By: Garrick Roegner on January 31, 2014
David Brooks socio-psychological study, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, while full of holes and inconsistencies overlaying a political agenda, does very much get to the heart of how human’s develop, grow, and flourish. His central thesis is that our emotional subconscious is very much a key leader in how…
By: Carol McLaughlin on January 31, 2014
Perhaps you tuned in to watch President Obama deliver the State of the Union address this past Tuesday evening. During his speech the middle class was held up as the class for those in poverty to aspire toward and encouragement was sounded forth for employers to raise the minimum wage. The measure of success is…
By: Raphael Samuel on January 31, 2014
By: Karl Polanyi The title “The Great Transformation,” almost sounds like an action filled movie. In a sense Karl Polanyi’s account of the, political, social, and economic factors that led to the greatest period of transformation in Europe can be seen as an, action filled epic overview. The account has both historical and intellectual value…
By: Fred Fay on January 30, 2014
Imagine this; an irate parent comes to church complaining about his untrustworthy son to a staff member. The parent cannot control the son’s behavior. The youth director feels that this young man is making people feel uncomfortable by inappropriate words and actions. His social interactions have become unacceptable. He is not welcome back to youth…
By: Sandy Bils on January 30, 2014
“Who are we? We are like spiritual Grand Central stations.” (David Brooks, The Social Animal, Kindle Electronic Edition: Location 167) In his book “Social Animal: The hidden sources if love, character, and achievement“, New York times political columnist David Brooks dedicates himself to the question what drives individual behavior and decision making?What is life about? …
By: Sharenda Roam on January 30, 2014
The Wild Core of Art & Music As I followed Erica and Harold through their conversations, activities, thoughts, and experiences I ran into a section of the book, “The Social Animal,” that gave my unconscious pleasure. It is a portion that discusses music and art. Certain patterns of music, David Brooks explaines, produce warm swellings…
By: David Toth on January 30, 2014
It was an uneventful flight over the Atlantic into Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, at least until the landing. I fly a fair amount and have experienced both take offs and landings in inclement weather. This particular early morning in the late fall was foggy, very foggy. I usually choose a window seat so that I am…
By: Deve Persad on January 30, 2014
Webster’s Dictionay (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pawn): pawn noun ˈpȯn, ˈpän 1: one of the chessmen of least value having the power to move only forward ordinarily one square at a time, to capture only diagonally forward, and to be promoted to any piece except a king upon reaching the eighth rank 2: one that can be used to…
By: Phil Smart on January 30, 2014
I normally use a life experience or story to illustrate the meanings and take-a-ways from a theoretical book. But in the case The Social Animal by David Brooks, the book is the story and I have to come away with the theoretical meanings and take-a-ways. Insights and tidbits of stimulating information flowed from every page…
By: Chris Ellis on January 30, 2014
The Truman Show stars Jim Carry as an insurance salesman whose life since birth is actually an elaborate TV show watched by millions. NY Times writer David Brooks might have had this movie in mind when he wrote Social Animals. He takes the latest developments in psychology, human development, anthropology and neuroscience and weaves them…
By: Ashley Goad on January 28, 2014
For years I heard my son, Clint, a soldier in the 173rd Airborne, speak of “collateral damage.” I cringed every time he said the phrase, knowing he used the words to describe an unintended consequence of an armed intervention. In plain speak, though it was not planned, innocent people lost their lives. Reading Zygmunt Bauman’s Collateral Damage:…
By: Clint Baldwin on January 27, 2014
To my recollection, I first encountered Zygmunt Bauman in 1996 through reading Miroslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace. As I remember, I appreciated what I was able to encounter of Bauman there. I subsequently came across Bauman more frequently in readings and really appreciated his Globalization: The Human Consequences. It was some time after he wrote Globalization and as we…
By: Clint Baldwin on January 27, 2014
What “makes” you think the way that you do? What orientations do you typically adhere to without even considering that you do so? What subconsciously drives your thinking and your actions? Charles Taylor in Modern Social Imaginaries explores facets of these very questions. Taylor, suggests that ideas drive actions which lead to the creation of…
By: Carol McLaughlin on January 26, 2014
Three words describe my learning and capture my response to Zygmunt Bauman’s work in Collateral Damage: sobering, overwhelmed and pondering. The dominant word, the one with the greatest weight, the one that is “sitting” on my chest is sobering. This one word reflects both a deepening awareness and reveals my response to Bauman’s light on…
By: Mark Steele on January 26, 2014
Most people are concerned about the environment and the future of the earth’s ecology and health. Much has been said about environmental warming, the growing pollution in China, the growing population of the earth and the earths ability to support the growth and pollution. Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone in their book Action Hope How…
By: rhbaker275 on January 26, 2014
There is surely something within any decent, caring, unpretentious, human being that has lived, perhaps thrived prosperously or eked out a livelihood in their own social order that recoils and is reviled by the concept of “collateral damage” as presented by Zygmunt Bauman in the introduction to Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age.”…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on January 25, 2014
Let me begin with an apology for my tardiness on this post. I was in Orlando representing GFU and GFES at a leaders conference from Tuesday till Thursday night. My book failed to arrive before I left and did not arrive till Thursday. My day was packed Friday with me teaching Friday evening. I here…
By: Miriam Mendez on January 25, 2014
We often complain about the trivial things that inconvenience our daily routine (i.e. we got whole milk instead of soy milk in our coffee order; we forgot the power cord to our GPS and now we have to rely on our brain to get us to our destination; the wind blew the cable out and…
By: Raphael Samuel on January 25, 2014
A few years ago, I was on my way home from work listening to Christian radio. A feature that afternoon was a program call, “Missions network news.” This is a brief news cast highlighting what God is doing through the efforts of his people around the world. That afternoon the spotlight was on a woman…
By: Richard Volzke on January 25, 2014
In the early 90’s, I visited Turkey while in the military. During my visit to Turkey, I witnessed an impoverished young boy steal a piece of fruit from a fruit stand and took off running. The vendor began yelling at the boy in Arabic, and as the vendor was yelling and running after the boy…
