Books about Cynicism from Amazon.com

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..
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With a New Preface by the Author

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 humor, 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..
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Michael Lerner, former radical and crusading editor of the magazine of Jewish thought,Tikkun, has never lost his idealism Until now Lerner has been promoting his ideas, dubbed "the politics of meaning," through his magazine and in lectures and workshops around the country. He won praise from Hillary Clinton, although that soured under media spotlight. This book lays out his analysis of America's spiritual emptiness, encouraging direct political action to enlarge the sense of community. He rejects both the right's profit-oriented bottom line and the left's splintering of society into minority rights ghettoes. Though his ideas are rooted in Judaism, his concept of God is broadly inclusive, and his critique is relevant to all Americans..
Price: $5.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Within media research and cultural studies, the mediation of politicians and the play-off between versions of high and low politics are attracting increasing interest.

Media and the Restyling of Politics brings together the work of leading academics in media and cultural studies to pursue an agenda of research, analysis and debate about the changing nature of political culture and its mediation. The contributors question the ways in which emerging forms of political style relate not only to new conventions of celebrity and publicity but to ideas about representation, citizenship and the democratic process. Topics covered include: celebrity politicians, the marketing of politics, identity and popular culture.

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Price: $42.69 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Rich in new and stimulating ideas, and based on the breadth of reading and depth of knowledge which its wide-ranging subject matter requires, The Greek Praise of Poverty argues impressively and cogently for a relocation of Cynic philosophy into the mainstream of Greek ideas on material prosperity, work, happiness, and power." —A. Thomas Cole, Professor Emeritus of Classics, Yale University

"This clear, well-written book offers scholars and students an accessible account of the philosophy of Cynicism, particularly with regard to the Cynics' attachment to a life of poverty and their disdain for wealth. I have truly profited from reading William Desmond's book." —Luis Navia, New York Institute of Technology

William Desmond, taking issue with typical assessments of the ancient Cynics, contends that figures such as Antisthenes and Diogenes were not cultural outcasts or marginal voices in the classical culture of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Rather, the Cynic movement had deep and significant roots in what Desmond calls "the Greek praise of poverty." Desmond demonstrates that classical attitudes toward wealth were complex and ambivalent, and allowed for an implicit praise of poverty and the virtues it could inspire.

From an economic and political point of view, the poor majority at Athens and elsewhere were natural democrats who distrusted great concentrations of wealth as potentially oligarchical or tyrannical. Hence, the poor could be praised in contemporary literature for their industry, honesty, frugality, and temperance. The rich, on the other hand, were often criticized as idle, unjust, arrogant, and profligate. These perspectives were reinforced by typical Greek experiences of war, and the belief that poverty fostered the virtues of courage and endurance. Finally, from an early date, Greek philosophers associated wisdom with the transcendence of sense experience and of such worldly values as wealth and honor. The Cynics, Desmond asserts, assimilated all of these ideas in creating their distinctive and radical brand of asceticism. Theirs was a startling and paradoxical outlook, but it had broad appeal and would persist to exert a manifold influence in the Hellenistic period and beyond..
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Once describing a life of exile, self-denial, physical rigor, and mastery of one's desires, cynicism now describes a life of political quietism, passivity, and moral indifference, representing not a weakening of ancient philosophic norms but rather their inversion. In The Making of Modern Cynicism, David Mazella asks: how did ancient Cynic philosophy come to provide a name for its modern, unphilosophical counterpart, and what events caused such a dramatic reversal of cynicism's former meanings? He traces the concept of cynicism from its origins as a philosophical way of life in Greek antiquity through its successive transformations in the early modern and Enlightenment periods and into the nineteenth century when it took its distinctively modern, unreflective form as a variety of disenchantment, disbelief, or distrust.

Sampling a wide variety of literary, philosophical, and historical writings, Mazella documents the transition of the cynic from an ascetic philosopher to any person whose "faded belief or curdled trust had left him unfit for attachments to others." Even more important, Mazella questions why cynicism should provoke such hand-wringing from cultural critics when it has been a stable, recognized, even routine feature of modern politics for the better part of 150 years. Arguing that modern cynics inspire powerful reactions by envisaging a future without hope of meaningful change, he then suggests that we address popular cynicism in more effective, less moralistic ways. Rather than dismissing cynicism as an irrational attitude of distrust or fatalism, or chiding cynics for their persistent disbelief, Mazella contends that analyzing cynicism can reveal the unacknowledged limits of current political argument, a crucial first step toward developing the kinds of reasoned persuasion necessary for more meaningful and substantive forms of political change.

Well-written and engaging, T he Making of Modern Cynicism will appeal not only to readers in literary and cultural criticism but also to those interested in political theory and the history of philosophy..
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