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The Bluest Eye

June 11, 2014 / posted in reviews / No Comments

The Bluest EyeThe Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Toni Morrison knows people. She can see how they grew from their surroundings, she can see how their self image, and how their attitudes affect those around them, especially those of children. She shows us the saddest case here, the most helpless, a female child, who being born of dysfunctional surroundings is taken to the last straw, last shred of self image. If one’s self image is destroyed, if she hates herself, insists on her own beauty by escaping into fantasy, she can stand all the scorn and hatred of those who look at her. Those most extreme bit of depravity and debasement of the human condition is drawn out as a marker of how all oppression: racism along with classist dehumanization affects all those concerned.

What also helps make Morrison so masterful is her understanding of vantage. She tells us this story from girls who are sympathetic; closeby but far enough apart to be objective… their dialectic dialogue decides for us what is pure and true in understanding the debasement that appears before us. In this sense, Morrison creates an abstract narrative vantage point so that we can witness this horrific debasement, this series of the world shitting on this one little girl, by a community that neither fully cares for its own, or has a stable sense of self worth. Morrison shows us how poverty and class can create the self hatred in the Breedloves as it can in anyone. The shattering of the narrative works as a collage to both allow us to be more fully in the story, but also so that the story doesn’t disintegrate into a particular girl only. But showing us a larger scope, we see we all are participants in this system, of capitalism that prizes the wealthy and creates ideals of beauty and wealth so that those who do not have it can shatter themselves in their pain.

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The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

May 30, 2014 / posted in reviews / No Comments

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup ArtistsThe Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I pride myself in being able to read anything… which is less about reading and more about having an open mind. So it was really surprisingly (or not) hard for me to even agree to read this book. And when reading it, I wanted to dislike it. Don’t get me wrong; there is plenty in this book to dislike. The biggest problem I had with the book though, as it is about a real thing, is the narrative voice. The narrator isn’t the individual going through the book, it’s often someone who both is expressing their attitudes at the current place the reader is, and at the place after the book was writing. As such, sometimes you’re not sure if the narrator is foreshadowing, being paternalistic towards the reader, or totally into what’s going on at that place in the narrative. This confusion makes sense later on though, when you realize that the author, who presumably is the same man as the narrator as he claims, is still giving pick up artist classes and so on. So even while in the book, he’s reacting with horror, being super self-aware of the limitations of what will happen, how terrible this society of pick up artists is, he’s still involved at least in making money on it.

In reading this book you become aware that while misogyny can happen as a side effect, the majority of men who go into this field lack a sense of self worth when it comes to women. To even acknowledge this, for most men, is incredibly frightening. But still, it’s not surprising given the lack of education, contradictory messages, and lack of self-awareness our society has towards sexual relationships. With the disruption of capitalism and the loss of community in modern society, we have very little traditional resources to rely on in meeting others. So yes, while PUA is about playing on the self esteem of women to get them to spread their legs, it’s really about the (lack) of self esteem of the men who participate in PUA.

It’s also interesting that the majority of women who target their complaints on the PUA community focus on how these men are women hating and how these men are the enemy. Again that’s a knee jerk reaction — one predicated on the anatagonisms of sexual relationships that gave rise to the PUA community in the first place… an understandable but hardly constructive response. What makes this reaction understandable is that it does appear to be an us vs them mentality — but really it shouldn’t be, because in the end, both sexes want the same thing… just with the person of their choice.

As highlighted in the book, the majority of it seems, at first glance, to be about technique, the main tool is social dynamics. Scripts are a good way of learning how to interact, having ropes upon which to hang onto. But in the end, scripts only work on the ignorance of the other part (if women are aware of the scripts they won’t work) and as such, in the end what counts is real interaction. Scripts only work in the context of pure ignorance. They do not work to maintain a relationship, once it’s started. The limits of PUA is the limit of what can be controlled… and since everyone is different to really get the dream relationship, both parties do ultimately need to be committed, mature, self aware and giving… something that is far beyond what PUA can teach, at least, as presented in the book.

What’s most offensive is still, of course, objectification of women, manipulation, and the lying that these men do… reducing courtship to a series of tricks. But like meeting people who seem cool, after a while you do run out of your bag, and you do have to be genuinely yourself… something that takes time and understanding of who you are.

