Customer Reviews

Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary (The Language and Thought Series)

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People who think they are "conservative" should read this book. For that matter, "liberals" should read it too. I put these words in quotes because I don't really know what they mean, and I think half the people who go about using them to describe themselves or others haven't really thought about them, either. We're not much into self-reflection or any kind of reflection these days. In an age of shrill noise from Fox News, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and other self-aggrandizing pygmies, the late Robert Nisbet is someone needed--and largely absent--today: a rational social voice, a well-reasoned professor and philosopher from Columbia University who arrived at his beliefs after careful thought and analysis, rather than someone who adopts or corrupts a dogma and then slants the evidence his way. Nisbet sees no religious or even moral conflict in Abortion, for example, pointing out that the fetus is sanctified neither in the Bible nor in the tradition of the time, and wasn't until the 20th century. Pro-Lifers who go to the Bible for weight to their case have twisted the Scriptures; by the same token, he shows how Roe v. Wade was not good law, or at least wise law. In other words, he sides with neither dogma, but arrives at his conclusion via his own thinking. How refreshing.

I discovered this book--and Nisbet--quite by accident in the mid 80s. I was browsing for nothing in particular in a bookshop and found a paperback copy. Even though I knew nothing of the author or many of the subjects then covered, somehow I was attracted to the title, and bought it as an act of faith. I was only in high school at the time and really didn't grasp the intricacies of many of the arguments, nor get all the references. A year later in college, I found myself again browsing it and this time more of the work made sense. By the time I'd graduated college it was one of my favorite books. I regard it so highly that I recently bought a mint-condition used hardback copy to replace my thumbed paperback. I donated my paperback copy to the public library. I was warmly thanked, but months later I did not see it on the shelves or in the catalog. I asked about this and was told that the library sold off or otherwise rejected books it "didn't think most people would be interested in" due to limited shelf space. Yet it found room for "The Way Things Ought To Be" "Savage Nation" and "How to Talk To A Liberal." How sad.

The book is an alphabetical listing of terms from A (Abortion) to...well, W (Wit). The concept is sort of an updated Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, which you should also order if you do not own. On such topics as Family, Alienation, Envy, Death, Covetousness, Ritual, Humanities, Intimacy, Progress, Authoritarianism, Comfort, Inflation, Dogma, Darwinism, Crime and Punishment, Racism, Corruption, and Social Change, Nisbet writes with rich insight. A book like this is so important because it teaches you to think. You may believe you already know how to think, thank you very much, but most thinking in any era is really just repetition and regurgitation of predigested dogma. Also note that learning how to think isn't necessarily the same as reaching a tidy conclusion. Throughout this book, you may not always agree with Nisbet--I know I don't--but you wind up respecting the intellectual journey he has taken to reach his destination. And true, a few of the arguments are a bit loaded. He firmly believed the friction between Christianity and science was and is overstated, but he loads the deck with Renaissance scientists who were religious while conveniently ignoring those who were not. Still, there are many compelling arguments here that will overturn old and in many cases cherished dogmas and myths.

Some excerpts, in no particular order:

ABORTION "Those who today oppose abortion on the ground that it is destructive to the family have a difficult time supporting their opinion through history and tradition. No kinship system has ever been more central in the social order than was the Roman family, especially during the Republic....In the contemporary world it would he hard to find a family system more honored and more important in its authority than that of Japan. But abortion there has for long been easily available."

MILITARISM "More people are living at this moment under military government...than at any other time in world history. These governments include not just the transparently military regimes where the highest officials are military officers in rank and uniform but especially such countries as the Soviet Union the People's Republic of China and Cuba, where under the name of socialism or communism, society, economy, and policy have been intensively militarized, with every possible aspect of life brought within military command...to uncover their true roots, it is necessary to go back to Clausewitz's *On War.*"

GENIUS "Not many words in the English language have suffered from Romantic puffery and what Fowler calls 'slipshod extension' to the degree that the word *genius* has."

CONSERVATISM "There is a growing spirit of nationalism from the right, one that, while decrying the social and economic provider-state, seeks instead a moral provider-state. These preachers with and without pulpits are not agreed or even certain in their own minds just where in the national state they want moral authority to lie, but in their obsession with the perceived evils of the free market--intellectual and moral as well as economic--they do not care very much."

ENVY "...the sole remedy for this pathology is the introduction and diffusion of individual liberty as a sovereign value. Respect for individual liberty makes it possible for human being to live in and be aware of differentiation--a condition in biology that is recognized for what it is, the basis of progressive evolution, but which in its social manifestation receives no such recognition..."

INTIMACY "What keeps intimacy of mind going is, quite simply, richness of mind, and very few are blessed with the depths, recesses, and caverns of consciousness which make possible prolonged indulgence in intimacy."

Highly, highly recommended for the reflective reader who is weary of dogmas and likes to think.

I am surprised that no one has previously reviewed this book. It is an especially brilliant one, one whose definition of political and social concepts is written with a great knowledge and deep understanding. It is a book which can tell the reader a tremendous amount about the age we live in. Nisbet is a wonderful writer .
Here is a small sample from his entry on Fanaticism.

FANATICISM

This is to zeal what paranoia is to suspicion. There is no area of human behavior exempt from the affliction. Fanaticism is seen in the lifelong labor of the Baconian , certain each day that the next day will bring the long- awaited proof of the non- existence of Shakespeare. It is seen in the relentless hatreds of academics convinced that they have seen the only one true curricular light and feeling betrayed by all who do not see it. And it is to be found in the speculations of ' gold bugs' absolute in their faith that only gold will escape the imminent collapse of all equities and securities.

If you take interest in present day political and social realities this book should be part of your library.