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A carregar... Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary (1982)por Robert Nisbet
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A great moralist and social thinker illuminates the most vexing issues of our time--war, old age, racism, abortion, boredom, crime and punishment, sociobiology, and seventy odd others--in a dazzling book that is by turns hilarious and somber but always vigorous and stimulating. Upon each subject Robert Nisbet offers piercing and often unexpected insights. Joining the colorful company of Montaigne, Voltaire, Burke, and Mencken, Nisbet writes for his own age and with his own prejudices. He ranges from the historical to the contemporary, from great men to lesser ones, from pieties and wisdoms to fads and effronteries. The work, in other words, is neither philosophy nor a dictionary (except that the subject matter is arranged in alphabetical order), but the distillation of Nisbet's wisdom, learning, and profound moral conviction. He argues for liberty over equality, for authority against permissiveness, for religion but also for science, for the individual and his rights but against individualism and entitlements. The center of his thinking is the fervent wish for a community linked by history, religion, and ritual, in which children are raised by families rather than by the state, but in which blind custom and belief are questioned and creativity emerges. Determinism of any kind he finds untrue to human nature and history. Man is free to improve himself or destroy himself. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)103Philosophy and Psychology Philosophy Dictionaries And EncyclopediasClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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Reflecting current preoccupations are sections on "Abortion" (Nisbet calls out the excessive moralism of both sides); "Environmentalism"--now a "redemptive movement" that has become, "without losing its eliteness of temper, a mass socialist movement of, not fools, but sun worshippers, macrobiotics, forest druids, and nature freaks generally, committed by course if not yet by fully shared intent to the destruction of capitalism" and further one more addition to the Leviathan state; and "Judicial Activism"--itself a symptom of the fact that our government is not democratic, "that is, fully responsive to the considered will of the people". Under the heading of "Tyranny" comes a meditation on the Jonestown episode; under the rubric of "Ideology," a discussion of the reaction to Three Mile Island ("No casualties, then or since, but the ranks of the nuclear doom-sayers have greatly enlarged since the nonevent at Three Mile Island").
I enjoyed his discussions of the humanities in sections including: "Genius", "Golden Ages", "Metaphor", "Originality", and "Humanities". The last of these he sees as an unfortunately pale reflection of what it once was, and area of thought in need of a renaissance. His reflections on these and other topics are not without flaws, but refreshing in comparison to the lack of reflection that is prevalent in the twenty-first century. Critics of these essays might take a moment to reconsider their own prejudices. ( )