When you think about it though, there are scripts for everything. Including dating. Who pays, how do have conversation… although most of these scripts are not as tightly controlled as PUA techniques, people do have them. It goes beyond the book to say, but I think a large part of what looms over PUA is the build up we have, as a society, of physical beauty and romantic love. These two ideals are among the most socially destructive forces because it weighs too much authority and power on those who happen to be born with what is decided to be physically beautiful…

I am not a woman so I don’t know what it’s like being a woman, but having grown up as a man, I can recollect that much of my formative years was spent in ignorance of how to approach women. If it wasn’t for a few close friendships that I had for many many years with women, I would be in even bigger ignorance. Because I was able to socialize with women on a fraternal level, I could see them as being real people. Different in some ways, given different social pressures, but still actual people. This was very different from some of my guy friends who had no friendships… who would latch onto what seemed to them to be truths about women, some of which were very negative.

As a society we value equality. True equality doesn’t yet exist, at least not among the sexes. We do have a long way to go. If equality is to happen both men and women need to be socialized better, to get a better sense of self and a better sense that others are genuine people too… (un)fortunately, to do this we do need to learn scripts, (as children we do, to some degree), master them, discover why they are not who we are, and then find out who we are by trial and error… a kind of dialectic of self development.

Overall the book felt stunted until the latter 1/3. I give it three-ish stars because it provides much interesting content to think about, but lacks some of the finer narrative cohesion as mentioned above… also given the ending it gave itself, the book could have been smarter about how it began… as the two narrative voices clashed, it felt a little deceptive as to what it was really trying to say.

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The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600-1750

May 30, 2014 / posted in reviews / No Comments

The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600-1750 (Studies in Social Discontinuity)The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600-1750 by Immanuel Wallerstein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In this amazingly detailed and rich work, Wallerstein illustrates how various economic principles — pursuit of a robust economy — pursuit of abundance — can be the seminal with which to read various political, military and policy actions of various European nations between the periods of 1600 to 1750… Of course, he also accounts for history and religion before and after this period to bookend his projections… but the implications are clear.

In a capitalist framework, nations themselves self-organize in as much as the industries and socio-economic sectors self-organize to support one another, to get purchase and gain a place within the emerging economy to ‘get their own’. In some cases, such as with Austria and Sweden, rules attempt to get by hook or crook, war or alliance, more resources with which to build a base of power and abundance. Often within the nations themselves, they may seek workers from other places that can build their economy, but more often than not, nations will oppress their own people for the plenitude of the upper classes who languish in plenitude.

Each nation, England, Prussia, Spain, France, the Dutch… they all do this in different ways, with various differences in success. Ultimately, a lucky combination of having access to trade, of being able to compete cheaply in trade (which is often enforced militarily) gives rise to the desired position of Hegemony… which can only last so long before financial control becomes the way to retire ones’ prior dominance… which is a basic example of the economic system, the world system Wallerstein has so noted in his career.

One of the direct implications of this reading though, leads to understanding that politics is always a delayed response in the symbolic area of language towards economic movement. That politics and language is how people tactically negotiate to position themselves among others. Seen in this way, the naked ambitions of nations can be brought to light.

While the history of this period was one that overall was seen as stagnation, it did lead towards British dominance and eventually WWI and WWII, both of which can be seen as military responses to economic aggression. The multitude of wars leading up to the 20th century can also seen as attempts by those in charge to limit the ability of semi-periphery nations to become core nations… often with great success. The frustration of those semi-periphery nations however, continues on to the next generation as they try again, sometimes with different allies, in order to claw their way up to the top, so they too can become richer than they already are.

While questions of why people create competition to compete among themselves is an interesting question, Wallerstein is more interested in pointing out how this happens than why — and he is very interested in showing how each industry, each nation’s contingencies and limitations led them to the actions they took, and why certain strategies, like those in France or Spain, did not lead them to become more powerful than they had already become. The lesson here seems to be that nations that can integrate themselves and move as a whole towards concentrated efforts in key areas will always find ways to dominant, whereas alliances that allow your allies to become stronger are always reluctantly allowed so long as the major competitors are not allowed to progress (which is how Germany came into power)… That the British with their smaller country (than France) was of a more manageable size, and geographically positioned for sea dominance won out becomes no surprise.

Some of these trends can also be seen today. In fact, the whole point of historic narrative is to see ourselves in its reflection and to understand trends today by their antecedents of yesteryear… and this book really holds to that advantage. As with any work though, the devil is in the details, and Wallerstein takes great pains to demonstrate how smaller areas of competition can add up to (or be eliminated by) areas in other places… and how the right push under the right condition can give way to larger movements that far outreach what we already can imagine.

