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A Return to Innocence: Philosophical Guidance in an Age of Cynicism
On the verge of a new millennium, in an age of unprecedented affluence, personal freedom and scientific power, millions of usyoung and not so youngfind ourselves emotionally and morally adrift. Even as our mastery of the material world reaches new heights almost daily, mastery of the inner worldof our own actions, emotions, and deepest hopesoften tragically eludes our grasp. As families come apart, adults become bitter and emotionally detached. Children fall prey to a "culture" of sex and drugs, cynical materialism, and self-destructive nihilism. It increasingly seems that, in the piercing words of Jesus, we have "gained the whole world, and lost our own souls." In A Return to Innocence, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Jeffrey M. Schwartza Jewish student of both Buddhist meditation and Christian philosophycombines 3,000 years of wisdom with cutting edge brain and behavioral research to guide us in recovering our souls, our safety, our integrity and our capacity to love. After a 35-year experiment in unbridled self-gratification that has left a burden of tremendous suffering in its wake, at last we are ready to understand that innocencein its original meaning of "not harming"is actually the highest and most difficult of human achievements. The lost art of self-command that empowers us not to harm ourselves or one another is the core teaching of humanity's greatest spiritual masters, including Moses, Jesus, and Buddha. If we value our children, our culture, even our very freedom, we must return to true innocence as our source of inner lightness, clarity and spiritual power. A practical path to this wellspring of inner purity was mapped out 2,500 years ago by Gotama Buddhain Dr. Schwartz's view the greatest psychologist who ever livedwhose still-fresh insights into human nature can serve as a bridge joining the wisdom of the Bible to the discoveries of 21st century science. A deeply felt, thought-provoking exchange of letters between "spiritual coach" Dr. Schwartz and sixteen-year-old Patrick Buckley, the son of a single mother, frames this fascinating, powerful code for living that shows how the best in each of us can thrive. Spiritual and philosophical ideas become hands-on tools for dealing with real-life dilemmas as Dr. Schwartz addresses Patrick's urgent questions about morality, responsibility, and freedom of choice. This book offers an empowering combination of hope, inspiration, accurate information about the biology of human nature, as well as desperately-needed guidance for keeping that nature on a life-affirming path. To everyoneyoung and oldA Return to Innocence offers dynamic, concrete solutions for the pain in our hearts, the fear in our streets, and the cynicism that has corroded our ideals. It speaks directly to our longing for a decent, meaningful, and fulfilling life. The traditional values that made civilization possible were thought to be outrageously radical and daring when they were first introduced by revolutionaries like Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed. . . . Yet those codes of behavior became "traditional"that is, they got handed down from generation to generationfor one simple reason: they work. And they work because they're based on a highly sophisticated and deeply wise understanding of human nature. We often hear the phrase "Knowledge is power"but nowhere is it truer than when it comes to knowledge of ourselves. Are we humans primarily driven, or "drivers"? Are we blameless puppets of our genes, our hormones, our childhoods, or do we have the power, and so the responsibility, to choose what we will do? In our day and age, everyone wants to be, or at least appear to be, streetwise, experienced, cool, and cynical. What people don't realize is that the source of the word "innocent" is a place of great power. It comes from the Latin words for "not" and "to harm." True innocence is the highest of human accomplishments. Not doing harm requires the utmost in awareness, effort, and courage. The state of the world begins right herein the state of your mind..
Price: $5.40
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Seeing Through Cynicism: A Reconsideration of the Power of Suspicion
We live in a cynical age. Cynicism is in the air we breathe; it is a cultural norm; it is the default setting and lens through which many of us view the world. Why is cynicism so pervasive? What does it promise? How does it work? And what does it deliver? In this thorough, interdisciplinary exploration of cynicism, Dick Keyes probes the intellectual and cultural underpinnings of cynicism in its modern and postmodern manifestations. In analyzing our cynicism toward individuals, institutions and God, he gives cynicism the scrutiny it deserves, arguing for its merits as a tool for discernment while pointing out its limitations. Keyes subjects cynicism to its own critique and ultimately looks beyond cynicism to alternatives that wrestle honestly with suspicion, trust and hope.Wide-ranging and vast in scope, Seeing Through Cynicism offers meaty, substantive perspectives for faithful living in a cynical world..
