Ask the Author: Bruce Lerro
Answered Questions (6)
Bruce Lerro
I have always been in love with European civilization and as I studied it, I began to realize that there was a pattern that ran through its Renaissance Art, Protestant Reformation, scientific revolution, capitalism, and the Enlightenment. I realized the pattern could be connected to the doings of the Greek god Prometheus. Then i saw how those institutions were largely responsible for psychological processes unique to the west like individualism, attachment to commodities, and even coffee consumption. I strove to show how all this fits together over an 800 year period. Its taken me seven years to put this together.
Bruce Lerro
As I've said, I keep a journal so that when things come to me, I am never in a position of having nothing to write about. However, since I am a morning person I love to get started early, about 5:30 , so there are no competing distractions. My favorite days to write are when I am not teaching, it is a rainy, cold morning. I can sit in my shop, hear the pounding of the rain, sip my coffee and then pound the keyboards. Heaven!
Bruce Lerro
I am working on a companion volume to this book which emphasizes the power of individualism in Europe and the United States to shape Promethean psychology. i also have chapters on the process of why and how westerners developed what i call "hyper-abstract" reasoning. There are also two chapters on the psychological processes involved in becoming "civilized". Lastly there are chapters on how the organization of space under capitalism creates a psychology of adventure and how the organization of time as "progress" helps to tell the Promethean story of history.
Bruce Lerro
What i love about it is the degree of control it offers. I consider my books and my drawings my babies. Unlike people, my babies don't never do stupid things and never cause me grief. My books give invite deep thinking for those who read them, and they are always around to keep me company and they are very social and talk to other books!
Bruce Lerro
Keep a journal for your ideas and carry it around with you like a sketchbook. Also when you actually write, it is better to start writing before you structure what you are writing so you are not inhibited. After you've written something, then organize is structurally. See my answer to overcoming writers block for structural procedures.
Bruce Lerro
I've never had a problem with this. Years ago I taught a class on argumentation and learned the steps to making a good argument. i just place the steps on to any subject I'm working on and it organizes the topic. A short list is 1) what is my claim 2) what is the problem or ill I'm trying to address 3) what are the controversial viewpoints on the problem that are different from my own? 4) what key terms need definition? 5) what reasons do I have to support my claim? 6) Who is my audience? 7a) what objections will they typically make? 7b) how would I rebut them? 8) qualifications (exceptional circumstances) that would make change my claim? 9) predictions --what will happen in the future if my claim held? 10) what is my plan for getting there?
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