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Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation
Harvard University Press
October 2006
On Sale: September 22, 2006
208 pages ISBN: 0674023293 EAN: 9780674023291 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Philosphy
Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief
of the Crow Nation, told his story--up to a certain point.
"When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to
the ground," he said, "and they could not lift them up
again. After this nothing happened." It is precisely this
point--that of a people faced with the end of their way of
life--that prompts the philosophical and ethical inquiry
pursued in Radical Hope. In Jonathan Lear's view, Plenty
Coups' story raises a profound ethical question that
transcends his time and challenges us all: how should one
face the possibility that one's culture might collapse? This is a vulnerability that affects us all--insofar as we
are all inhabitants of a civilization, and civilizations are
themselves vulnerable to historical forces. How should we
live with this vulnerability? Can we make any sense of
facing up to such a challenge courageously? Using the
available anthropology and history of the Indian tribes
during their confinement to reservations, and drawing on
philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, Lear explores the
story of the Crow Nation at an impasse as it bears upon
these questions--and these questions as they bear upon our
own place in the world. His book is a deeply revealing, and
deeply moving, philosophical inquiry into a peculiar
vulnerability that goes to the heart of the human condition.
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