Customer Reviews

Respect in a World of Inequality

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When a "customer" of this book (not a "reader", for sure) can make a comment and leave it on Amazon labeled as the so-called "review", I think that a unique example of 'free speech'! It seems we have the right to say almost anything about a book we may not be educated enough to read or understand it.

To put it bluntly, this entire book can be refuted in one three word sentence: "Respect is EARNED."

Sennett seems to think that the world would be a better place if we simply had mutual respect for one another. And he's right. Unfortunately we can't "make" people have respect for anything or anyone, so what you end up with is a one-sided agreement.

It's a bit like waging peace with only one army laying down its weapons. Anyone with a whit of common sense knows what happens next.

I did enjoy his tales of growing up, even if it seems he took all the wrong lessons from those moments in his life when he could have gotten a little more of a realistic view of how the world works, and where REAL respect comes from: it is earned. Wishing for respect doesn't produce it, you have to do the thankless labor of earning it on your own.

I had to read this book for a diversity class. Sennett uses language and sentence construction that is overly ostentatious and difficult to understand. Inside this fat book is a very thin book trying to get out. He needed a good editor.