The Spirit of Disobedience: Resisting the Charms of Fake Politics, Mindless Consumption, and the Culture of Total Work
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Book Overview
Trained relentlessly to work and consume, we make daily lifestyle decisions that promote corporate profits more than our own well-being. We also find ourselves working more, living in fragmented communities, and neglecting our most basic spiritual and political values. As Curtis White puts it, "In order to live, you will be asked to do what is no good, what is absurd, trivial, demeaning, and soul killing." Although we belong to the world's most affluent society, somehow we never have the chance to ask: How shall we live? With his trademark humor and acerbic wit, White raises this impertinent question. He also debunks the conventional view that liberalism can answer it without drawing on spiritual values. Surveying American popular culture (including Office Space and The Da Vinci Code) to illustrate his points, White urges us to renew our commitment to "human fundamentals" as articulated by Henry David Thoreau-especially free time, home, and food-and to reclaim Thoreau's spirit of disobedience. Seeking imaginative answers to his central questions, White also interviews John De Graaf (Affluenza), James Howard Kunstler (The Long Emergency) and Michael Ableman (Fields of Plenty) about their views of the good life in our time.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0977825310
ISBN13:9780977825318
Release Date:November 2006
Publisher:Routledge
Length:183 Pages
Weight:1.00 lbs.
Dimensions:9.3" x 0.8" x 6.0"
Customer Reviews
5 ratings
A satisfying rant
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed this book. Curtis White speaks with a voice that is well-informed, thoughtful, analytical, and righteously wounded by the degraded state of our culture. As a former Christian who long ago left the fold, I appreciated his perspectives on what an authentically Christ-informed spirituality might look like. And as a worker in the field of restorative justice, as I read the book I kept thinking "This is an important work for my colleagues and I." I am sharing it with others. The last chapter, which has three interviews with important thinkers, was a great ending. In fact, the book is worth it for just this chapter alone, although I think the introduction is also reason enough to purchase the book.
read it and be inflamed
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
this is a fierce and passionate and scathing indictment of the left from the left. curtis heats up his argument by tapping into that pyre of true revolutionary fire as voiced by shakespeare-blake-ruskin-emerson-thoreau-whitman- proust-pound-weil(simone)-ginsberg-zizek-frank(thomas). in the introduction he sets his argument thus: "The tragedy is that in the present context the secular left believes that its advocacy of justice is independent of spirit... the truth is that there is no spirit in the absence of justice and no justice that is not first spiritual." READ IT AND BECOME A FLAME!
Row, row, row your own boat........
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 17 years ago
Any one who wants to live life deliberately instead of going about the business of life as laid out by others of whom you may never be aware needs to read this book.
Turn off the tube, come read this!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 17 years ago
If you get very tired of what passes for debate in this country, try this book on for size. White calls it like it is -- Democrats and Republicans claim to be so different, but they are basically both about keeping society this way it is, "good for business"; capitalism is bankrupt spiritually, leading to an unsustainable work/life balance for families, and a lousy car-centric suburbia landscape that has alienated ourselves from ourselves. I really liked his critiques of familiar pop-culture artifacts like the Simpsons and Office Space because often in a book like this, these pieces, accessible to general audiences, are ignored disdainfully. He also leaves you with some hope, which most critics don't get around to. Turn off the tube and give yourself some stimulation, read the book.
superb in the thickets
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
This book is ofcourse fantastic. Like the Middle Mind, it unhinges you from being ok with being a zombie. Superb in the thickets, if I may steal. How do you live when you can't honestly live a happy and decent life these days without taking out the horse blinders is the only thing worth thinking/reading about. Also- I had no idea Curtis White had written another non fiction book. Even his Harpers article didn't mention that he was about to come out with a new book- actually I got the article off of Lexis Nexis so perhaps thats the kind of garbling I didn't pay for.
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