As it is, someone’s got to be on top, right?, in as much as those that are in charge are doomed to lose their position inevitably.

I strongly look forward to reading the next work, World-System III.

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White Teeth

May 30, 2014 / posted in reviews / No Comments

White TeethWhite Teeth by Zadie Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an extraordinarily ambitious book, especially for a book of fiction.

Books that deal with big ticket items, such as family, immigration, race, legacy — ultimately deals with people’s place in the world due to such contingencies such as race, social status and the like. Such themes become transcendental filters that limit who a character is (where they are located in terms of these contingencies). And as such, Smith needs her characters to be foils for each other. Yet the modern reader insists that a character become full, be about a particular someone — so we can dive into their minds and souls and know them — so they can be rounded, we end up expanding who someone is beyond those defining characteristics… yet in a writer who is as aware as Smith is, who is aware of a characters strengths, faults and points of view, inevitably in order to focus on such filters, characters who would ‘step out of those limits’ end up being re-inscribed in those transcendental limits, in order to fulfill the exemplification of those boundaries.

This is very much like what happens in real life. If you are defined as being a nerd, or somehow limited in your person, any creation of yourself as such would need to address how others see you. You would have to occupy a position, a consistency of your self image that addresses the stereotype that others perceive you as being. Even a rejection of that self image would require an incorporation of what you are not so that you constantly find yourself located somewhere in the middle between two extremes. Millat and Magid as immigrant twins find themselves located in the middle — though that middle becomes an extreme middle for each, as Millat in the UK has a different middle to address than Magid who probably lives in Bengal as some kind of return of the prodigal son. In fact, Magid adopts the same kind of heir to the Enlightenment rationalism, the claim to pure awareness that Marcus so adheres to, whose expression of “Chalfenism” is a reflection of this rationalist attitude which is in a way, an insistence of principle, a death drive, as Freud would call it… whereas Millat embraces his own middle as the negatively defined Islam extremist sect through the oppression and violence of capitalist fantasies (not his dad’s Islam, not the rationalist attitudes of the Enlightenment, but some kind of Frankenstein of both, the rejected underbelly of both, the non-law in the Law as Zizek would but it, the death-drive of both, the insistence of principle)..

I won’t try and take apart of the novel, but in the example above, you see how characters thus defined through principle become examples of principles. Claim that they are inhuman? That they are flat? Perhaps, if they adhere too much to a principle, they seem so flat. But the structural climax of the novel, the intersection of so many different characters whose reaction to their lessened class status as poor immigrants demands that Smith split her attention in so many different ways. Each immigrant (even 2nd generation immigrant, whose futures the story revolves around) responds to their poverty through a different means… religion, family legacy, capital practicality… and these different attitudes, this in-fighting, this verbal abuse, can not be resolved.

In fact, you wish for it to be resolved, but it won’t be. Because Marcus, the scientist with the Romanesque name, wishes through his use of science to remove the very boundaries of what makes them who they are… by programming the genetic legacy of one mouse, for cancer research, he inadvertently suggests that their contingencies, the very things that under the transcendental filter of these big themes makes them who they are, locates them on the skin of social totality as being in their middle, is in fact a joke. That they can’t be themselves, that they are mechanical, defined by contingencies that are not due to their own person, their own choice. The hysteria surrounding some genetic research today is rightly parodied in the book. Ironically, the response to this possibility of being nothing more than a genetic program, that can be manipulated through Western irregard for non-Western logic, amounts to the messing with the external markers that solidify the transcendent filters that define these characters in their confusion. This is because, as much as these characters suffer through the poverty of their British existence so too do they hang onto the beyond of their past glory… so that changing the coordinates of their biology by analogy threatens to change the coordinates of their past glories. Genetic manipulation, in this novel, acts as a locus of the ‘beyond’ that hangs their Real in place. By proxy, they lose their place in the world by losing the essential difference that makes them who they are… the last essential difference that poverty can’t take away from them.

There are of course, far richer details that can go into this reading. Smith though, chooses an odd angle, genetics, to stir the pot as it were, rather than concentrating on religion itself, or economics itself… both of which could be read as responses to one another, although perhaps not so much in this book. Overall, I thought she did a good job of balancing personal characters with the themes/motifs that she sought to illustrate. It is hard to draw the je ne sais quoi of each character, a kind of mythical image that can assume its own form… in a book, as all we get are words that exemplify something else. But it was beliveable for me. Characters who have so little, like people who have so little, will often hang onto the most abstract of principles/fantasies. That much is true.

