A philosophically wide-ranging account of the warrior’s ethos and an argument for its rejuvenation today.
Debut-author Gordon unpacks the central characteristics of the warrior with unusual comprehensiveness, focusing on a “developmental point of view” that surveys the history of the concept. This ambitious scope leads the analysis across a wide expanse of topics—a warrior’s spirituality, the warrior figure as he appears in the athletic and military arenas, and the warrior as a servant to society. The author is careful to avoid restricting his understanding of the warrior to soldiering; he considers the warrior a broader category that encompasses an elemental human type rather than a narrow occupation. The scholarly range of the analysis is striking: the likes of Yeats, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer are deftly investigated. At one point, the Navy Seals and Rainer Maria Rilke are discussed on the same page. This makes for an impressively rich multicultural perspective that includes accounts of Eastern philosophies like Zen Buddhism and Taoism. Sometimes the arguments are needlessly confused by academic jargon: “It might be helpful to reflect on the Tao yin/yang symbol, since it is the ontological foundation of the primordial domain of the feminine/masculine dynamic.” Also, it’s not always clear that the work is moving toward a unified conclusion. The “ultimate goal of the warrior is service to the world” writes Gordon, but other than somewhat vague references to social justice, it’s never entirely obvious what this service amounts to. Also, the author’s argument that the world needs a revival of the warrior spirit wants further elaboration. Nevertheless, this is a painstakingly well-researched study filled with philosophical insight.
A rigorous analysis of the history of the warrior that transcends mere military interpretations.
Pub Date: May 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483971742
Page Count: 224
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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