On the Swiss border with Austria in 1938, a police captain refuses to enforce a law barring Jewish refugees from entering his country. In the Balkans half a century later, a Serb from the war-blasted city of Vukovar defies his superiors in order to save the lives of Croats. At the height of the Second Intifada, a member of Israel’s most elite military unit informs his commander he doesn’t want to serve in the occupied territories.
Fifty years after Hannah Arendt examined the dynamics of conformity in her seminal account of the Eichmann trial, Beautiful Souls explores the flipside of the banality of evil, mapping out what impels ordinary people to defy the sway of authority and convention. Through the dramatic stories of unlikely resisters who feel the flicker of conscience when thrust into morally compromising situations, Eyal Press shows that the boldest acts of dissent are often carried out not by radicals seeking to overthrow the system but by true believers who cling with unusual fierceness to their convictions. Drawing on groundbreaking research by moral psychologists and neuroscientists, Beautiful Souls culminates with the story of a financial industry whistleblower who loses her job after refusing to sell a toxic product she rightly suspects is being misleadingly advertised. At a time of economic calamity and political unrest, this deeply reported work of narrative journalism examines the choices and dilemmas we all face when our principles collide with the loyalties we harbor and the duties we are expected to fulfill.
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“A subtle and thoughtful book. . . Beautiful Souls gains much from its storytelling approach. It is rich in personal, circumstantial details that analytical thinkers in search of clear principles may overlook.” —The Economist
“[Beautiful Souls] provides rich, provocative narratives of moral choice. . . In exploring [resisters'] courage, Press makes us wonder if we would have the strength to act against the crowd, and in so doing spread a bit of light in our dark times.” —Michael S. Roth, The Washington Post
“An act of conscience describes an action motivated by loyalty to a conviction, but it usually requires the defiance of other loyalties. . . Press's real achievement in this short book is not in his research or analysis, but in his refusal to flinch from that disquieting fact. . . He knows that those who act bravely are all the more likely to feel anguished, since they know what's at stake. In some ways this book is a thoughtful gesture of support. That might sound like a small thing, but it's not.” —Louisa Thomas, The New York Times Book Review
“What makes you eager to push this book into the hands of the next person you meet are the small, still moments, epics captured in miniature. . . Mr. Press's book is a hymn to the mystery of disobedience.” —Mark Oppenheimer, The New York Times
“An intelligent . . . examination of moral courage and its consequences.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Press builds out his analysis via thick description. His portraits are finely sketched, and enriched by old-fashioned journalistic effort, drawing heavily on interviews with his protagonists and their families, colleagues, and acquaintances. What emerges is a portrait not of superheroes but of ordinary men and women, often ambivalent about their own roles, who see their acts of courage and resistance simply as what they ‘had to do.’” —Rosa Brooks, Bookforum
“What drives the unwilling executioners—those rare creatures brave enough to stand up for what is right in the face of real threat—is the question Mr. Press asks in this valentine to the human spirit . . . Some of these figures wonder if their individual actions have much power to reverse injustice. Mr. Press argues that "acts of conscience have a way of reverberating." Of course, they can do so only if people know about them; that is the service of this humane and absorbing book.” —Ruth Franklin, The Wall Street Journal
“A collection of stories very well told, a biography of unlikely courage.” —Michael Bond, The New Scientist
“Proving time and again that the boldest renegades are just regular people with independent minds —rather than dyed-in-the-wool radicals — Beautiful Souls underscores dissent's populist potential. Acts of conscience, as Press puts it, 'have a way of reverberating.'” —Hannah Levintova, Mother Jones
“Few of us will ever face a crisis of conscience of the magnitude that Press (Absolute Convictions, 2007) illuminates in this fascinating examination of courage, and yet who among us hasn’t pondered how we would react when confronted with a profound moral or ethical dilemma? In placing the spotlight on four specific individuals, Press allows readers to place themselves amid controversial circumstances while he challenges the assumption that it takes an extraordinary individual to perform extraordinary deeds. There’s the Swiss police captain who refuses, in 1938, to follow orders and expel Jewish refugees; the Serb who saves the lives of Croats during the Balkan War; the Israeli soldier who questions serving in occupied settlements; and finally the financial adviser who blows the whistle on a massive Ponzi scheme. Press argues that there is nothing saintly or particularly virtuous about these individuals, nor are they the rebellious sort we typically associate with social resistance. Rather than dismissing societal values, they hold these ideals—brotherhood, unity, diligence—as inviolable. The real question is why the rest of us don’t.” — Patty Wetli, Booklist
