Cunning

by Don Herzog

Want to be cunning? You might wish you were more clever, more flexible, able to cut a few corners without getting caught, to dive now and again into iniquity and surface clutching a prize. You might want to roll your eyes at those slaves of duty who play by the rules. Or you might think there's something sleazy about that stance, even if it does seem to pay off. Does that make you a chump?


With pointedly mischievous prose, Don Herzog explores what's alluring and what's revolting in cunning. He draws on a colorful range of tales of Odysseus; texts from Machiavelli; pamphlets from early modern England; salesmen's newsletters; Christian apologetics; plays; sermons; philosophical treatises; detective novels; famous, infamous, and obscure historical cases; and more.


The book is in three parts, bookended by two murderous churchmen. "Dilemmas" explores some canonical moments of cunning and introduces the distinction between knaves and fools as a "time-honored but radically deficient scheme." "Appearances" assails conventional approaches to unmasking. Surveying ignorance and self-deception, "Despair?" deepens the case that we ought to be cunning--and then sees what we might say in response.


Throughout this beguiling book, Herzog refines our sense of what's troubling in this terrain. He shows that rationality, social roles, and morality are tangled together--and trickier than we thought.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Kathie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Randomly picked this up from Half-Price Books, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. It's rare that a book or thought changes my perspective, but this book made me think that maybe I have been a bit too naive in thinking about morality and our obligations towards other people. Not that the book endorses cunning as a virtue or anything like that, but it just made me more hyperaware of the tension between the need for honor and justice in a functional society and the temptation to subvert the expectation of honesty for personal gain (both for me and for everyone else in society). Although the book offers few answers, I found it a genuinely interesting philosophical aside on the subject of morality.

[Shad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started out liking this more than I ended up liking it. Don (he will not allow me to refer to him as Professor Herzog) was one of my favorite professors at law school. He is extremely smart, and it shows. However, as with much theory, I was left with a feeling that its import was rather smaller than the effort put into writing it. When he utilized examples from scripture, his analysis was over-simplified at best and dead wrong at worst. I do think it is useful to critically analyze maxims and our understanding of life and meaning and believe this book contributes on all of those fronts.

[Jaak Treiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An erudite discussion of the fallacy of an "us" versus "them" world view as illustrated by the dilemmas encountered by Odysseus; a consideration of appearance and reality in various facets of life; and a consideration of the music of Morton Feldman as a springboard to consider if we should be in a state of dispair.

[James Santucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Odysseus discussion is hilarious, but toward the end it starts to feel like Herzog has a ton of interesting references and stories left, but doesn't really know what to say anymore. Still, it's a lot of fun to read, and there are enough lines that are perfect to keep the experience enjoyable at all times.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was entertaining and fun to read.

the book posed some interesting dilemmas. it is alright for me to steal-- i mean take my neighbor's wall street journal so i can give it to my coworker jim? as long as he doesn't catch me doing it? i hope he thinks i was putting it in the recycling.