Jordan’s engaging collection abounds with provocative inquiry, offering plenty of food for thought.
Thoughtful reflections on virtue and vice.
Prompted by her 2010 blog of the same name, native Wyoming writer Jordan (Field Notes from Yosemite, 2003, etc.) collects various postings and essays inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s list of 13 virtues. Franklin’s aspiration, undertaken in his early 20s, was to attempt “the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” Jordan’s yearlong expository expedition led her to examine morality on a weekly basis—notably with “weekends off”—through a “weave of story and science.” What “started as a way to practice writing,” Jordan admits, led to the greater project of finding “a way to practice life.” Along the way, the author used each of Franklin’s virtues—temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, humility—and the seven deadly sins—lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, envy, pride—as a springboard for contemplation. Though Jordan’s subjects lend advice aplenty for self-improvement, these philosophical thoughts stop short of being dogmatic. Jordan successfully incorporates lessons gleaned from formative moments in her own life with those from the biographies of relative unknowns and artists and thinkers as famous as Franklin, and she delves deep, especially in the more extended essays, into the essence of contrasting modes of being. Particularly keen are Jordan’s observations on the seven deadly sins: on envy—“The seven sins are not equal-opportunity tormentors….Only envy offers no reward. It doesn’t even have to focus on a rival to ruin our day”; gluttony—“Ever since Eve snagged that apple and offered it to Adam, food has been fraught with complication”; pride—“Of all the vices, pride is the most likely to invite debate about whether it is a sin at all.”
Jordan’s engaging collection abounds with provocative inquiry, offering plenty of food for thought.Pub Date: Dec. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1619024274
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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