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A review by jeremychiasson
Self and Soul: A Defense of Ideals by Mark Edmundson
4.0
I'm not sure if Mark Edmundson actually makes compelling arguments in his books, or if I just naturally agree with him and delight in having someone build up an academic case around my existing beliefs.
Either way, Edmundson rails against how our society has taken the great ideals and virtues of our time, and has reduced them to a safe commercial simulacrum (instead of doing heroic deeds, we watch movies and are vicariously heroic). He writes about exemplars of ideals, like Jesus, Achilles, Plato, and Blake, people who live for the soul, and contrasts them with today's disenchanted people, who all live for the Self. In the place of living lives charged with meaning, Edmundson argues, we live by the mediocre middle class values of living as long, as pleasurably, and as (financially) prosperously as we can. And that is why life feels so empty. In this, Edmundson tries to make a case for living a life dedicated to an ideal.
Interestingly, he accuses Shakespeare and his heir, Sigmund Freud, of slaying and reducing all ideals and noble virtues, down to a matter of folly and delusions. They are visionaries of negative capability and reductionism. Edmundson very deliberately set out to write a polemic, if you haven't noticed. You will also notice, if you read a few of Edmundson's books, that he can't seem to write anything without at least disagreeing with Harold Bloom a hundred times.
If nothing else, you will be entertained by Edmundson quixotic tilts at today's society. But if you are anything like me, you will be inspired to cast off what Blake calls your "mind-forg'd manacles" and try to live more beautifully.
Either way, Edmundson rails against how our society has taken the great ideals and virtues of our time, and has reduced them to a safe commercial simulacrum (instead of doing heroic deeds, we watch movies and are vicariously heroic). He writes about exemplars of ideals, like Jesus, Achilles, Plato, and Blake, people who live for the soul, and contrasts them with today's disenchanted people, who all live for the Self. In the place of living lives charged with meaning, Edmundson argues, we live by the mediocre middle class values of living as long, as pleasurably, and as (financially) prosperously as we can. And that is why life feels so empty. In this, Edmundson tries to make a case for living a life dedicated to an ideal.
Interestingly, he accuses Shakespeare and his heir, Sigmund Freud, of slaying and reducing all ideals and noble virtues, down to a matter of folly and delusions. They are visionaries of negative capability and reductionism. Edmundson very deliberately set out to write a polemic, if you haven't noticed. You will also notice, if you read a few of Edmundson's books, that he can't seem to write anything without at least disagreeing with Harold Bloom a hundred times.
If nothing else, you will be entertained by Edmundson quixotic tilts at today's society. But if you are anything like me, you will be inspired to cast off what Blake calls your "mind-forg'd manacles" and try to live more beautifully.