Well-intentioned yet ultimately flawed examination of the creative force unleashed through forgiveness.
A pastor uses field theory to expound on the power of forgiveness and the potency of creativity.
Influenced by the work of physicist Michael Faraday and others, author/counselor Emerson studies the connection between forgiveness and creativity, using field theory to analyze interpersonal relations. This book expands on Emerson’s earlier work (The Dynamics of Forgiveness, 2007) and is written for the benefit of students, clergy and laymen. Field theory is complex and applicable not only to physical sciences but also math and psychology. Here the author describes a contextual universe—one in which the injurer in need of forgiveness, the injured who may offer forgiveness and their observers coexist and influence one another. An act and the reaction to that act unfold in a shared sphere of experience that may encompass an entire community, as in the case of the Amish school shootings in 2006. During his years of practice, Emerson encountered many who indicated that neurological studies had been a factor in developing the ability to forgive and live creatively. Functional MRIs (fMRIs) suggest that important physiological changes take place in the brain when one forgives or responds creatively. Here, creativity is not penning a poem or painting a portrait, but behaving in a purposeful, nonreactionary way. The author also examines blame, shame and the church’s historical approach to forgiveness. The application of field theory to psychology is valid, and echoes that oft-repeated mystical truth—we are one. Although Emerson’s findings may have profound implications for clergy, practitioners and academics, it seems unlikely that a lay person would review his or her fMRIs in search of behavioral guidance. The impact of field theory on the average person in daily life is unclear. What is the value of this research in a spur-of-the-moment incident like road rage, when the middle finger trumps the mid-brain? Actual case histories, including Columbine, are analyzed after the fact and tailored to fit a model. A reactionary approach, it seems, but easily forgiven.
Well-intentioned yet ultimately flawed examination of the creative force unleashed through forgiveness.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2007
ISBN: 978-1434308009
Page Count: 203
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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