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Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

May 30, 2014 / posted in reviews / No Comments

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous IdeaZero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Math is something we take for granted in our daily lives, we live by it (all of us do accounting in one form or another). Our daily transactions require it, whether we sell or buy. Math is the ground upon which all of our technology and in fact, all of our framing works. Our modern lifestyle and worldview requires it to be as solid as the ground we build on.

And yet, the concepts of infinity and zero, as innocuous as they seem, incorporated into the limits of what makes math math, led us to paradoxes and strange conclusions that most of us ignore in our work, play and abundant use of technology.

Seife’s writing is clear, concise and easy to understand, even if some of his concepts are not. It’s a great credit to his ability as a writer to cut through the intensely diverse field of mathematics to highlight the startling conclusion that zero and infinity touch in the oddest of ways. After a strong foundation, he goes right into the thick of it.

Some of the issues he touches on, such as how irrational numbers are the entire number line, and how our mathematical language reaches an expressive limit that math continually twists around to surpasses through a series of ‘tricks’ is in fact a comment on the tenacity with which we hang onto consistency… after all, consistency of thought in this domain is all we have… and while these concepts of zero and infinity have rocked our world more than once, they continue to define how we orient ourselves. Finding new ways to incorporate zero/infinity is part of what we do; as we defer nothingness and everything to the side, to always try and find where we are and what we are doing, as we both pull stuff out of nothing, which is tantamount to pulling stuff out of the indeterminate everything.

Although Sefie stops short of the philosophical implications of zero, or nothing, (is it real, or a product of our minds? What are the defining limits of where such concepts end, or are they universally ‘out there’?) this great book reaches the heights and depths of infinity and zero to show us not only historically where these concepts originated, but also how their reluctant incorporation into the European worldview led us into the most abstract trappings of theoretical physics… astrophysics and quantum mechanics, giving us a brief glimpse of nothing and everything all at once.

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I Am a Cat

May 30, 2014 / posted in images of being-human, reviews / No Comments

I Am a CatI Am a Cat by S?seki Natsume
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This very charming book works as a kind of rhetorical pun.

Told from the point of view of a cat, who comes lazily to live with a disinterested, shiftless teacher, one can only help but think that the cat’s arrogant, obsessive observations of his human companions epitomize the nature of being a cat.

And then it hit me. The cat, through all this narrative posturing, his anthropomorphic renditions of human traits based off their inscrutable, sayings and behavior could is very much like the projection of how humans impart anthropomorphic characteristics via observing their feline companions.

What I mean is, through the filter of a cat, the cat in his narrative prowess becomes more human-like: objective and rational, whereas humans become more catlike: indolent and paradoxical, full of self obsessive habits, unconsciously arrogant in their assumption that all should give way to their needs, plans and desires.

This rhetorical stance creates many delightful antinomies, humorous and playful. We get to laugh at ourselves, as our petty habits and self-importance are downplayed as often as we downplay a cat’s unassuming kingship. Still, this translation offers many delightful gems applicable equally to human or cat:

For every living being, man or animal, the most important thing in this world is to know one’s own self. Other things being equal, a human being that truly knows himself is more respoected than a similarly enlightened cat. Should the humans of my acquaintance ever achieve such self-awareness, I would immediately abandon, as unjustifiedly heartless, this somewhat snide account of their species as I know them. However, just as few human beings actually know the size of their own noses, even fewer know the nature of their own selves, for if they did they would not need to pose such a question to a mere cat whom they regard, even disregard, with contempt. Thus, though human beings are always enormously pleased with themselves, they usually lack that self-perception which, and which alone, must justify their seeing themselves, and their boasting of it wherever they go, as the lords of creation. To top things off, they display a brazen calm conviction in their role which is positively laughable. For there they are, making a great nuisance of themselves with their fussing entreaties to be taught where to find their own fool noses, while at the same time strutting about with placards on their backs declaring their claim to be lords of creation. Would common logic or even common sense lead ay such patently loony human being to resign his claim to universal lordship? Not on your life! Every idiot specimen would sooner die than surrender his share in the fantasy of human importance. Any creature that behaves with such blatant inconsistency and yet contrives never to recognize the least minim of self-contradiction in its behavior is, of course funny. But since the human animal is indeed funny, it follows that the creature is a fool.

