Customer Reviews

A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Peck starts his book with an example followed by a question: a man on an airplane, after talking to a fellow passenger, sees him as a business prospect, excuses himself, checks the man's credit rating, then returns with a drink "for his new best friend." Why, Peck asks, is this wrong? We know something is off the mark here, but can't quite put our finger on it. What isn't right, Peck explains, is that the passenger is really being treated as a "thing" to be exploited, but outwardly is being treated as an intimate friend. The theologian and philosopher Martin Buber, who has greatly influenced Peck, called the first relationship an "I-It" and the second, an "I-Thou." The first is narcissistic, the second, anti-narcissistic. And narcissism, writes Peck throughout this book, is really the problem: people treating others as if they are only "things" there to serve them. That, is a sentence, is the essence of incivility. Being civil doesn't necessarily mean being polite. The man on the airplane was polite, but a hypocrite. Civility means, more than anything else, not being so utterly self-centered that peoples' feelings are never considered. It can at times require forcefulness, even anger, to get the other person to understand. But true incivility, Peck believes, actually is a cause of quite a few divorces, and many problems in business. For those interested in the subject, this book is exceptionally interesting.

Well, I have yet to read a book by Dr. Peck that did not leave me grateful. This one is no exception.
A dear friend asked me why I read so many Peck books. Is it so that I can gain the needed insight to become a better person? Or is it moreso to be made aware of why I am not that better person already? To be reminded of my failings?
My own answer is sort of a variegated gradation of "no" to all of the above, and yet my vague explanations always seem to involve a simple desire for greater awareness. Peck's books are not really "how-to" things, but moreso "why we do" or "here-is-what-happens-when..." and this approach interests me more than "how to."
More theoretical than practical, you might say. (Just like me!) This is why I am hooked.
This book discusses how we relate to each other in business, family, the workplace, and in the greater society, and is based on the premise that the way we are generally doing it... is sick, and in need of attention/repair. On a linear continuum stretching from psychology to sociology, I would place this book somewhere between his The Road Less Travelled on the former end, and The Different Drum on the latter.
The one chapter on vocation is worth it all.
Phrase by phrase, let Peck delineate how he comes to his definitive conclusion that "civility is consciously motivated organizational behavior that is ethical in submission to a Higher Power."
If those last two words make you feel like you're passing a kidney stone, or perhaps giving birth to a prize-winning pumpkin... relax. Let him explain. It's never as painful as it first sounds.
When I suggested above that this book is more theoretical (why) than practical (how-to), I should really clarify that assumption, especially since the latter portions of the book discuss the specific work of the Foundation For Community Encouragement, an organization that literally "teaches" community (civility) to corporations and groups of all kinds, worldwide. Very practical stuff indeed.
But what I meant is that even here, the principles that Peck expounds, theoretically speaking, are universally applicable and relevant. The same principles that will save a corporation from ruin will help strengthen a marriage, or cause improved relations between parents and children, or help a single person live a more fulfilled life.
Patients would ask Peck "How do I know when to quit therapy?"
He would answer "When you have learned how to be your own therapist; when therapy has become a way of life for you." (p.340).
I like that answer, and it's why I keep reading and re-reading him.

Peck's ideas are mature and insightful on civilized and organizational life. He takes the reader into all aspects of organized life including marriage, family, vocation and business. One just needs to turn on the TV and watch a talk show or the news to see the incivility that is rampant in our society today. Peck begins his book by stating that, "Something is wrong...." I agree with his assessment and greatly appreciate his attempts to call us forward toward maturity and curing ourselves. True civility can belong to us. But the responsibilty is ours!

Scott Peck researched all of his topics in great detail the way in which he writes this wonderful book. His philosophies are very well expalined in great detail and maybe sometimes with too much detail, but he speaks with very easy to understand words. He not only emphasises on views that are correct to him but he puts forward other philosophers views and ideas, which allow the reader to comprehend and understand views that were not thought possible. It is book that will allow a person to grow mentally and emotionally as they progress through it. I also beleive that it is a life long guide that can help you with many obstacles along the way. It is a wonderful book that really teaches us the paths of human growth.

