A Philosophy on Life, Family, and Growing Up

A wide-ranging debut exploration of how to live the most fulfilling human life, from birth to death.

Hunter, a former U.S. Navy seaman, tackles many of life’s major questions in this thin yet comprehensive volume. Most of the work discusses the author’s greatest interest: the raising of youth. He looks at the many ways in which parenting and education, as well as other societal influences, can either stunt or encourage children’s mental, emotional, and physical growth. With thoughts that are reminiscent of such diverse philosophers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Dewey, Hunter provides a unique, common-sense take on the rearing of future generations. He encourages an active but gentle form of parenting, with limitations on any punishments that might be emotionally scarring. In addition, he advocates for a supportive educational system. Indeed, his promotion of government and other institutions is strong and largely unquestioning: “The institutions we have set up to care for our needs as a society should lead us confidently into this new world of untold possibilities.” He also pushes for strong national and international intervention in problems such as poverty: “It is hard to address our world’s problems without doing more to raise the living standards of the world’s poorest countries.” Overall, Hunter’s worldviews are mainly positive in tone, secular in approach, and holistic in scope. His prose is also mature and approachable, if not always polished. In an overarching sense, this book calls upon readers to seek more fulfilling lives, not for their own ends, but for the betterment of society. It’s an egalitarian and, in some senses, socialist philosophy of the community, based upon, and extrapolated from, the love of the nuclear family.

A heartfelt discussion of child-rearing and society.