i want to join the mignonette "Pass the book on" bandwagon! If anyone would like my copy, please e-mail me.
Interesting views so far. I'm half way in and I'm in two minds about the "style". Here's why:
It does read like a motivational talk/self-help book, and that does mean that it reads in (what might be called) a slightly "dumbed down" way. I kept on thinking: "It's OK! Trust me! Go into the research and secondary literature here a bit more! Get a bit heavier! I can take it!" And the (rather frequent) vignettes of people coming up to her, with tears in their eyes, weeping because she'd essentially saved their lives, was a bit too much for me.
But the author is clear that this is meant to be a version of her talks; this is a book written for a mass-market; this is meant to be a book about eschewing some of the aggressive and defensive armour that hides the vulnerability of power and status positions.
Sooooo ... it could be argued that: the book walks the talk it's talking; isn't it a bit sad that there is a cultural cringe (almost) when encountering a book aimed at a mass-market and in a demotic style?; can you have a book relaying interesting ideas that isn't written in academic language and still be accorded respect?
Personally, my jury is out on those questions so far.
I did like the basic ideas. I decided I would go and hunt down her more academic work.
i was ... interested ... in the absence of hard-hitting political analysis or gender analysis in a book dealing with shame and vulnerability in social situations. I've just reached the section where the author states that her early research was on women and shame and she is discussing the gender differences of shame. I am agog to discover if she will discuss gender and vulnerability.
I am interested in the fact that she suggests all this to be relevant owing to the economic downturn, and that she is arguing for a new ethics; a a new way of interacting. But, again, I wonder what will happen with the politics, the economics, and the gender issues.
I like the fact that she posits inter-relationality being a fundamental of human existence. I am perplexed that she doesn't tell her reader that this is debatable. A lot of people would disagree with that. And a lot of feminists have suggested that the debate between there being a model of a fundamentally autonomous subject versus a model of intersubjective being(s) is a gendered debate.
Has this been dropped for a mainstream audience? Why? Did she make a conscious decision that she was going to vigorously deny the gendered dimensions of all this? Is that an implicit statement of belief and position?
Nevertheless .... I ask these questions because I am interested. I am reading on because I am interested. I liked seeing in print a woman writing about how painful and difficult it is to advance ideas publicly in a society where it is "academic", "rigorous", and "scientific" to be critical, and to pull apart. (Again, I think there is a gender issue here ... but perhaps I am wrong??). Why not have a model where the default is to judge an idea by what we can do with it; where we can take it?
After I read that, I did feel rather "pulled up" as a reader. She introduced her "self" into the book, in a very un-academic, very personal way. She reminded me very abruptly of the person-who-writes behind every book. And it really did stop me, and make me wonder why we do pretend that books and ideas don't have a living, breathing, feeling person behind them. it made me a lot less inclined to be hurtful-critical. and i liked her for it - even though I know one is supposed to be more sophisticated than to "like" books the way one likes people.
These are ideas that have been advanced by others, but the author puts it together really well. And quite forcefully. It really is a great argument. Simple, familiar - but then very good ideas often are: they are often the restating of things we know. I also rather like the idea that she's taking her research out on the road and is trying to bring about a bit of a revolution in the way people interact/work/play.
Anyway, haven't finished the book yet - but just wanted to throw that into the ring.