Why Grow Up? : Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age

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Why Grow Up? : Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age

Regular price $12.83
Unit price
per
ISBN: 9780141982496
Authors: Susan Neiman
Publisher: Penguin Press
Date of Publication: 2016-02-22
Format: Paperback
Related Collections: Personal Development, Philosophy
Goodreads rating: 3.73
(rated by 827 readers)

Description

A wry and witty meditation on modernity’s obsession with youth and its denigration of maturityIn Why Grow Up? the philosopher Susan Neiman asks not just why one should grow up but how. In making her case she draws chiefly from the thought of Kant and Rousseau, who articulated very different theories on the proper way to “come of age.” But these thinkers complement each other in seeking a “path between mindlessly accepting everything you’re told and mindlessly rejecting it,” and in learning to live without despair in a world marked by painful realities and uncertainties.     Neiman challenges both those who dogmatically privilege innocence and those who see youth as weakness. Her chief opponents are those who equate maturity with cynicism. “In our day it is more common to meet people who are stuck in the mire of adolescence. The world turns out not to reflect the idea and ideals they had for it? So much the worse for ideals.”     To move beyond these immature positions, Neiman writes, is not simply to lapse into quiet resignation but to learn to take joy and satisfaction in what can be done and known, and to face rather than feel defeated by our inevitable limits.
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Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.