I'm much attracted to the topic, but this book doesn't do it. It's hard to believe so many give it 5 stars. Lots of lengthy, boring psychoanalytic examples that don't circle back in a compelling way to the topic of civility. I wasted a couple hours trying to find some brilliance, then gave up and put it on the give-away pile.

This book is all about authenticity and honesty. We are certainly living in a world that needs to be re-born. But we don't seem to have reached the bottom of the barrel as yet. We are living in a world where people are looking to gain for themselves without any sense of honorablity. This book is another one of those books that need to be discussed in the school system and students taught how to apply these principles of civility and giving in this world that is in need of humility.
Dr. gunta Krumins-Caldwell author of On Silver Wings

This book is of tremendous social and personal significance. It explains and illustrates the importance of CIVILITY in all aspects of life. Scott Peck never ceases to amaze me of the broad base of his knowledge, his grasp of social and psychological issues and his ability to present them in an organized and understandable way.

This book not only posses the issues but illustrates the fixes.

This is an outstanding book wich touches the core of humanity and the way people interact with one another, and should interact.

Herein, Peck maps his definition of civility onto organizations in 4 parts: civility, marriage, business, & community. He says p. 347: "My basic identity...is that of a scientist before that of a religious person." While largely applying a scientific perspective, he explicitly & IMHO unnecessarily inserts Christian biased references to the p. 51 "God of my Christian orientation" & a plethora of Christian Bible stories. Though he effectively employs Jungian psychology, he attributes serendipity to God's grace rather than Jung's synchronicity. But, per the Hasidic master, Seer of Lublin--"Be careful not to speak differently from the way people commonly speak, for example, using very pious language or even expressing a more than ordinary humility" (in Buxbaum's "Jewish Spiritual Practices"). Peck also overlooks the Dalai Lama's innate civility. Furthermore, his politically correct/modern liberalism, applying his value judgments to others, over generalizations, connotations vs. denotations, utopian social engineering, alternating he-she paragraphs (chapters would have made it less choppy), verbosity, & naiveté detract from an otherwise valuable work.

He makes some unusual, but edifying observations on marriage: p. 133: "For psychotherapists, the greatest problem in healing marriages is not too much separateness, but too much togetherness," pithy remarks on psychotherapy (e.g. when to enter/leave it, mental blocks/`Swiss cheese intelligence'/`hole in the mind'), the relationship between depression & attachment, transference (an outdated mapping of childhood responses into adulthood), & esp. narcissism (p. 106: "Sometimes narcissists seem unable to recognize the "personhood" of other people...unable to recognize the difference between themselves & others at all"), creatively relating it to Buber's I-Thou. He states p. 109: "Narcissism is the principal precursor of incivility. One way of looking at narcissism is to regard it as a type of thinking disorder" though p. 111: "We are all born narcissistic...we can & routinely do grow out of it." He then applies civility & psychology to business: organizational myths, primitive functioning in groups, flexibility & balance (p. 310: "A business needs both its hard-liners & its soft-liners to maintain the tension & it needs the form of community to maintain the tensions right in the forefront of the organization's collective consciousness. Business fails ethically when either the soft-liner or the hard-line positions are so in ascendancy that the debate between them becomes silenced"). Then the commercial: his Foundation for Community Encouragement's community bldg workshops. Their description reminds me of organizational development team bldg, the Landmark Forum & the Mankind Project's New Warrior Weekends.

He states that p. 112: "I once defined mental health as an `ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs,' but strangely he predicted his workshops would appeal to churches vs. businesses--his philosophy needed practicality of reality! For example, he espouses p. 266 "servant leadership" (an oxymoron), a return to God, & community (p. 283: "A true community is a `group of all leaders') saving the world vs. Peter Block's insightful "Stewardship," leadership is from the front not the back or sides, Jung's individuation & personality types, & theories of evolution/history (big man vs. tide of events). In summary, Peck does well with psychology but is too idealistic IMHO. I have mixed feelings about this book--and it isn't fun reading either.

He starts off with a great premise -- that civility is absent in our society and then to identify and correct the problem to bring us back to greater consciousness. This book is unlike Road Less Traveled and is intellectually lazy. His arguments are shallow and undeveloped and this book is tedious and laborious to read. Very little substance or insight on these pages. I'd give this book a pass.