Affluence and Freedom

Affluence and Freedom
Author: Pierre Charbonnier
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2021-06-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1509543732

In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.

Power, Freedom, and Grace

Power, Freedom, and Grace
Author: Deepak Chopra
Publisher: Amber-Allen Publishing
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2009-11-03
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 193440814X

In Power, Freedom, and Grace, Deepak Chopra considers the mystery of our existence and its significance in our eternal quest for happiness. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where do I go when I die? Chopra draws upon the ancient philosophy of Vedanta and the findings of modern science to help us understand and experience our true nature, which is a field of pure consciousness. When we understand our true nature, we begin to live from the source of lasting happiness, which is not mere happiness for this or that reason, but true inner joy. By knowing who we are, we no longer interfere with the innate intelligence of the cosmos. Instead, we allow the universe to flow through us with effortless ease, and our lives are infused with power, freedom, and grace. “This book captures the essence of all of my talks over the last 20 years. It is the distillation of almost everything I have taught up to now.” — Deepak Chopra

Creating Affluence

Creating Affluence
Author: Deepak Chopra
Publisher: Amber-Allen Publishing
Total Pages: 83
Release: 2010-08-12
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1934408115

In this remarkable book lies the secret to fulfillment on all levels of our lives... With clear and simple wisdom, Deepak Chopra explores the full meaning of wealth consciousness and presents a step-by-step plan for creating affluence. According to Chopra, affluence is our natural state, and the entire physical universe with all its abundance is the offspring of an unbounded, limitless field of all possibilities. Through a series of A-to-Z steps and everyday actions, we can learn to tap into this field and create anything we desire. From becoming Aware of all possibilities to experiencing Zest and joy in life, these uncommon insights gently foster the wealth consciousness needed to create wealth effortlessly and joyfully.

Burdens of Freedom

Burdens of Freedom
Author: Lawrence M. Mead
Publisher: Encounter Books
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2019-04-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1641770414

Burdens of Freedom presents a new and radical interpretation of America and its challenges. The United States is an individualist society where most people seek to realize personal goals and values out in the world. This unusual, inner-driven culture was the chief reason why first Europe, then Britain, and finally America came to lead the world. But today, our deepest problems derive from groups and nations that reflect the more passive, deferential temperament of the non-West. The long-term poor and many immigrants have difficulties assimilating in America mainly because they are less inner-driven than the norm. Abroad, the United States faces challenges from Asia, which is collective-minded, and also from many poorly-governed countries in the developing world. The chief threat to American leadership is no longer foreign rivals like China but the decay of individualism within our own society. The great divide is between the individualist West, for which life is a project, and the rest of the world, in which most people seek to survive rather than achieve. This difference, although clear in research on world cultures, has been ignored in virtually all previous scholarship on American power and public policy, both at home and abroad. Burdens of Freedom is the first book to recognize that difference. It casts new light on America's greatest struggles. It re-evaluates the entire Western tradition, which took individualism for granted. How to respond to cultural difference is the greatest test of our times.

Abundance for What?

Abundance for What?
Author: David Riesman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 596
Release: 2020-03-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000675785

This classic collection of essays by David Riesman discusses the implications of affluence in America. Riesman maintains that the question that should be raised by wealth has shifted over time from how to obtain wealth to how to make use of it. Another key theme concerns issues relevant to higher education, such as academic freedom. Abundance for What? examines the notion that America is not as open a society as it may appear to be; it then shows how social science may be used to explain why this is so. And now in a brilliant, lengthy reevaluation Riesman both clarifies and revises that earlier assessment with unusual luster and candor., The volume begins with a group of essays that describe the impact of the Cold War. After warning against depending on a war economy, Riesman shifts the focus of discussion to a central characteristic of the Cold War epoch: the uses and abuses of abundance in expanding leisure time. Several essays deal with suburbs as the locale of abundance, while others study the place of the automobile in American life. Riesman describes the impact of American abundance on other nations. Among the many other subjects discussed in Abundance for What? are the education of women, generational shifts in attitudes, and a study of the national character., In his major new 100-page introduction, Riesman also relates the experiences that originally inspired him to write these essays. He then talks about the social and historical changes that have occurred since their publication. His synthesis of old Ideas with contemporary ones makes this a compelling volume. Abundance for What? continues to hold a significant place in the social and cultural critiques of contemporary America and will be of interest to historians, psychologists, educators, and urban policymakers alike.

