Amazon.com: Landscapes of the Soul: The Loss of Moral Meaning in American Life: Douglas V. Porpora: Books

Amazon.com
"The meaning of life for me is just to enjoy myself." "It's all relative to your point of view." The rootless sentiments of today's college students are the springboard for Douglas V. Porpora's impassioned defense of the importance of moral foundations. Landscapes of the Soul is a cri de coeur from a self-identified left-wing "campus radical" who finds common cause with cultural conservatives like Allan Bloom because they share a belief that moral truths are real and independent of our varied perspectives. But Porpora thinks that the central problem is not skepticism, but rather a basic lack of interest in "cosmic meaning." The problem isn't that we don't believe in God; it's that we just don't care.

Porpora goes into the fabric of American culture, interviewing Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Buddhists, urbanites and rural folks, atheists and New Agers, and drawing from a variety of ages, races, and levels of education. He argues that no matter what your "point of view," the modern landscape of American morality is bleak, impoverished by the thin soil of a relativism that is as vacuous as it is pervasive. Porpora's remedy is a reorientation that is infused with spiritual meaning. He wants us to return to a way of being that asks incessantly: "Is there a human destiny we were meant to fulfill?" --Eric de Place --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Drexel University's Porpora is troubled that Americans have lost "moral purpose." That's happened, he says, not because we are following the lead of an adulterous ex-president or because consumer capitalism cultivates greed rather than charity, but because we no longer have emotional relationships with God. A sociologist, Porpora conducted interviews with dozens of Americans of all religious stripes. Americans believe in God, he concludes, but our belief is a highly theoretical, ratiocinated one; we may check off "theist" on a questionnaire, but we don't feel very much about God. Porpora's research indicates that many people, for example, deny having any personal experience of the divine. (One wonders how many of America's millions of evangelicals or Wiccans, for that matter Porpora interviewed.) If only we would get emotional about our deity, he argues, the nation's moral fabric would be stronger. The book is a tad diffuse. Porpora's digression, for example, into what we can know about the historical Jesus is not quite on point. He also repeatedly asserts that the postmodern claim of the death of the individual self is untenable, but he doesn't adequately connect that argument with his larger thesis. Ultimately, the book fails to convince. Porpora asserts axiomatically that emotional connection to God is the sine qua non of leading a moral life, but he never proves the axiom. Still, the gauntlet has been thrown down, and this volume is sure to be a provocative conversation starter.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Landscapes of the Soul: The Loss of Moral Meaning in American Life (Paperback)