“In his latest, journalist Press (Absolute Convictions) explores what compels people to act according to their conscience when faced with a moral dilemma in dangerous circumstances. In 1938, a Swiss police captain allows Jewish refugees to cross into “neutral” Switzerland, defying orders that the border be closed. During the Balkan conflict, in 1991, a Serb disobeys his superiors to save the lives of Croats from his hometown, the war-torn city of Vukovar. A financial adviser in Houston loses her job when she refuses to sell a toxic product she rightly suspects of being a Ponzi scheme. In a particularly compelling vignette, an Israeli soldier in an elite military unit refuses to serve in the occupied territories during the second intifada. Drawing on research by psychologists, sociologists, political activists and theorists (such as Susan Sontag and Hannah Arendt), and neuroscientists, Press reveals that the boldest acts of defiance are often made by ordinary people who regard the ideals and values of their societies to be inviolable. This thought-provoking and moving narrative highlights the different ways people react to moral quandaries and, at its best, makes us question the role our own passivity or acquiescence plays in allowing unconscionable acts to happen on our watch.” —Publishers' Weekly (starred review)
“Beautiful Souls helps us understand why a minority stands on principle when a majority fails. It’s an important book for our time, about conscience, group pressures, ethics, and psyches, and a beautifully crafted one that never falls prey to simple answers about matters of conscience.” —Rebecca Solnit, author of A Paradise Built in Hell
“Too often we think of courage only as something required to charge into gunfire or scale an icy peak. Eyal Press looks at courage of a different and far more important kind. His examples spread across decades and continents, and he is wise enough to know that it can take as much bravery to defy an unethical corporation as it does to resist a totalitarian regime. This is an important and inspiring book.” —Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars and King Leopold’s Ghost
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I think we all firmly believe that if we had been in Germany in 1938, of course we would have stood up to Nazi Germany. Of course, 'we' would have been on the right side - even though history proves that millions of people happily chose to be on the wrong side. If we had lived in Mississippi in 1955, of course 'we' would have stood up for integration and equal rights.
We always believe that we're our own heroes and that when push comes to shove we'll make the right choice. But as author Eyal Press shows, that's the exception in our society. Press correctly points out that protesters, whistleblowers, etc., are often considered "self-indulgent;" since we have the RIGHT to protest, the naysayer's belief seems to be, then the actual ACT of protest is redundant.
His thesis is proven with Occupy Wall Street, for example. Instead of any respect for people willing to camp out and get beat up and teargassed by police, they got mocked and derided as unemployed, drug-addled hippies. It's got nothing to do with whether the protest is right-minded or not, but that the entire protest is belittled. But it goes both ways; Operation Rescue and Randall Terry - say what you want about them, they're committed - are mocked as religious fanatics outside society's mainstream.
Of course we mock the two groups - because if one or both is right, then it means the rest of us live complete lies. It's certainly more comfortable to be cynical and snarky, instead of admitting that we might voluntarily live in a system of total economic injustice and unfairness, while surrounded by the deaths of thousands of babies. And we stood on the sidelines while other people took a stand that we made fun of.
Press talks about corporate whistleblowers and how we 'expect' people to stand up and do the right thing, but when they actually do it, they're barely supported, often ignored, usually sued, rarely protected by the government and system supposedly so eager to have their help.
In Fall 1991, I was getting ready to deploy to Desert Storm as an Army soldier. My brother, a peacenik hippie, went to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park and not only didn't take his hat for the national anthem, he didn't even stand up. He got predictable torrents of abuse and eventually an escort into the concourse to get away from the threats, and when I heard the story, I called him a dirty traitor. After all, I was the hero, soon to risk life and limb overseas - so I had no sympathy for simpleminded protests. But I had the entire power of the US government and military supporting me; my brother didn't have anything but a sense, misguided or not, of conviction. Maybe he was right, maybe he was wrong - but who was the brave one? It's not that the insults tossed his way that day were wrong - it's that they were the easy behavior of the mob, thrown out from the comfort of numbers.
As I read, I became less interested in Press' first stories of 1938 Switzerland and 1993 Croatia; those were almost too-easy examples where the moral stand to save lives was clear-cut, and the stakes are high but obvious. As he explains, the whistleblowers and truthseekers in US society face situations where the stakes aren't that clear, and its easy to merely go with the group. Those are more compelling and unsettling examples.
Ultmately, I was on the fence with 4 or 5 stars; for $25, it could be a longer book (I read a free review copy), and does seem like an extended essay. But it's an important book.
This would be a good book for a college class. It's accessible to any student, and the writing and examples are compelling and raise a lot of questions for discussion and further thought.
UPDATED: Some other reviewers have given this two or three stars, mostly for it's lack of depth. I can understand their point - BUT, I think this is an accessible, very well-written account that might serve as an introduction (like I note about college students), but I could see that if you've read a lot of books on this subject, this might not bring much new to your knowledge. I think I've explained why I was very impressed with it.
