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A review by hjbolus
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl R. Trueman
1.0
Although Trueman expressly states that he is not writing a polemic, he has utterly failed in his attempt to disguise this book as honest historical inquiry. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self puts forward theocratic, frighteningly anti-liberty conservative Catholic ideas under dishonest persuasive techniques. Terms like the “social imaginary” and “death works,” alongside MacIntyre’s idea that non-religious ethics are no more than emotional expressivism, are used to elide important discussions and dismiss critical disagreements.
Moreover, the historical tracing he does seems like a façade for setting up straw men. Rather than engaging carefully with your opponents, it’s much easier to group all of their ideas together under the dismissive term “social imaginary,” trace them back to someone like Nietzsche, and then explain that Nietzsche must have been wrong because his books were death works! What a coincidence that he and Nietzsche are kindred spirits - neither is interested in careful argumentation.
In fact, if you refuse to take MacIntyre’s ideas for granted, I’m not sure that Trueman makes a single careful argument that any of his views are actually correct. He really doesn’t care. Simply by pointing out that Nietzsche’s, Rousseau’s, or Shelley’s ideas are scary, he blows apart the foundations of modern liberalism. Incredible.
Moreover, the historical tracing he does seems like a façade for setting up straw men. Rather than engaging carefully with your opponents, it’s much easier to group all of their ideas together under the dismissive term “social imaginary,” trace them back to someone like Nietzsche, and then explain that Nietzsche must have been wrong because his books were death works! What a coincidence that he and Nietzsche are kindred spirits - neither is interested in careful argumentation.
In fact, if you refuse to take MacIntyre’s ideas for granted, I’m not sure that Trueman makes a single careful argument that any of his views are actually correct. He really doesn’t care. Simply by pointing out that Nietzsche’s, Rousseau’s, or Shelley’s ideas are scary, he blows apart the foundations of modern liberalism. Incredible.