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Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary
A great moralist and social thinker illuminates the most vexing issues of our time--war, old age, racism, abortion, boredom, crime and punishment, sociobiology, and seventy odd others--in a dazzling book that is by turns hilarious and somber but always vigorous and stimulating. Upon each subject Robert Nisbet offers piercing and often unexpected insights.
Joining the colorful company of Montaigne, Voltaire, Burke, and Mencken, Nisbet writes for his own age and with his own prejudices. He ranges from the historical to the contemporary, from great men to lesser ones, from pieties and wisdoms to fads and effronteries. The work, in other words, is neither philosophy nor a dictionary (except that the subject matter is arranged in alphabetical order), but the distillation of Nisbet's wisdom, learning, and profound moral conviction. He argues for liberty over equality, for authority against permissiveness, for religion but also for science, for the individual and his rights but against individualism and entitlements. The center of his thinking is the fervent wish for a community linked by history, religion, and ritual, in which children are raised by families rather than by the state, but in which blind custom and belief are questioned and creativity emerges. Determinism of any kind he finds untrue to human nature and history. Man is free to improve himself or destroy himself.
Joining the colorful company of Montaigne, Voltaire, Burke, and Mencken, Nisbet writes for his own age and with his own prejudices. He ranges from the historical to the contemporary, from great men to lesser ones, from pieties and wisdoms to fads and effronteries. The work, in other words, is neither philosophy nor a dictionary (except that the subject matter is arranged in alphabetical order), but the distillation of Nisbet's wisdom, learning, and profound moral conviction. He argues for liberty over equality, for authority against permissiveness, for religion but also for science, for the individual and his rights but against individualism and entitlements. The center of his thinking is the fervent wish for a community linked by history, religion, and ritual, in which children are raised by families rather than by the state, but in which blind custom and belief are questioned and creativity emerges. Determinism of any kind he finds untrue to human nature and history. Man is free to improve himself or destroy himself.
318 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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About the author
Robert A. Nisbet
54 books80 followersAmerican sociologist, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Vice-Chancellor at the University of California, Riverside and as the Albert Schweitzer Professor at Columbia University.
After serving in the US Army during World War II, when he was stationed on Saipan in the Pacific theatre, Nisbet founded the Department of Sociology at Berkeley, and was briefly Chairman. Nisbet left an embroiled Berkeley in 1953 to become a dean at the University of California, Riverside, and later a Vice-Chancellor. Nisbet remained in the University of California system until 1972, when he left for the University of Arizona at Tucson. Soon thereafter, he was appointed to the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Chair at Columbia.
On retiring from Columbia in 1978, Nisbet continued his scholarly work for eight years at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. In 1988, President Reagan asked him to deliver the Jefferson Lecture in Humanities, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Nisbet's first important work, The Quest for Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969) contended that modern social science's individualism denied an important human drive toward community as it left people without the aid of their fellows in combating the centralizing power of the national state.
Nisbet is seen as follower of Emile Durkheim in the understanding of modern sociocultural systems and their drift. Often identified with the political right, Nisbet began his career as a political liberal but later confessed a conversion to a kind of philosophical Conservatism
After serving in the US Army during World War II, when he was stationed on Saipan in the Pacific theatre, Nisbet founded the Department of Sociology at Berkeley, and was briefly Chairman. Nisbet left an embroiled Berkeley in 1953 to become a dean at the University of California, Riverside, and later a Vice-Chancellor. Nisbet remained in the University of California system until 1972, when he left for the University of Arizona at Tucson. Soon thereafter, he was appointed to the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Chair at Columbia.
On retiring from Columbia in 1978, Nisbet continued his scholarly work for eight years at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. In 1988, President Reagan asked him to deliver the Jefferson Lecture in Humanities, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Nisbet's first important work, The Quest for Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969) contended that modern social science's individualism denied an important human drive toward community as it left people without the aid of their fellows in combating the centralizing power of the national state.
Nisbet is seen as follower of Emile Durkheim in the understanding of modern sociocultural systems and their drift. Often identified with the political right, Nisbet began his career as a political liberal but later confessed a conversion to a kind of philosophical Conservatism
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 25, 2011
Perhaps your have read Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, or at least excerpts since Peter Gay's translation from the early 1960s runs more than 650 pages. I mention this famous work because the title of Nisbet's substantial but slighter volume invokes Voltaire. And in his conservative outlook he suggests Burke, who advocated the rational exploitation of prejudice as a method of social inquiry. Nisbet presents 70-odd reflections on various topics, however, the prejudices are more of the acerbic, Mencken variety. Thus Nisbet assails egalitarianism under a variety of headings, including "Envy" and "Genius." He argues against an Egalitarianism that represents a pathological way of thinking. His solution: a heavy dose of "liberty", with Burkean limits, that would "make acceptable the differences of strength, talent, and will which are as natural to the social as to the biological order. Related to this is his entry on "Victimology" in which he decries the creation of victims by do-gooders with the assist of the Leviathan state (written in 1982 these words are prescient).
Reflecting current preoccupations are sections on "Abortion" (Nisbet calls out the excessive moralism of both sides); "Environmentalism"--now a "redemptive movement" that has become, "without losing its eliteness of temper, a mass socialist movement of, not fools, but sun worshippers, macrobiotics, forest druids, and nature freaks generally, committed by course if not yet by fully shared intent to the destruction of capitalism" and further one more addition to the Leviathan state; and "Judicial Activism"--itself a symptom of the fact that our government is not democratic, "that is, fully responsive to the considered will of the people". Under the heading of "Tyranny" comes a meditation on the Jonestown episode; under the rubric of "Ideology," a discussion of the reaction to Three Mile Island ("No casualties, then or since, but the ranks of the nuclear doom-sayers have greatly enlarged since the nonevent at Three Mile Island").
I enjoyed his discussions of the humanities in sections including: "Genius", "Golden Ages", "Metaphor", "Originality", and "Humanities". The last of these he sees as an unfortunately pale reflection of what it once was, and area of thought in need of a renaissance. His reflections on these and other topics are not without flaws, but refreshing in comparison to the lack of reflection that is prevalent in the twenty-first century. Critics of these essays might take a moment to reconsider their own prejudices.
Reflecting current preoccupations are sections on "Abortion" (Nisbet calls out the excessive moralism of both sides); "Environmentalism"--now a "redemptive movement" that has become, "without losing its eliteness of temper, a mass socialist movement of, not fools, but sun worshippers, macrobiotics, forest druids, and nature freaks generally, committed by course if not yet by fully shared intent to the destruction of capitalism" and further one more addition to the Leviathan state; and "Judicial Activism"--itself a symptom of the fact that our government is not democratic, "that is, fully responsive to the considered will of the people". Under the heading of "Tyranny" comes a meditation on the Jonestown episode; under the rubric of "Ideology," a discussion of the reaction to Three Mile Island ("No casualties, then or since, but the ranks of the nuclear doom-sayers have greatly enlarged since the nonevent at Three Mile Island").
I enjoyed his discussions of the humanities in sections including: "Genius", "Golden Ages", "Metaphor", "Originality", and "Humanities". The last of these he sees as an unfortunately pale reflection of what it once was, and area of thought in need of a renaissance. His reflections on these and other topics are not without flaws, but refreshing in comparison to the lack of reflection that is prevalent in the twenty-first century. Critics of these essays might take a moment to reconsider their own prejudices.
November 7, 2018
Great fun via sobering observation. Like a dictionary start anywhere, read in any order, then read again and again. Nisbet whacks "pop" ideas in nearly every paragraph. Even what was pop in the 15th century: How can ideas be so wrong yet so influential?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews