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Title: Wandering God: A Study in Nomadic Spirituality by Morris Berman ISBN: 0-7914-4442-2 Publisher: State University of New York Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Should be a classic of Western Philosophy
Comment: If you know Dr. Berman by way of The Twilight of American Culture, hit the reset button, for this is a far different animal. This book is his current masterpiece. The thesis here is far too complex for summary, but suffice to say that it is forcefully argued and thoroughly researched. I imagine that this work is less popular with academic philosophers, psychologists, and anthropologists than it perhaps should be for several subjective reasons. Its central argument is based on Freud's concept of the self, which has become deeply unfashionable in recent years. Also, Berman offers an iconoclastic interpretation of Wittgenstein that steps on the toes of quite a few important philosophical thinkers. You'll also find elements of Camus' concept of absurdity and William James' pragmatism (i.e. truth, independent of empirical evidence, is what "works" rather than what "is"), though I don't believe the similarities are intentional. The author has a tendency to bend the evidence to his conclusions and can, at times, piece elements of others' works into a collage of quotations and statements that appears to offer little original thought, but those cases are exceptional rather than the rule.
All in all, it's difficult to come away from this book unconvinced. It's difficult to read it and not think that Dr. Berman has his fingers (and mind) on the truth.
Rating: 5
Summary: Go Horizontal, Not Vertical
Comment: Morris Berman's masterful book, Wandering God, argues that humakind lost its way once agriculture and sedentary life styles set in. Even though humans have the same brains and bodies that characterized their prehistoric ancestors, they worship a vertical god (in the "heavens") and arrange their societies in vertical hierarchies. Berman touts the advantages of horizontal, egalitatarian relationships and spiritual practices, even though it necessitates living in the paradoxes that come with self-awareness. Although he depends too much on the Freudian notion of "infantile attachment" to make his case, Berman's message is provocative and visionary.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderous Wandering
Comment: A paradigm addict's worst nightmare, "Wandering God" eschews everything from the intellectual dishonesty of Deconstructionism to the reassuring but ultimately flawed cross-cultural Comparativism of modern-day idols, Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung.
Third in his trilogy on Human Consciousness, W.G. is Berman's leanest and most densely packed argument so far. The book abounds with scintillating insights on diverse subjects, such as the role that child-rearing has on modern life, and boldly rejects the conventional thesis that Ludwig Wittgenstein's "lost years" were actually so. What on this good green Earth do these two subjects have in common? More than you think.
But this brief and quixotic description is putting the cart before the proverbial horse.
Berman's main focus is in articulating the difference between traditional hunter-gatherer and sedentary consciousnesses, how both are part of our common heritage, and how vestiges of the former (horizontal, paradoxical) collide with the dominant zeitgeist of the latter (vertical, power-driven).
Many have been attracted to this book by the Idries Shah-like cover, a desert caravan image, or lulled into thinking W.G. is another in the endless junkpile of New Age tomes with the word "spirituality" in its sub-title. Those of us who know Berman's work can already see beyond the lamentable dust-jacket design. "Wandering God" moves adroitly across precise, scientific vistas into uncharted terrain - the depths of the human mind and body. By the book's end, one has witnessed, and participated in, the eruption of an intellectual volcano.
Some reviewers have been put off by Berman's unwillingness to neatly package and tie off his theses, and stake his academical prize. But that just confirms what Berman claims about the vertical, ascent underpinnings of modern human life, which are driven by a need to conquer and achieve, be it political power or mental/spiritual proselytizing.
This book is highly recommended.
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Title: The Twilight of American Culture by Morris Berman ISBN: 039332169X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: June, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Reenchantment of the World by Morris Berman ISBN: 0801492254 Publisher: Cornell University Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 1981 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Coming to Our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West by Morris Berman ISBN: 0553348639 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1990 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Jordan B. Peterson ISBN: 0415922224 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $50.95 |
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Title: Coming to Our Senses by Morris Berman ISBN: 004440719X Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 11 October, 1990 |
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