Revolutionary Love (eBook)

A Political Manifesto to Heal and Transform the World

Michael Lerner (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019
304 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-97313-8 (ISBN)

Infos

From social theorist and psychotherapist Rabbi Michael Lerner comes a strategy for a new socialism built on love, kindness, and compassion for one another. Revolutionary Love proposes a method to replace what Lerner terms the “capitalist globalization of selfishness” with a globalization of generosity, prophetic empathy, and environmental sanity.

Lerner challenges liberal and progressive forces to move beyond often weak-kneed and visionless politics to build instead a movement that can reverse the environmental destructiveness and social injustice caused by the relentless pursuit of economic growth and profits. Revisiting the hidden injuries of class, Lerner shows that much of the suffering in our society—including most of its addictions and the growing embrace of right-wing nationalism and reactionary versions of fundamentalism—is driven by frustrated needs for community, love, respect, and connection to a higher purpose in life. Yet these needs are too often missing from liberal discourse. No matter that progressive programs are smartly constructed—they cannot be achieved unless they speak to the heart and address the pain so many people experience.

Liberals and progressives need coherent alternatives to capitalism, but previous visions of socialism do not address the yearning for anything beyond material benefits. Inspired by Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Carol Gilligan, Revolutionary Love offers a strategy to create the “Caring Society.” Lerner details how a civilization infused with love could put an end to global poverty, homelessness, and hunger, while democratizing the economy, shifting to a twenty-eight-hour work week, and saving the life-support system of Earth. He asks that we develop the courage to stop listening to those who tell us that fundamental social transformation is “unrealistic.”

Inhalt

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I. Transcending the crippling dynamics of oppression
1. A World of Pain, a Hunger for Love
2. Fear and Domination, or Love and Generosity?
3. Toxic Self-Blaming and Powerlessness
4. To Change a Society, You Must Respect Its People

Part II. Strategies for building the caring society
5. Overcoming the Dictatorship of the Capitalist Marketplace
6. Major Institutional Changes for Building a Love and Justice Movement
7. The Caring Society in the Twenty-Second Century
Afterword

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.10.2019
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Vergleichende Politikwissenschaften
• Schlagworte: capitalist globalization of selfishness • civilization infused with love • coherent alternatives to capitalism • environmental sanity • fundamental social transformation • globalization of generosity • Liberals • progressives • propehtic empathy • reverse environmental destructiveness and social injustice • strategy for new socialism • strategy to create caring society
• ISBN-10: 0-520-97313-5 / 0520973135
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-97313-8 / 9780520973138