The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics

The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics PDF Author: Christopher Lasch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393348423
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
"A major and challenging work. . . . Provocative, and certain to be controversial. . . . Will add important new dimension to the continuing debate on the decline of liberalism." —William Julius Wilson, New York Times Book Review Can we continue to believe in progress? In this sobering analysis of the Western human condition, Christopher Lasch seeks the answer in a history of the struggle between two ideas: one is the idea of progress - an idea driven by the conviction that human desire is insatiable and requires ever larger production forces. Opposing this materialist view is the idea that condemns a boundless appetite for more and better goods and distrusts "improvements" that only feed desire. Tracing the opposition to the idea of progress from Rousseau through Montesquieu to Carlyle, Max Weber and G.D.H. Cole, Lasch finds much that is desirable in a turn toward moral conservatism, toward a lower-middle-class culture that features egalitarianism, workmanship and loyalty, and recognizes the danger of resentment of the material goods of others.

The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics

The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics PDF Author: Christopher Lasch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393348423
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 594

Get Book Here

Book Description
"A major and challenging work. . . . Provocative, and certain to be controversial. . . . Will add important new dimension to the continuing debate on the decline of liberalism." —William Julius Wilson, New York Times Book Review Can we continue to believe in progress? In this sobering analysis of the Western human condition, Christopher Lasch seeks the answer in a history of the struggle between two ideas: one is the idea of progress - an idea driven by the conviction that human desire is insatiable and requires ever larger production forces. Opposing this materialist view is the idea that condemns a boundless appetite for more and better goods and distrusts "improvements" that only feed desire. Tracing the opposition to the idea of progress from Rousseau through Montesquieu to Carlyle, Max Weber and G.D.H. Cole, Lasch finds much that is desirable in a turn toward moral conservatism, toward a lower-middle-class culture that features egalitarianism, workmanship and loyalty, and recognizes the danger of resentment of the material goods of others.

Haven in a Heartless World

Haven in a Heartless World PDF Author: Christopher Lasch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393313031
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Previously published: New York : Basic Books, 1977. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Postliberal Politics

Postliberal Politics PDF Author: Adrian Pabst
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509546820
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Hyper-capitalism and extreme identity politics are driving us to distraction. Both destroy the basis of a common life shared across ages and classes. The COVID-19 crisis could accelerate these tendencies further, or it could herald something more hopeful: a post-liberal moment. Adrian Pabst argues that now is the time for an alternative – postliberalism – that is centred around trust, dignity, and human relationships. Instead of reverting to the destabilising inhumanity of 'just-in-time' free-market globalisation, we could build a politics upon the sense of localism and community spirit, the valuing of family, place and belonging, which was a real theme of lockdown. We are not obliged to put up with the restoration of a broken status quo that erodes trust, undermines institutions and trashes our precious natural environment. We could build a pluralist democracy, decentralise the state, and promote embedded, mutualist markets. This bold book shows that only a politics which fuses economic justice with social solidarity and ecological balance can overcome our deep divisions and save us from authoritarian backlash.​

The Agony of the American Left

The Agony of the American Left PDF Author: Christopher Lasch
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307830500
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Five long essays by an American historian, the author of The New Radicalism in America (1965). Under the rubric of "the collapse of mass-based radical movements," Lasch examines the decline of populism, the disintegration of the American socialist party, and the weaknesses of black nationalism. Also included is a history of the Congress for Cultural Freedom and a discussion of the '60's revival of ideological controversy.

Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Kuhn PDF Author: Steve Fuller
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226268965
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
This work discusses whether Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was revolutionary. Steve Fuller argues that Kuhn held a profoundly conservative view of science and how one ought to study its history.

The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times

The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times PDF Author: Christopher Lasch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393348369
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
"Even more valuable than its widely praised predecessor, The Culture of Narcissism." —John W. Aldridge Faced with an escalating arms race, rising crime and terrorism, environmental deterioration, and long-term economic decline, people have retreated from commitments that presuppose a secure and orderly world. In his latest book, Christopher Lasch, the renowned historian and social critic, powerfully argues that self-concern, so characteristic of our time, has become a search for psychic survival.

The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations

The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations PDF Author: Christopher Lasch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393356922
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
The classic New York Times bestseller, with a new introduction by E.J. Dionne Jr. When The Culture of Narcissism was first published in 1979, Christopher Lasch was hailed as a “biblical prophet” (Time). Lasch’s identification of narcissism as not only an individual ailment but also a burgeoning social epidemic was groundbreaking. His diagnosis of American culture is even more relevant today, predicting the limitless expansion of the anxious and grasping narcissistic self into every part of American life. The Culture of Narcissism offers an astute and urgent analysis of what we need to know in these troubled times.

Closing of the American Mind

Closing of the American Mind PDF Author: Allan Bloom
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439126267
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times)—now featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition. In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated, but has also become more urgent today. In clear, spirited prose, Bloom argues that the social and political crises of contemporary America are part of a larger intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites. Now, in this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed author and journalist Andrew Ferguson contributes a new essay that describes why Bloom’s argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.

The Women of the Moon

The Women of the Moon PDF Author: Daniel R. Altschuler
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198844417
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Of the 1586 lunar craters that have been named to honour scientists and philosophers, only 28 honor a woman. Who were these women? What has happened to make women

The Virtues of Limits

The Virtues of Limits PDF Author: David McPherson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192664670
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Human beings seek to transcend limits. This is part of our potential greatness, since it is how we can realize what is best in our humanity. However, the limit-transcending feature of human life is also part of our potential downfall, as it can lead to dehumanization and failure to attain important human goods and to prevent human evils. Exploring the place of limits within a well-lived human life this work develops and defends an original account of limiting virtues, which are concerned with recognizing proper limits in human life. The limiting virtues that are the focus are humility, reverence, moderation, contentment, neighborliness, and loyalty, and they are explored in relation to four kinds of limits: existential limits, moral limits, political limits, and economic limits. These virtues have been underexplored in discussions about virtue ethics, and when they have been explored it has not been with regard to the general issue of the place of limits within a well-lived human life. The account of the limiting virtues provided here, however, is intended as a counter to other prominent approaches to ethics: namely, autonomy-centered approaches and consequentialist (or maximizing) approaches. This account is also used to address a number of important contemporary issues such as genetic engineering, distributive justice, cosmopolitanism vs. patriotism, and the ethical status of growth-based economics.