Press tells the tale of 4 people who did what they considered the right thing under trying circumstances - a Swiss border guard who smuggled Jews in against policy, a Serbian who misidentified Croats to save them from torture, an Israeli commando who refused to continue to protect what he felt were illegal settlements, and a broker who caught wind of a Ponzi scheme - walks the reader through their stories, and interviews the 3 living subjects. The stories themselves are both inspirational and saddening, since one conclusion about the consequences of such actions is a quote by a former Guantanamo Bay prosecutor: "(Individual dissenters) don't bring about change. You only bring pain on yourself." That seems to be one of the darker underlying themes, but the flip side is the other conclusion reached - that "(perhaps you achieve your) own salvation" from making the right moral choice.
What Press doesn't do as well is to answer his own initial question. While he does debunk some of the common stereotypes about those who make moral choices, ultimately he does a fairly poor job of explaining why these people in particular decided to stand up to a larger wrong. Part of his problem comes from attempt to use individual case studies to make much larger points, another is that he doesn't include more academic material outside of the older, more prominent studies on the subject, and the final is that the book could have used a bit more editing to take away what feels like an often meandering course to its conclusion.
3 stars; worth a read but not groundbreaking by any means.
I was in one sense inspired and in another frustrated by what I read in this wonderful little book, Beautiful Souls. I say "little book" not in the cliché', pompous manner in which some amateurs review films, but in the sense that the book is very short about 66,500 words. Small though it is, it was packed with the two emotions/factors in line one of this review.
I was inspired to know that there are more people on earth from time to time, which do the right thing, though they appear in dire short supply these days, much unlike our ancestors of "The Greatest Generation."
What I loved about this book were the examples of those people who threw precaution to the wind and followed their conscience, despite the dangers afoot for them, as the authors of Eyal Press' examine the following four examples of people of varying social status taking uncommon risks to carry out the demands upon them by their conscience not only for empathy, but actions which fulfill the needs of those in danger.
1)- Disobeying The Law: Paul Grüninger Commander Of State Police in St. Gallen Switzerland displays incredible courage in, "Disobeying The Law" by allowing Sanctuary to Jewish escapees from the Nazi Scourge in 1938.
2)- Defying The Group: In 1991 Revolution, Alecsander Jevtic', a Serb, in charge of identifying Croats seeking asylum, knowing full well that any Croats found would be murdered in the ensuing genocide, began passing them off, as Serb refugees.
3)- Rules of Conscience: Aven Wishnitzer, a weak, skinny kid becomes a member of the Sayeret Matkal, "the Unit" a highly trained and competent warrior Army group member and yet he becomes a force objecting to the Jewish encroacher's, mistreatment of Palestinians within the occupied territories in 2000.
4)- The Price of Raising One's Voice: A highly successful, female Broker/Bonus Baby, ($150,000 signing bonus) of the Stanford Group Company, Leyla Wydlera, studies with due-diligence the CD's she is pressured into selling, uncovers and fights against one of the schemes which added a millstone to the already bursting DOT-COM bubble of Wall Street Market in in 2000, creating yet a further problem in 2002.
Herein Eyal Press digs through the corruption carefully covered-up heroics of four Beautiful souls who refused to be intimidated by corrupt superiors, and say NO to corruption, though it ruins the careers of some of them.
The writer unravels studies that try to explain why and how these people did what others would not do. Some of them intimmate that morality, religion, honor etc. had nothing to do with the decision to ignore convention and rebel, saying that it is much easier to do so when one is not removed from face to face witnessing of the horrendous results of their actions those whose lives will be destroyed by governmental or corporate crimes. They say anyone in the same situation might have done the same thing. In other studies they indicate that as long as superiors say they will take the responsibility for evil done, the underlings who carry out the evil deeds will not be held responsible. These studies seem to dehumanize the actions of superb and courageous men and women, as situational and a thing anyone would do under the same circumstances.
This is of course not true, sadistic people live at every level of society and do horrific things every day. People such as serial killers, rapists and sadists, who have no superiors directing them and are there staring their victims in the eye when they carry out their brutality. Many people far away from their commanding officers, and who are not removed from the site of slaughters, commit terrible crimes and often find such acts thrilling and laughable. Others regardless of conditions are always bent upon empathy, a trait that is often missing, ignored or denied in many people.
Though the book is extremely well written, early on one wonders about the author's motives because he appears to accept the dispiriting studies which seemed to make heroes a batch of inhumane, behavioral accidents of circumstance. However, Further into the book, the author rejects these studies and agrees that such studies which remove humanity from heroes, completely miss the boat. Taking away heroics is a step toward disavowing the existence of conscience and morality. The Author quotes Ralph Nader's quip, "Whistle Blowers are born not made... They are a breed apart..." It is good to know that when we have done the honorable things we are not alone.
If you are a just person of honor and altruism, you will enjoy this brief look at heroism and the theories behind its sources. However, you may also want to know more and I, for one, wished for more examples of heroes, as well interviews with philosophers, clergy, educators, union, civil rights advocates and other people who made unselfish and heroic sacrifices with no reward, and in fact, many of whom suffered greatly by their efforts.
Press uses four case studies to examine the four types of heroism. Read more
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