Freedom and Necessity

Freedom and Necessity
Author: Joan Robinson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1315439026

Originally published in 1970, this book examines the origins of social organizations, the development of Robinson Crusoe economies and the conception of property or rightful ownership, as well as the origins of agriculture, race and class. Discussing commerce and the nation state, capitalist expansion and war between industrial power, the book is a concise yet comprehensive survey of the evolution of the structures of the world’s economies and of the ideas which underlie them.

The Challenge of Affluence

The Challenge of Affluence
Author: Avner Offer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2006-03-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0198208537

Since the 1940s Americans and Britons have experienced rising material abundance, but also a range of social and personal disorders, including family breakdown, obesity and addiction. Drawing on the latest cognitive research, Avner Offer presents a detailed and reasoned critique of the modern consumer society.

The Child in American Evangelicalism and the Problem of Affluence

The Child in American Evangelicalism and the Problem of Affluence
Author: David A. Sims
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2009-06-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1556359578

This work presents an evangelical theology of the child nurtured in the context of American evangelicalism and affluence. It employs an eclectic theological-critical method to produce a theological anthropology of the affluent American-evangelical child (AAEC) through interdisciplinary evangelical engagement of American history, sociology, and economics. Sims articulates how affluence constitutes a significant impediment to evangelical nurture of the AAEC in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Thus, the problem he addresses is nurture in evangelical affluence, conceived as a theological-anthropological problem. Nurture in the cultural matrices of the evangelical affluence generated by technological consumer capitalism in the U.S. impedes spiritual and moral formation of the AAEC for discipleship in the way of the cross. This impediment risks disciplinary formation of the AAEC for capitalist culture, cultivates delusional belief that life consists in an abundance of possessions, and hinders the practice of evangelical liberation of the poor on humanity's underside. The result is the AAEC's spiritual-moral lack in late modernity. Chapter 1 introduces the problem of the AAEC. Chapters 2 and 3 provide a diachronic lens for the theological anthropology of the AAEC through critical assessment of the theological anthropologies of the child in Jonathan Edwards, Horace Bushnell, and Lawrence Richards. Chapters 4 and 5 constitute the synchronic perspective of the AAEC. Chapter 4 presents an evangelical sociology of the AAEC, drawing upon William Corsaro's theory of interpretive reproductions, and chapter 5 constructs an evangelical theology of the AAEC through critical interaction with John Schneider's moral theology of affluence. Chapter 6, Whither the AAEC?, concludes with a recapitulation of the work and a forecast of possible futures for the AAEC in the twenty-first century.

Resilient Life

Resilient Life
Author: Brad Evans
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2014-04-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0745682839

What does it mean to live dangerously? This is not just a philosophical question or an ethical call to reflect upon our own individual recklessness. It is a deeply political issue, fundamental to the new doctrine of ‘resilience’ that is becoming a key term of art for governing planetary life in the 21st Century. No longer should we think in terms of evading the possibility of traumatic experiences. Catastrophic events, we are told, are not just inevitable but learning experiences from which we have to grow and prosper, collectively and individually. Vulnerability to threat, injury and loss has to be accepted as a reality of human existence. In this original and compelling text, Brad Evans and Julian Reid explore the political and philosophical stakes of the resilience turn in security and governmental thinking. Resilience, they argue, is a neo-liberal deceit that works by disempowering endangered populations of autonomous agency. Its consequences represent a profound assault on the human subject whose meaning and sole purpose is reduced to survivability. Not only does this reveal the nihilistic qualities of a liberal project that is coming to terms with its political demise. All life now enters into lasting crises that are catastrophic unto the end.