Why Grow Up?, Susan Neiman
Why Grow Up?, Susan Neiman
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Why Grow Up?
Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age

Author: Susan Neiman

Narrator: Leslie Howard

Unabridged: 5 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/12/2019


Synopsis

Our culture is obsessed with youth—and why not? What's the appeal of growing old, of gaining responsibilities and giving up on dreams, of steadily trading possibility for experience?

The philosopher Susan Neiman argues that the absence of appealing models of maturity is not an accident: by describing life as a downhill process, we prepare young people to expect—and demand—very little from it. In Why Grow Up? she challenges our culture of permanent adolescence, turning to thinkers including Kant, Rousseau, and Arendt to find a model of maturity that is not a matter of resignation. In growing up, we move from the boundless trust of childhood to the peculiar mixture of disappointment and exhilaration that comes with adolescence. Maturity, however, means finding the courage to live in a world of painful uncertainty without giving in to dogma or despair. A grown-up, Neiman writes, helps to move the world closer to what it should be while never losing sight of what it is.

Why Grow Up? is a witty and concise argument for the value of maturity as a subversive ideal: a goal rarely achieved entirely, and all the more worth striving for.

About Susan Neiman

Susan Neiman is the director of the Einstein Forum. Her books, which have been translated into many languages, include Why Grow Up?: Subversive Questions for an Infantile Age, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy, The Unity of Reason, and Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin. She also writes cultural and political commentary for diverse media in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Neiman studied philosophy at Harvard and the Free University of Berlin, and was a professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv Universities. She is the mother of three grown children, and currently lives in Berlin.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Caren on July 05, 2015

You might think a book with this title is aimed at the young, maybe a good gift for a new college grad.....and you'd be wrong. This is a book for grown-ups, or at least , those who aspire to be. The author, a philosopher, asks why anyone would even want to be a grown-up when our society portrays agi......more

Goodreads review by Carla on October 25, 2016

This is an amazing book. In simple but by no means simplistic words the author shares with us the benefits of growing up. For me, as I read it, growing up means taking your share of responsibility in your life and in the world. Study, work and travel are means of getting to know the world and our pl......more

Goodreads review by Robert on May 26, 2021

It’s important to look past the title of this serious but accessible philosophical essay by a Kantian philosopher, with Rousseau’s Emile, or On Education as its central text. It's a thought-provoking book, very well written.......more

Goodreads review by Goan on February 24, 2021

''Filosofie zoekt antwoorden op vragen die kinderen opwerpen en waarvan de meeste volwassenen aannemen dat ze al beantwoord zijn. Waarom zou ik volwassen worden? Regels volgen? Een opleiding afmaken? Hoe kan ik iets echt weten? Zin vinden? Mijn eigen leven vormgeven? Al deze vragen kun je in één zin......more