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A Society Fit for Human Beings

Author: Elie Maynard Adams

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1997-10-31

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780791435243

Argues for a humanistic cultural reformation to counter our materialistic values and science-dominated intellectual life and shows how this would affect our lives and transform our society. A Society Fit for Human Beings contends that there is a profound incoherence in the foundations of modern Western civilization and that we are on a self-destructive course. With the quest for wealth and power our dominant concern, we find ourselves with a flourishing economy and a supreme military force based on science and technology, but with our moral, civic, and religious culture undermined by our way of comprehending the world. Our human identity is problematic, the wells of meaning that nourish the human spirit are polluted or drying up, and the social order is in disarray. This situation, E. M. Adams argues, requires nothing less than a historic cultural revolution based on a shift in priorities from wealth and power to humanistic values -- those grounded in selfhood and lived experience that are essential for human growth, meaningful lives, and a healthy society. Such a shift in our governing values would require a restructuring of our intellectual vision of humankind and the world in terms of humanistic categories This book shows the import of such a humanistic cultural revolution for our human identity, morality, the social order, and our major institutions, including the family and community, education, the economy, the government, the military, and religion. It outlines how we can work toward such a cultural revolution and develop a constructive postmodern civilization with a society fit for human beings.

A Society Fit for Human Beings

Author: E. M. Adams

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1997-10-31

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 079149425X

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A Society Fit for Human Beings contends that there is a profound incoherence in the foundations of modern Western civilization and that we are on a self-destructive course. With the quest for wealth and power our dominant concern, we find ourselves with a flourishing economy and a supreme military force based on science and technology, but with our moral, civic, and religious culture undermined by our way of comprehending the world. Our human identity is problematic, the wells of meaning that nourish the human spirit are polluted or drying up, and the social order is in disarray. This situation, E. M. Adams argues, requires nothing less than a historic cultural revolution based on a shift in priorities from wealth and power to humanistic values--those grounded in selfhood and lived experience that are essential for human growth, meaningful lives, and a healthy society. Such a shift in our governing values would require a restructuring of our intellectual vision of humankind and the world in terms of humanistic categories--those grounded in lived experience, the categories of the humanities. This book shows the import of such a humanistic cultural revolution for our human identity, morality, the social order, and our major institutions, including the family and community, education, the economy, the government, the military, and religion. It outlines how we can work toward such a cultural revolution and develop a constructive postmodern civilization with a society fit for human beings.

What We Owe Each Other

Author: Minouche Shafik

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-08-23

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 069120764X

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From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return. Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.

Idleness

Author: Brian O'Connor

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0691204500

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"For millennia, idleness and laziness have been regarded as vices. We're all expected to work to survive and get ahead, and devoting energy to anything but labor and self-improvement can seem like a luxury or a moral failure. Far from questioning this conventional wisdom, modern philosophers have worked hard to develop new reasons to denigrate idleness. In Idleness, the first book to challenge modern philosophy's portrayal of inactivity, Brian O'Connor argues that the case against an indifference to work and effort is flawed--and that idle aimlessness may instead allow for the highest form of freedom. Idleness explores how some of the most influential modern philosophers drew a direct connection between making the most of our humanity and avoiding laziness. Idleness was dismissed as contrary to the need people have to become autonomous and make whole, integrated beings of themselves (Kant); to be useful (Kant and Hegel); to accept communal norms (Hegel); to contribute to the social good by working (Marx); and to avoid boredom (Schopenhauer and de Beauvoir). O'Connor throws doubt on all these arguments, presenting a sympathetic vision of the inactive and unserious that draws on more productive ideas about idleness, from ancient Greece through Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Schiller and Marcuse's thoughts about the importance of play, and recent critiques of the cult of work. A thought-provoking reconsideration of productivity for the twenty-first century, Idleness shows that, from now on, no theory of what it means to have a free mind can exclude idleness from the conversation."--Provided by publisher

Dimensions of Leisure for Life

Author: Human Kinetics

Publisher: Human Kinetics

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0736082883

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"Leisure is everywhere, but its impact on people's lives is often overlooked. Leisure is more than “doing nothing” or “hanging out.” It has implications for society, affecting economics, politics, business, health, and the environment. On an individual level, it offers multiple opportunities for personal growth and development. And it contributes to a better quality of life for individuals and communities as a whole. With Dimensions of Leisure for Life: Individuals and Society, students will learn to understand and appreciate leisure and explore the ways that their leisure choices can help them lead happier, more balanced lives both now and in the future. ... With contributions from 22 leading professors, the book examines the following: the concept of leisure, including the various ways in which it has been defined and described, the benefits associated with it, the scope of the leisure industry field, and the basis for studying leisure as a social science; the impact of leisure on quality of life, health, physical activity and stress levels, and overall happiness and well-being; the social significance of leisure, including the interaction of leisure with history, contemporary society, technology, the environment, economics, and politics and public policy; the factors that influence each individual's leisure choices and level of involvement in leisure activities, such as awareness of local options, barriers of age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status, geographic distribution of leisure spaces; and maturity level and stage of development."--Publisher.

When I Was a Child I Read Books

Author: Marilynne Robinson

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2012-03-13

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0374709416

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Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor. In "Austerity as Ideology," she tackles the global debt crisis, and the charged political and social political climate in this country that makes finding a solution to our financial troubles so challenging. In "Open Thy Hand Wide" she searches out the deeply embedded role of generosity in Christian faith. And in "When I Was a Child," one of her most personal essays to date, an account of her childhood in Idaho becomes an exploration of individualism and the myth of the American West. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as one of our essential writers.