And thus, you have the seed of Soseki Natsume’s thoughts and very detailed observations of human beings in their ego driven mania, self centered in their world view, and self important in their neediness to value themselves above others and all other beings around them.

I highly recommend this book. Though it’s not a treatise on humans metaphysically, it would be sure at maximum, help you take your own problems with less gravity…at the minimum, help you have a good laugh…

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FROTTAGE & EVEN AS WE SPEAK

May 30, 2014 / posted in reviews / No Comments

FROTTAGE & EVEN AS WE SPEAKFROTTAGE & EVEN AS WE SPEAK by Mona Houghton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Two novellas in this short book. But what novellas they are.

They both deal intimately with family — with our orientation and loss of orientation in the universe, the world we make.

The first reaches us in the form of a series of disjointed letters — a woman writing to her psychologist, at first, detailing their encounters, and his lack of response… and in these letters, she is able to tell of the very seminal bonds she had with her two brothers, the trauma that came with the loss of their inner world (the three of them had) and then the healing that starts up again.

The second deals with a collage of a series of characters whose lives by happenstance collide and come together. Family again. But through a series of equally traumatic encounters the different characters down own up to their existence (in different ways) finding their way again.

Both these stories at first, seemed to wander. Where were they going? What were they doing? But then, when you get past half the story, and the worldview of each separate piece seems established in its normality, or at least within its own internal logic of its ‘scene’ you get a rush in which the accumulated disturbances, the small pieces that seemed in place come together out of joint. The displacement takes you further along, faster than you had before to arrive at the breaking point, when the ending seemed too clear, and yet less clear.

And this is where the two novellas parted ways for me. The first didn’t seem completed, as an ending that was befitting (although that was read over six months ago… reading it again now, it seems very much so). The second novella wrapped itself up neatly, almost too neatly for how can characters after encountering so much pain (their own pain, the pain of those around them) — come to a satisfying ending? And yet Houghton does pull it off, by emphasizing the story is closed.

What Susie secretly suspects (she images the scientists will someday come to this) is that there is a giant universe of universes (no exit, no entrance), and that inside it, smaller universes slip and slide against each other, constantly on the move, positions random and haphazard, always keeping the big moves mysterious, yeah, you might exit this universe and come right back in on the other side, but, just maybe (timing is everything) you might exit and slip into a whole other universe just because it happens to be sliding by the one you are escaping, the one you’ve played all the games in that can be played, the one you’ve earned the right to exit for good

By wrapping the larger theme in a metaphysical theme, she echos the structure of narrative structure, in fact, her structure, as you see each partition in the story fragments come together as motifs in a larger tapestry, playing out all the permutations and exhausting the inner voices of her story. Finally, the story then releases us, having imparted its word and completed itself, like a classical piece of music, developed its theme out fully and yet wrapped us back to end on a note that is the essence of itself, sustained by its ending to linger a little longer than after we turn the last page.

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The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China

May 30, 2014 / posted in reviews / No Comments

The Seven Military Classics of Ancient ChinaThe Seven Military Classics of Ancient China by Ralph D. Sawyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For most of recorded history, China has housed the largest human population. Combined with the very fertile land of the area, and its relative connectedness (Europe in comparison, had many mountains and small areas connecting it, causing populations to form in related but relative autonomy), Chinese civilization gave rise to hugely bureaucratic institutions that helped perpetuate its monolithic political system. As such, the military might of empire building has given rise to a variety of teachings about military matters from its victors.

In classic form, these texts are often inscribed in a series of question and answers, the point of which aren’t organized in the same brute force organization as the German treatsie or the Anglo-Saxon essay. Nonetheless, despite the length of time encompassed in this text many of the texts sound fairly similar. Much of the principles behind these texts can be found in Sun Tzu’s art of war.

Taoist teachings have penetrated much of Chinese thought and society, giving rise not only to military tactical and strategic thoughts but also thoughts on propaganda, ruling, medicine, astrology, chemistry and martial arts. Most of the principles are pretty much the same though. Be orthodox when they enemy expects unorthodox. Be unorthodox when the enemy expects orthodox. Things like that. Be where they don’t expect you, be integrated in how you approach things, withhold information, let your enemy fight amongst themselves when possible. Win wars without fighting.

