The Futilitarians

The Futilitarians PDF

Author: Anne Gisleson

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2017-08-22

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0316393894

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A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year Recommended Summer Reading -- Louise Erdrich, New York Times "Gisleson writes with wit, warmth, and a spiritual devotion to books...Her search for purpose and connection amid chaos and loss permeates even the most heart-wrenching moments of The Futilitarians--and it's what turns the book from a meditation on reading to a celebration of being." --Jason Heller, NPR Anne Gisleson had lost her twin sisters, been forced to flee her home during Hurricane Katrina, and watched cancer take the life of her beloved father. Before she met her husband, Brad, he had suffered his own trauma, losing his partner and the mother of his son to cancer in her early thirties. "How do we keep moving forward," Anne asks, "amid all this loss and threat?" The answer: "We do it together." While forging their happiness, Anne and Brad found that their friends had been suffering their own crises: loved ones gone, rocky marriages, jobs lost or gained. Together they formed what they called the Existential Crisis Reading Group, jokingly dubbed "the Futilitarians." From Epicurus to Tolstoy, from Cheever to Amis, they read and talked about the questions that dogged them most. In the year after her father's death, these living-room gatherings in post-Katrina New Orleans helped Anne blaze a trail out of her well-worn grief and finally share the untold story of her family. Written with wisdom, soul, and a playful sense of humor, The Futilitarians is a guide to living curiously and fully.

The Road from Empire to Eco-Democracy

The Road from Empire to Eco-Democracy PDF

Author: Gene Marshall

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2012-01-20

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9781462083657

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An examination of Social Awakenment, History-Long Vision, Holistic Social Understanding & Strategies of Transformation As viewed by five United States Citizens in 2011 Lead author Gene Marshall with coauthors, Ben Ball, Marsha Buck, Ken Kreutziger, and Alan Richard Though vast changes are necessary, we believe humanity can find a vision and plan of action that is both satisfying and realistic. Our aim is to fertilize the fruitful imagination and courage it will require to walk this Road to Eco-Democracy. Wise, insightful, forthright, systemic, and clearly written, with moments of special brilliance. The framing of The Forces of Transformation and The Role and Limitations of Electoral Politics are particularly distinctive and useful contributions. David Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy, The Great Turning From Empire to Earth Community, and When Corporations Rule the World I hope The Road is read and discussed by groups of friends and neighbors across the country. Sidestepping the political stalemates of the day, the authors name the basic problems facing our society, explain why taking the long view is crucial (but largely missing), and propose the processes by which we might create an eco-democracy. Charlene Spretnak, author of Relational Reality, The Resurgence of the Real, and States of Grace I was enormously cheered by The Road from Empire to Eco-Democracy, which sets out a comprehensive menu of todays myths and why they must be revisited. In contrast, these days Im often depressed, not so much by the disasters unfolding before eyes, but rather by un-integrated, non-systemic band-aid solutions, which have become public policy staples. The Road neither trivializes the challenges nor tumbles into the trap of simplistic solutions. Yet beware, the many proposals in the book are neither trivial nor easy. David Sanborn Scott, Ph.D., Vice-President (for Americas) International Hydrogen Association, Founding Director, Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, Univ. of Victoria, Canada, author of Smelling Land: The Hydrogen Defense Against Climate Catastrophe

This Circle of Earth

This Circle of Earth PDF

Author: Mrs. Carleton Winston

Publisher:

Published: 1942

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13:

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Biography of John Hassler Dietrich (1878-1957), a prominent Unitarian clergyman and an intellectual leader (1920s-1940s). Dietrich was clergy at the First Unitarian Society, Spokane, Washington (1911-1916) and at the First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1916-1938).

Futilitarianism

Futilitarianism PDF

Author: Neil Vallelly

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-11-16

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1912685906

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A proposal for countering the futility of neoliberal existence to build an egalitarian, sustainable, and hopeful future. If maximizing utility leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, as utilitarianism has always proposed, then why is it that as many of us currently maximize our utility--by working endlessly, undertaking further education and training, relentlessly marketing and selling ourselves--we are met with the steady worsening of collective social and economic conditions? In Futilitarianism, social and political theorist Neil Vallelly eloquently tells the story of how neoliberalism transformed the relationship between utility maximization and the common good. Drawing on a vast array of contemporary examples, from self-help literature and marketing jargon to political speeches and governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vallelly coins several terms--including "the futilitarian condition," "homo futilitus," and "semio-futility"--to demonstrate that in the neoliberal decades, the practice of utility maximization traps us in useless and repetitive behaviors that foreclose the possibility of collective happiness. This urgent and provocative book chimes with the mood of the time by at once mapping the historical relationship between utilitarianism and capitalism, developing an original framework for understanding neoliberalism, and recounting the lived experience of uselessness in the early twenty-first century. At a time of epoch-defining disasters, from climate emergencies to deadly pandemics, countering the futility of neoliberal existence is essential to building an egalitarian, sustainable, and hopeful future.