The Social Conquest of Earth

Author: Edward O. Wilson

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2012-04-09

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0871403307

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New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year (Nonfiction) Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence (Nonfiction) From the most celebrated heir to Darwin comes a groundbreaking book on evolution, the summa work of Edward O. Wilson's legendary career. Sparking vigorous debate in the sciences, The Social Conquest of Earth upends “the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover). Refashioning the story of human evolution, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to demonstrate that group selection, not kin selection, is the premier driving force of human evolution. In a work that James D. Watson calls “a monumental exploration of the biological origins of the human condition,” Wilson explains how our innate drive to belong to a group is both a “great blessing and a terrible curse” (Smithsonian). Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, the renowned Harvard University biologist presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere.

Not Fit for Our Society

Author: Peter Schrag

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0520269918

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"Peter Schrag is the model for all political writers. He is committed, passionate, and eloquent, but always stays harnessed to the facts and rooted in the realities of politics and human nature. He reports out everything, and he writes like a dream. We can be grateful that in Not Fit for Our Society he has turned his gifts to the seemingly intractable problem of immigration. We will have to settle this issue again, as we always manage to do despite enormous commotion and anxiety. Schrag will force everyone to think more clearly and to approach immigration with both compassion and good sense."—EJ Dionne, Jr., author of Souled Out "Just who is fit to be part of the society that became a nation in 1776 and who decides, and on what basis? In Not Fit for Our Society, Peter Schrag offers an invigorating, well-informed, carefully reasoned investigation into today's immigration debates."—David Hollinger, President of the Organization of American Historians, 2010-2011 "Peter Schrag has a unique view of the immigration debate and policies that have shaped our country since it's founding. His very timely writing of Not Fit for our Society helps us to better understand how the immigration debate and politics have gotten us to where we are today. His insights and intellect on the subject give all of us much to think about as we move forward on this very important issue."—Doris O. Matsui, Member of Congress "Peter Schrag has done it again. A sweeping review that puts the ferocity of our current immigration debate in historical context, Not Fit for Our Society is a must-read for those hoping to get past talk-show rhetoric and cherry-picked facts. Uncovering the dark impulses that have long undergirded nativist thought, he argues that we have seen this before—and that America will be better if we see through it again."—Manuel Pastor, University of Southern California "Peter Schrag offers a lively and thoughtful reinterpretation of America's ambivalence about immigration and immigrants' place in the nation's life. Drawing on his reading of primary sources and the latest scholarship, he tells a story rich in irony, detail, and nuance, tracing the history of nativism from the earliest days of the Republic to the current debates over immigration reform. The book is particularly striking for the way that it connects the arguments and organizations of the current anti-immigration movement to their roots in the eugenics movement and pseudo-scientific racism of the early 20th century."—Mark Paul, New America Foundation "[Schrag] delivers a story rich in irony, detail, and nuance, often told with passion and frequently challenging orthodoxies of both the political right and left. It is the right book at the right time."-Mark Paul, New America Foundation "History's lessons come through loud and clear as Peter Schrag vividly recounts the characters and the ideas behind that side of America that rejects immigration. Illuminating both in its sweep and its detail this 300-year narrative makes an important contribution to our understanding of today's policy debates."—Roberto Suro, author of Strangers Among US: Latino Lives in a Changing America "In an intemperate time, Peter Schrag's voice is lucid and truly American."—Richard Rodriguez

State of Nature Or Eden?

Author: Helen Thornton

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1580461964

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State of Nature or Eden? Thomas Hobbes and his Contemporaries on the Natural Condition of Human Beings aims to explain how Hobbes's state of nature was understood by a contemporary readership, whose most important reference point for such a condition was the original condition of human beings at the creation, in other words in Eden. The book uses ideas about how readers brought their own reading of other texts to any reading, that reading is affected by the context in which the reader reads, and that the Bible was the model for all reading in the early modern period. It combines these ideas with the primary evidence of the contemporary critical reaction to Hobbes, to reconstruct how Hobbes's state of nature was read by his contemporaries. The book argues that what determined how Hobbes's seventeenth century readers responded to his description of the state of nature were their views on the effects of the Fall. Hobbes's contemporary critics, the majority of whom were Aristotelians and Arminians, thought that the Fall had corrupted human nature, although not to the extent implied by Hobbes's description. Further, they wanted to look at human beings as they should have been, or ought to be. Hobbes, on the other hand, wanted to look at human beings as they were, and in doing so was closer to Augustinian, Lutheran and Reformed interpretations, which argued that nature had been inverted by the Fall. For those of Hobbes's contemporaries who shared these theological assumptions, there were important parallels to be seen between Hobbes's account and that of scripture, although on some points his description could have been seen as a subversion of scripture. The book also demonstrates that Hobbes was working within the Protestant tradition, as well as showing how he used different aspects of this tradition. Helen Thornton is an Independent Scholar. She completed her PhD at the University of Hull.

Society and Sanity

Author: F. J. Sheed

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2013-03-31

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 1681494361

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If there are two words that seem not to fit together they are "society" and "sanity." Spend twenty minutes on the freeway or ten minutes reading the newspaper, or ponder the religious and political conflicts in some regions of the world, and you will understand the point. Yet if people are to thrive--to live fully and together in peace-- we must have sanity when it comes to society. And that requires sanity when it comes to thinking about man. Sanity involves seeing things as they really are. Social sanity requires seeing man as he really is--to grasp who and what human beings are and what sort of social arrangements help or hinder human flourishing. In this classic work, Society and Sanity, Catholic thinker Frank Sheed brings his brilliant mind and lucid writing style to bear on the good human society. By explaining perennial truths about human nature based on the wisdom of Catholic social ethics, Sheed's book is as pertinent today with our controversies about love, the nature of marriage, the role of government, the relationship of law and morality and of Church and State, and the duties of the citizen, as when he penned the work over a half a century ago.