In a sense, the best military strategies are the ones that avoid war, that ensure political and economy success without military expense.

I won’t pretend that this was a mystical read, full of great oriental wisdom… by today’s standards, there is much detail missing… and the repetition did get mind numbing. Nonetheless, it is good to see how many ideas haven’t changed over time and how people can continue, despite technology, to discover the same ideas as being relevant.

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When Things Fall Apart

May 30, 2014 / posted in reviews / No Comments

When Things Fall Apart (Shambhala Classics) Publisher: ShambhalaWhen Things Fall Apart (Shambhala Classics) Publisher: Shambhala by Pema Chodron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Chodron draws a portrait of Buddhism that is both intensely personal and highly unfamiliar. From the desperation of her unhappy marriage she tells the tale of her discovering Tibetan Buddhism, embracing it and then coming to terms with it.

New Age approaches to Buddhism tell of Eastern gurus with deep wisdom, sages that can see right through us, and of course, the ever-lasting mystical bliss, as being a deeper reality available to us if we only reach for it.

This may be how many of us are drawn to Buddhism, but the Buddhism Chodron paints is one of intense suffering. Sitting for hours on end, meditating, performing routine chores, putting yourself in socially awkward positions… it seems a monk’s life is only there to expose you to your own folly. Left to your own devices, all you can do is let your ego run rampant through the monastery (either by promoting it, or fighting it) or let it pass through you.

But be aware, she isn’t just talking about her own life, she is making a connection to you through her own trials. Chodron is very clear. Suffering in this life is only through our own actions. Even if we locate the problem outside of ourselves, our suffering through it results in the attitudes we have about ourselves, and the expectations we have about who we are what the world owes to us… the kind of life we deserve. Seeking to fulfill the requirements of one who deserves the best won’t make things better… it makes it worse. Because if you succeed, you’re tied to the idea that somehow you earned it (many people have tried to win at life, and why they fail often has to do with chance more than anything else). So the only way out of this slavery to our own unconscious whims? Failure. Suffering. Learning who you are by discovering how little you can do without. Ultimately, what you learn to do without is also your own self: the very thing you set out to save.

And be warned, this book is dense.

I read it very carefully, taking over a month to engage in the various parts in the book. There are so many passages I could quote from but I’ll end it with her own quote from Jean-Paul Sartre:

“There are two ways to walk into a gas chamber–free or not free”

Life is short. We can’t wait. We often live our lives with the view that we can do things tomorrow. We expect the future to be always around the corner, but at the same time, never quite here… so we often don’t live in the present. We live for tomorrow, we live for the next day, and we never quite make it to living. Really though, the choice is ours… and our own poison is how we run our lives with the expectation that we are going to make it to a place of bliss, in the future… a place that won’t ever exist unless we make it happen right now.

Talk about Buddhist nihilism. It’s also the elimination of ideas like nihilism. You can’t ever get to keep your own philosophy, or system.

In short, her emphasis isn’t merely that Buddhism is there to help you “when things fall apart” but rather Buddhism is there to help you make “things fall apart”… the when, is NOW.

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Marriage In Free Society by Edward Carpenter

May 30, 2014 / posted in reviews / No Comments

Marriage In Free Society by Edward CarpenterMarriage In Free Society by Edward Carpenter by Edward Carpenter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At first, this small book seems like it might be a backwards glance at what marriage is. But in fact it’s not. In many ways, surprisingly contemporary in how it outlines problems in marriage, Carpenter anticipates many of our social issues today.

What is significant about this work is that he poses “free society” in terms of the freedom of ownership. He foretold of a future when women should be free as well… free to earn her own living wages, same as any man.

While this small gem is scattered throughout the book, Carpenter foresees a future when marriage has to be between two free agents, rather than as a mode of domination of a man towards a woman. He tells a tragic tale of women stuck in servitude, raised separately from men, promised a life of everlasting romance but bound through economic needs to a husband. I was surprised at how fresh I found his outlook.

There are of course, some instances when Carpenter betrays his dated sensibilities, such as when speaking of sex (that women don’t want it nearly as much, and men are just crazy over it) But his general treatment is idealistic. He paints a portrait of marriage as equals, outlining how society needs to change how it raises its young in anticipation of a hard wrought equality of two partners whose love can only grow through true commitment. It seems our ideas of marriage can benefit from some of his temperament, rather than embracing marriage as either one long endless honeymoon or one long endless ball of drama.

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