Customer Reviews

Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide

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A brilliantly insightful book, dauntless in its pursuit of the truth. I felt after reading it that I had a profoundly greater understanding of what it means to seek and possess Truth. The book embodies intriguing paradoxes: grand scope yet intimate style, rigorous with ease, liberating sense of constraint, and forceful humility. Most startling of all, the author manages to reconcile the irreconcilable: liberalism and conservatism.

Dr. Schmookler focuses his considerable acumen, intellectual honesty, and strong sense of the sacred onto the bitter culture war in the United States and the timeless pursuit of good social order. He illustrates how our diverse and sincere beliefs about creating good order polarize us effectively into two opposed camps: the conservative, top-down traditionalists (asserting the sovereignty of God, religion, and of the resultant mores and jurisprudence) and the liberal, bottom-up counterculturalists (espousing the sovereignty of the individual and his/her particular appetites, fancies, and liberties. The author notes that these two groups, each possessing part of the truth yet talking past each other, have stopped learning from each other, failing to agree entirely even on what constitutes the "good".

Schmookler reveals how the process of open deliberation, so valued by both sides, has shut down, thus stifling our mutual growth. He then cogently and decisively demonstrates the limitations and inadequacies of each entrenched position. And finally, in the manner of dialectics, the author proceeds to integrate the conservative thesis with the liberal antithesis to create a higher synthesis, a larger truth. We are invited along on this quest of discovery, to confront our assumptions where we thought there were none, to find national healing where we thought it impossible.

The book's format, inspired and innovative, consists of a fictional internet discussion among Americans from a variety of religious and political backgrounds. Their spirited, e-mailed messages are interspersed with several anecdotal interludes, which are charming in their wit, honesty, and occasional pathos. Perhaps more than anything, the book is a demonstration of the process of healthy, engaged debate between participants who each possess an important part of a larger wisdom. We are ultimately given an appreciation that human truths are, like human knowledge, far too expansive to be found in the locus of a single human being, liberal or conservative; that even the prophets of God are subject to human foibles. True to its premise, the book eschews any pat answers but offers us hope and an encounter with the sacred.

Schmookler creates a fictional "on-line" discussion with a wide spectrum of participants (probably my favorite is "Fred", a philosophical anarchist) who share their thinking on the state of our society's soul - and how to move it toward the "good." Ranging from liberal, secular humanists to New Age thinkers to voices from the Christian right, Schmookler's discussants probe and argue and grow in insight.

The authenticity of these various voices reflects Schmookler's own impressive listening ability, as well as his commitment to inclusiveness as one of the pillars of the "good society."

The discussion traverses a great deal of territory, lingering perhaps the longest on how various people understand human nature and the relevance of this understanding for social philosophy. As the book approaches its denouement, Schmookler exercises his author's prerogative to articulate his own perspective. Schmookler's own view, which I find quite attractive, moves in a nonreductionistic, evolutionary direction with a high level of optimism about human possibilities.

A touching subplot traces Schmookler's reflections about and hopes for his young son.

A fun read, stimulating and inspiring - maybe most of all a challenge for all of us to cultivate the art of listening.

Thanks for making my bedtime reading a true learning experience. I appreciate your sincerity, especially as I am a father of two toddlers. The book took a long time to read, but I hated to see it end just the same. If only most Americans would think things out to the extent that these e-mail characters do!

I appreciated the attempt to include as many points of view as possible, but I did notice some conspicuous absences. I would have liked to hear the opinion, for example, of someone on the radical left. No, I don't simply mean someone who opposed the Vietnam War thirty years ago, but someone who sees much of the current American situation as a result of corporate domination over government and the media. This theme was touched on here and there, but not represented by a consistent voice.

Perhaps even more conspicuous in its absence was the lack of a religious voice outside that of Fundamentalist Protestantism (with the exception of a liberal minister who is confused about where morality comes from and is the least confident of his position of all of the contributors). I mean, certainly there are other Christian approaches to the questions put forth besides the simplistic, Bible-has-all-the-answers one put forth by "Kenneth" and "Carl," for example, a Reformed perspective in which faith and science are seen as complementary rather than in tension. And there was not much representation of other religious perspectives at all, with the exception of one brief quote from a Muslim and some pseudo-Taoist prattle.

These exceptions do not necessarily weaken the book, however. The one thing that saddened me as I finished it was that so many Americans are unwilling to undertake this kind of exploration. Again, thanks!

Debating The Good Society is an impressive attempt to cut through the passions and mistrust that divide Americans and identify wisdom and ideas that guide our good society. Andrew Schmookler scrutinizes a wide range of views and attitudes - religious, libertarian, etc. - exploringing their limitations, but also looking for how they might bring us together. The vehicle for this debate is an cast of characters engaged in a broad and deep conversation. You can learn from and argue with these people. Schmookler combines imagination and intellect in ways unusual for a book like this. Debating The Good society provoked good conversation with family and friends.

It's a nifty trick for Schmookler to synthesize a host of voices, including those with whom he presumably does not agree. But not one of his overly intelligent, articulate characters identified as a feminist or offered any gender analysis when various characters described as "human" instead of "historically male" various behavioral problems, including the use of violence to achieve political ends. This same blindness is seen in reaction to school shootings at such places as Columbine, where our "teenagers" are urged not to use violence to solve their problems. Show me one school where our daughters have armed themselves and slaughtered anyone. Virtually all such societal violence is our *sons'* problem. Schmookler ignores to the detriment of his book the gender issues involved in establishing a good order.