Radical Hope, Jonathan Lear
Radical Hope, Jonathan Lear
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Radical Hope
Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation

Author: Jonathan Lear

Narrator: Paul Heitsch

Unabridged: 5 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/24/2019


Synopsis

Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his story—up to a certain point. "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground," he said, "and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened."

It is precisely this point—that of a people faced with the end of their way of life—that prompts the philosophical and ethical inquiry pursued in Radical Hope. In Jonathan Lear's view, Plenty Coups's story raises a profound ethical question that transcends his time and challenges us all: how should one face the possibility that one's culture might collapse?

This is a vulnerability that affects us all—insofar as we are all inhabitants of a civilization, and civilizations are themselves vulnerable to historical forces. How should we live with this vulnerability? Can we make any sense of facing up to such a challenge courageously? Using the available anthropology and history of the Indian tribes during their confinement to reservations, and drawing on philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, Lear explores the story of the Crow Nation at an impasse as it bears upon these questions—and these questions as they bear upon our own place in the world.


About Jonathan Lear

Jonathan Lear is John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. His books include Radical Hope, Freud, and Wisdom Won from Illness.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kathleen on January 06, 2015

Jonathan Lear's beautifully written and thought-provoking book "Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation" is a fascinating philosophical exploration of a rarely discussed topic - how should we as human beings lives against the backdrop of the possibility that the civilization and cu......more

Goodreads review by Ellen on December 16, 2009

This book addresses something I've been thinking about constantly for some time--that is how people who have been stripped of a context in which to live as human beings manage to imagine survival and then to venture forth on that imagined thread. The author does not pretend to be an expert on Crow I......more

Goodreads review by Morgan on October 06, 2023

A prolonged, painful, heart achingly desperate meditation on hope and survival in the midst of degradation and loss. Jonathan Lear applies the concept of radical hope to the experience of the Crow people under the leadership of chief Plenty Coups during Native American genocide. Lear begins the book w......more

Goodreads review by Karen on July 27, 2017

It's rare that a philosophy book can bring me to tears, but the first chapter of Radical Hope, in its description of the shattered souls of the Crow people in the wake of cultural devastation, was wincingly painful. Admittedly, Lear does not pretend that his description of cognitive disarray actuall......more

Goodreads review by Monika on December 18, 2020

Czytam te pozytywne recenzje i nie zgadzam się z nimi niestety, choć chciałabym żeby mi się ta książka podobała. To rozprawa o tym w jaki sposób poradziło sobie plemię Wron z końcem ich dotychczasowego świata i końcem ich historii. O tym jak musieli sobie poradzić z kryzysem ich tradycji i wartości.......more