A scrupulously intellectual but enormously conservative program for restoring “traditional morality.”
An elaborate, prudish philosophical program for combating the moral meaninglessness of modern life.
Kielkopf, in his debut, painstakingly analyzes the ways in which he views the sexual permissiveness of our modern era to be at the root of a great deal of anomie. Concentrating exclusively on matters of sexuality, he claims that humans reach their personal bests only when embracing what he refers to as “traditional morality.” Kielkopf is well-versed in Kantian philosophy and echoes some of Kant’s precepts in the realm of personal responsibility: “The power of our sexuality is our power and we use it well or poorly,” Kielkopf writes. At the crux of his thesis is something he calls the Paternal Principle, by which men exclusively have monogamous sex with a single female partner solely for the purposes of procreation; only through the Paternal Principle can humans maintain “a proper moral character.” Conversely, Kielkopf claims that all deviations from this principle—infidelity, masturbation, recreational sex and homosexuality among them—are “immoral” and lead to “sexual failing.” A good portion of the book centers on homosexuality, a moral deficiency that offends Kielkopf; he advocates a “keep it in the closet” approach in which the subject returns to never being mentioned or discussed in public. The book offers few facts about sexuality but many proscriptions, and despite the Kantian trappings of Kielkopf’s treatise, readers may recognize most of those proscriptions from an entirely different source: the Bible. “Strictly speaking,” he writes, “this is not a Christian book,” but in almost the same breath, he writes, “I am writing to prepare the soil for re-introduction of the Gospel.” In fact, Kielkopf expounds what could be construed as a close approximation of old-fashioned Roman Catholicism—the book is dedicated to Pope Benedict XVI.
A scrupulously intellectual but enormously conservative program for restoring “traditional morality.”Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1629940496
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Tate Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
