Sense and Semblance An Anatomy of Superficiality in Modern Society edition by Remington Norman Politics Social Sciences eBooks
Download As PDF : Sense and Semblance An Anatomy of Superficiality in Modern Society edition by Remington Norman Politics Social Sciences eBooks 
While innovation and intellectual achievement continue to transform societies, the concomitant increase in personal prosperity has nurtured a superficial mindset where value equates to what is immediately appealing, mediocrity passes for excellence, and spin displaces serious debate. Presentation and triviality increasingly dominate private lives and public thought and an obsession with 'feel good', 'lifestyle', celebrity and status determine concerns and priorities at the most shallow levels of popular culture.
Sentimentality and an aggressive individualism now characterise many social environments while a preference for rights over responsibilities threatens good order. Misconceived interpretations of equality, tolerance and inclusivity undermine social stability and lead to an oversensitivity to the claims and sensibilities of individuals at the expense of wider society. Social cohesion is assailed by questionable ideologies promulgated in the name of progress but designed to confront received convention.
Yet, despite unprecedented prosperity and virtually limitless freedom, discontent is rife, with widespread disaffection and social isolation. Too often, social direction is driven by influential elites motivated by the desire for power and status, sustaining an intellectual climate which offers no effective challenge to over-valued mediocrity, political correctness, incompetence, misplaced sentimentality or perverse notions of liberty. Superficiality is very evident and entrains heavy political and social costs.
Sense and Semblance presents a powerful indictment of superficiality. It confronts the core issues and reinforces the need to challenge this cosmetic culture in both public and private life.
Sense and Semblance An Anatomy of Superficiality in Modern Society edition by Remington Norman Politics Social Sciences eBooks
John Platter writes: Decadence and decline may not be original themes - in part they're time-honoured inter-generational rants - `the older we get the better we were' - but Remington Norman's cavils are more than the usual laments. And they are elegantly argued and spiced with acerbic wit.Just as well. This is unrelenting stuff. The occasional admonitory tone doesn't become a drone but he gets in a few pre-emptive reprimands early; do not, he suggests, dismiss the assault on superficiality superficially. The almost unmitigatedly gloomy analyses and implied prognoses become, perversely, riveting.
Superficiality - dangerous, odious, dishonest - is shoving `much of civilization ... downhill faster than a greased pig' he says.
At one point there's a plaintive sigh: "Are there any egregious sins left?' Gone, or at least going, as we slide into the bogs of libertarian superficiality, are the solid cultural mores - including `grandpa's store of wisdom' - that once glued societies and advanced civilisations.
And unless we push back superficiality in all its debilitating tawdriness, those decent values and virtues of the Western canon will soon become footnotes in the calamity of our fall; we're burying ourselves under rampant, worthless consumerism and excess; decent folk have already had to yield the streets to vicious feral gangs, products of our education failures, and main street is merging indistinguishably into the underworld in all kinds of murky ways.
Norman's surgeon's scalpel slices into the subcutaneous layers of all this fetid modernism to find the malignancies manifold and entrenched - anything but superficial in fact; far from recoiling at the gory diagnoses of our stuffed society, this seems to spur him on. And though he hasn't explicitly given up entirely, he seems to think the patient too far gone and probably should be sewn up and sent home.
Norman's solution? Not the purpose of the book, he says. A diagnosis doesn't necessarily come with a cure. After surveying a few possibilities he thinks `the more credible prognosis is that the situation will continue to a point at which there is an unstoppable demand for action' - a disappointing coda to so lusty a lashing. A pity, because readers of `Semblance' would have been intrigued, after his keen gripes, by some equally nimble speculations on the uncertain times ahead.
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Sense and Semblance An Anatomy of Superficiality in Modern Society edition by Remington Norman Politics Social Sciences eBooks Reviews
John Platter writes Decadence and decline may not be original themes - in part they're time-honoured inter-generational rants - `the older we get the better we were' - but Remington Norman's cavils are more than the usual laments. And they are elegantly argued and spiced with acerbic wit.
Just as well. This is unrelenting stuff. The occasional admonitory tone doesn't become a drone but he gets in a few pre-emptive reprimands early; do not, he suggests, dismiss the assault on superficiality superficially. The almost unmitigatedly gloomy analyses and implied prognoses become, perversely, riveting.
Superficiality - dangerous, odious, dishonest - is shoving `much of civilization ... downhill faster than a greased pig' he says.
At one point there's a plaintive sigh "Are there any egregious sins left?' Gone, or at least going, as we slide into the bogs of libertarian superficiality, are the solid cultural mores - including `grandpa's store of wisdom' - that once glued societies and advanced civilisations.
And unless we push back superficiality in all its debilitating tawdriness, those decent values and virtues of the Western canon will soon become footnotes in the calamity of our fall; we're burying ourselves under rampant, worthless consumerism and excess; decent folk have already had to yield the streets to vicious feral gangs, products of our education failures, and main street is merging indistinguishably into the underworld in all kinds of murky ways.
Norman's surgeon's scalpel slices into the subcutaneous layers of all this fetid modernism to find the malignancies manifold and entrenched - anything but superficial in fact; far from recoiling at the gory diagnoses of our stuffed society, this seems to spur him on. And though he hasn't explicitly given up entirely, he seems to think the patient too far gone and probably should be sewn up and sent home.
Norman's solution? Not the purpose of the book, he says. A diagnosis doesn't necessarily come with a cure. After surveying a few possibilities he thinks `the more credible prognosis is that the situation will continue to a point at which there is an unstoppable demand for action' - a disappointing coda to so lusty a lashing. A pity, because readers of `Semblance' would have been intrigued, after his keen gripes, by some equally nimble speculations on the uncertain times ahead.
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