Price: $9.71
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Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good
Why do some citizens vote while others do not? Why does less than half of the American voting public routinely show up at the polls? Why is it that the vast majority of political issues affecting our day-to-day lives fail to generate either public interest or understanding? These questions have troubled political scientists for decades. Here, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella provide the first conclusive evidence to date that it is indeed the manner in which the print and broadcast media cover political events and issues that fuels voter non-participation. This book illustrates precisely how the media's heavy focus on the game of politics, rather than on its substance, starts a "spiral of cynicism" that directly causes an erosion of citizen interest and, ultimately, citizen participation. Having observed voters who watched and read different sets of reports--some saturated in strategy talk, others focused on the real issues--the authors show decisive links between the way in which the media covers campaigns' and voters' levels of cynicism and participation. By closely monitoring media coverage among sample audiences for both the recent mayoral race in Philadelphia and the national health care reform debate, the authors confront issues concerning the effects of issue-based and competitive-based political coverage. Finally, they address the question repeatedly asked by news editors, "Will the public read or watch an alternative media coverage that has more substance?" The answer their findings so clearly reveal is "yes." Spiral of Cynicism is a pioneering work that will urge the media to take a close look at how it covers political events and issues, as well as its degree of culpability in current voter dissatisfaction, cynicism, and non-participation. For, in these pages, a possible cure to such ills is just what Jamieson and Cappella have to offer. Moreover, their work is likely to redefine the terms of the very debate on how politics should be covered in the future..
Price: $0.88
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Defending Science - within Reason: Between Scientism And Cynicism
Sweeping in scope, penetrating in analysis, and generously illustrated with examples from the history of science, this new and original approach to familiar questions about scientific evidence and method tackles vital questions about science and its place in society. Avoiding the twin pitfalls of scientism and cynicism, noted philosopher Susan Haack argues that, fallible and flawed as they are, the natural sciences have been among the most successful of human enterprises - valuable not only for the vast, interlocking body of knowledge they have discovered, and not only for the technological advances that have improved our lives, but as a manifestation of the human talent for inquiry at its imperfect but sometimes remarkable best. This wide-ranging, trenchant, and illuminating book explores the complexities of scientific evidence, and the multifarious ways in which the sciences have refined and amplified the methods of everyday empirical inquiry; articulates the ways in which the social sciences are like the natural sciences, and the ways in which they are different; disentangles the confusions of radical rhetoricians and cynical sociologists of science; exposes the evasions of apologists for religious resistance to scientific advances; weighs the benefits and the dangers of technology; tracks the efforts of the legal system to make the best use of scientific testimony; and tackles predictions of the eventual culmination, or annihilation, of the scientific enterprise. Writing with verve and wry humour, in a witty, direct, and accessible style, Haack takes readers beyond the "Science Wars" to a balanced understanding of the value, and the limitations, of the scientific enterprise..
Price: $8.43
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Cynical Maxims and Marginalia
Cynical Maxims and Marginalia is a collection of cognitive projectiles They pierce the reader’s pretensions, illusions, and unexamined assumptions. They provide flashes of insight along with an occasional good laugh at mankind’s expense. There is little effort here to prove any point, demonstrate any claim, or justify any supposition. Persuasion is of secondary interest. The primary intention is to incite, to puncture, and to awaken the reader from slumber. The maxim is the author’s weapon of choice—a scattershot delivery system. The book lets fly in all directions, but takes particular aim at no one— or at everyone (which amounts to much the same thing). Careful argumentation has its place and value, but so does firing off a quiver full of flaming rhetorical arrows. These are haphazard shots loosed into the darkness. Take cover..
Price: $7.45
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Seeds of Cynicism: The Undermining of Journalistic Education
Based on a three-year ethnographic study, this book traces the operations of three high-school newspaper programs in Southern California: one serving a working-class Latino population and two serving primarily Caucasian and upper-middle class students. Seeds of Cynicism explores the differences in educators' approaches toward young journalists in each school, including their use of professional standards to explain issues of newspaper ethics, fair play, and sensationalism..
Price: $30.21
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Sign Wars: Cluttered Landscape of Advertising, The
Television has become so saturated with commercials that it is difficult at times to tell the different images apart, much less remember or care about them. But, on closer look, television commercials can tell us a great deal about the interplay of market forces, contemporary culture,and corporate politics. This book views contemporary ad culture as an ever-accelerating war of meaning. The authors show how corporate symbols or signs vie for attention-span and market share by appropriating and quickly abandoning diverse elements of culture to differentiate products that may be in themselves virtually indistinguishable. The resulting "sign wars" are both a cause and a consequence of a media culture that is cynical and jaded, but striving for authenticity. Including more than 100 illustrations and numerous examples from recent campaigns, this book provides a critical review of the culture of advertising, exposes the contradictions that stem from turning culture into a commodity, and illuminates the impact of television commercials on the way we see and understand the world around us. .
Price: $28.77
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