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A review by caleb_karnosh22
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl R. Trueman
5.0
In this book, Carl Trueman sets out to show that the ideas surrounding sexuality & sexual identity that have come to dominate the social imaginary are filled with conscious philosophies and intuitions that have deep historical roots. Trueman thoughtfully and intentionally follows the philosophical developments that contributed to our modern understanding of the self and how our understanding of "self" has become so intertwined with sexuality.
Not that I needed much convincing, but I think this book confirmed for me that, as a society, we are far closer to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World than we are to Orwell's 1984.
This is just a side comment but: I think what Willie James Jennings does in his work The Christian Imagination is what Trueman is doing with this book only on a different topic and from a different perspective. While Jennings seeks to show the historical and anthropological development of the social imaginary he refers to as Whiteness that impacts Western society's view on race; Trueman seeks to give a historical account of how our current culture here in the West exists within a social imaginary rooted in expressive individualism that influences our understanding of the "self." Jennings and Trueman would certainly disagree on many things but I think they would both offer helpful critiques of one another. Hopefully someone out there who is way smarter than me makes a similar connection and writes about it.
Not that I needed much convincing, but I think this book confirmed for me that, as a society, we are far closer to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World than we are to Orwell's 1984.
This is just a side comment but: I think what Willie James Jennings does in his work The Christian Imagination is what Trueman is doing with this book only on a different topic and from a different perspective. While Jennings seeks to show the historical and anthropological development of the social imaginary he refers to as Whiteness that impacts Western society's view on race; Trueman seeks to give a historical account of how our current culture here in the West exists within a social imaginary rooted in expressive individualism that influences our understanding of the "self." Jennings and Trueman would certainly disagree on many things but I think they would both offer helpful critiques of one another. Hopefully someone out there who is way smarter than me makes a similar connection and writes about it.