advice on raising children. The second is to recognize the value of family, in all its different combinations, as the primary institution of child-rearing. The third is to challenge the pervasive notion that teen culture is a sophisticated endeavour - that, for example, pop music can claim to have produced some of the best musical art in the world, surpassing Mozart or Bach. By laying bare the misguided tenets that have brought about, and continue to promote, a 'forever young' mentality, Marcel Danesi demonstrates that the 'teen-aging' of culture has come about because it is, simply put, good for business. Teen tastes have achieved cultural supremacy because the western economic system requires a conformist and easily manipulated market, and has thus joined forces with the media-entertainment oligarchy to promote a deterministic 'forever young' market.
Download or read book Beyond the Modern Age written by Bob Goudzwaard and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modernity, according to Bob Goudzwaard and Craig Bartholomew, is not a single ideology but rather a tension between four worldviews. In conversation with students from around the world and drawing upon a variety of sources and disciplines, the authors propose ways to transcend modernity and address global crises.
Download or read book The Moviegoer written by Walker Percy and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2011-03-29 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this National Book Award–winning novel from a “brilliantly breathtaking writer,” a young Southerner searches for meaning in the midst of Mardi Gras (The New York Times Book Review). On the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is a lost soul. A stockbroker and member of an established New Orleans family, Binx’s one escape is the movie theater that transports him from the falseness of his life. With Mardi Gras in full swing, Binx, along with his cousin Kate, sets out to find his true purpose amid the excesses of the carnival that surrounds him. Buoyant yet powerful, The Moviegoer is a poignant indictment of modern values, and an unforgettable story of a week that will change two lives forever. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Walker Percy including rare photos from the author’s estate.
Download or read book Reforming Modernity written by Wael B. Hallaq and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reforming Modernity is a sweeping intellectual history and philosophical reflection built around the work of the Morocco-based philosopher Abdurrahman Taha, one of the most significant philosophers in the Islamic world since the colonial era. Wael B. Hallaq contends that Taha is at the forefront of forging a new, non-Western-centric philosophical tradition. He explores how Taha’s philosophical project sheds light on recent intellectual currents in the Islamic world and puts forth a formidable critique of Western and Islamic modernities. Hallaq argues that Taha’s project departs from—but leaves behind—the epistemological grounds in which most modern Muslim intellectuals have anchored their programs. Taha systematically rejects the modes of thought that have dominated the Muslim intellectual scene since the beginning of the twentieth century—nationalism, Marxism, secularism, political Islamism, and liberalism. Instead, he provides alternative ways of thinking, forcefully and virtuosically developing an ethical system with a view toward reforming existing modernities. Hallaq analyzes the ethical thread that runs throughout Taha’s oeuvre, illuminating how Taha weaves it into a discursive engagement with the central questions that plague modernity in both the West and the Muslim world. The first introduction to Taha’s ethical philosophy for Western audiences, Reforming Modernity presents his complex thought in an accessible way while engaging with it critically. Hallaq’s conversation with Taha’s work both proffers a cogent critique of modernity and points toward answers for its endemic and seemingly insoluble problems.
Download or read book Alternative Modernities written by Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A special issue of PUBLIC CULTURE, this volume of essays examines modernity from transnational and transcultural perspectives, holding that within different cultures, there are different starting points of the transition to modernity that lead to differen
Download or read book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self written by Carl R. Trueman and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern culture is obsessed with identity. Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends—and yet, no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of self. In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman carefully analyzes the roots and development of the sexual revolution as a symptom, rather than the cause, of the human search for identity. This timely exploration of the history of thought behind the sexual revolution teaches readers about the past, brings clarity to the present, and gives guidance for the future as Christians navigate the culture's ever-changing search for identity.
Download or read book The Turkish Malaise A Critical Essay written by Cengiz Aktar and published by Transnational Press London. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one can predict today how Turkey will evolve; which spirit will mark the country’s future. Who could have predicted the turn it has taken in recent years after having been a rising star in the early 2000s, a candidate for the European club, “the” model to follow, especially for Muslim countries seeking justice and prosperity? The failure of its candidacy, in which Europe has its share, has been the prelude to its progressive de-Westernisation accompanied by bellicosity on all fronts, at home and abroad. Western countries are trying to manage this “Turkish crisis” between incomprehension and blind detachment, between appeasement and complicity, between containment and apprehension of seeing this large country decompose in its turn. In this concise and well-documented essay, the author provides analytical tools to understand the split of a society, between state, nation, religion, imperial myth and the West. The analysis is complemented by interviews with the sociologist Nilüfer Göle and the historian Étienne Copeaux, both of whom have witnessed Turkey’s never-ending transformation.
