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Self and Unself
A comprehensive and accessible philosophy of all and everything, presenting the source and synthesis of metaphysics, science, art, language, sex, gender, character, culture, society, history, self-knowledge, love and death. Neither optimistic nor pessimistic, neither objective nor subjective, neither theist nor atheist, Self and Unself expresses the unfathomable paradox at the root of all branches of human experience, providing the reader with a new, radical ground of understanding, solving, en route, all the actually important questions of philosophy; who I am, who you are, why we are here and what on earth is going on.
- GenresNonfiction
432 pages, Hardcover
Published April 1, 2021
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88 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 24, 2021
Some books are necessary in a way that very few are. This is such a book.
Truly original, deeply researched and intellectually supercharged, Self and Unself is an account of who and what we - civilised humanity, as we like to flatter ourselves - are truly.
The truth is pretty devastating. But if you didn't already know that then this may not be the book for you.
No message could be more timely. At a moment when private wealth on a scale that dwarfs the pharaohs' is planning to colonise space and reduce Earth to a galactic coronavirus, entirely webbed in with thousands of satellites in low-earth orbit, blocking out the stars - a time beyond satire or denunciation - our 'nature' as humans, more correctly as 'civilised people,' has never been more challenged - or more corrupted, perhaps.
If you're asking, how the hell did we get here - and how do we avoid disaster - what are the chances and what can I do - if you want to understand and hope to make a difference, Self and Unself is a mountain worth climbing.
The author, Darren Allen, is an English anarchist, philosopher, creative thinker and honest witness to life under senescent globalisation. He brings energy, passion and wit to dissecting the ego-powered horror driving ever more furiously to annihilation and argues that another world, where ego serves rather than rules life's purposes should be the quest of all sensible people.
Truly original, deeply researched and intellectually supercharged, Self and Unself is an account of who and what we - civilised humanity, as we like to flatter ourselves - are truly.
The truth is pretty devastating. But if you didn't already know that then this may not be the book for you.
No message could be more timely. At a moment when private wealth on a scale that dwarfs the pharaohs' is planning to colonise space and reduce Earth to a galactic coronavirus, entirely webbed in with thousands of satellites in low-earth orbit, blocking out the stars - a time beyond satire or denunciation - our 'nature' as humans, more correctly as 'civilised people,' has never been more challenged - or more corrupted, perhaps.
If you're asking, how the hell did we get here - and how do we avoid disaster - what are the chances and what can I do - if you want to understand and hope to make a difference, Self and Unself is a mountain worth climbing.
The author, Darren Allen, is an English anarchist, philosopher, creative thinker and honest witness to life under senescent globalisation. He brings energy, passion and wit to dissecting the ego-powered horror driving ever more furiously to annihilation and argues that another world, where ego serves rather than rules life's purposes should be the quest of all sensible people.
November 9, 2022
R ead this astoundingly challenging book
O for your comfort but
Y ou and I and everyman can gain in clear-sightedness, maybe even in courage, which I consider to
be the key character traits of Mr Allen
G o,but for the journey, not for any destination
B reak through the self,not necessarily a futile endeavour, but tough, damn tough...
I is seen as ego, as in Pascal, but also, for the descendants of slaves, for example,as a focus of
emancipation. It may also be viewed as that part of the universal unself which we are endowed
with at birth. Your unself and mine may be diametrically opposed, so to speak, to our egoic self,
yet it is the ever-present help in times of trouble [which means all the time, since civilisation
has invaded virtually all of our living space ,except that of small children, unself also perhaps
vestigially present among some of the very old, without their needing to evoke it
V erily I say unto ye,unless ye become again as little children
A rainbow?? yes,since I was reading another stupendous book in parallel with this : Beloved, by Toni Morrison, where one of the key characters, dying, is obsessed with colours, She reaches yellow ,then dies. See p.266 for Mr Allen on colour, pp 310 and 393-5 on death
Death,indeed, an area where I think, possibly going further than the author, we have most clearly "lost it" ,or, still biblical, sold our heritage for a mess of potage. The American Way of Life is pretty adolescent, I think, and the American Way of Death [Mitford 1963, 1998] just appalling.
Citing Ivan Illich among his influencers [!!] Allen includes over-medicalisation as one of the outputs of the mechanistic/technological world of hollow men we now endure . Except, he argues, we don't endure it : we welcome it all with open arms , like zombies.
A reminder of the SMART system [p.365] enough to send shivers down your spine, dear reader ! We have, generally, lapped up the witches' brews of the Masters of the World, not often, perhaps,with enthusiasm,but passively, one has to say impotently. We are increasingly at home in a virtual world,
At the end of my rainbow, the pot of gold which is Self and Unself. You may not easily accept Allen's estimate that metaphysics is straightforward and enjoyable, but , with his masterful writing, the book is approachable and sometimes you'll get a laugh. Or a wry smile, recognising, dare I say it ? yourself. Myself.
"There are true flowers in this painted world "
Unlikely that Mr Allen's masterpiece, or, indeed, his other fine books will be bought for academic dissection and poring over; a pity, because they contain rare wisdom and punchiness.
Recipes for survival ? Listening to the sound of silence, seeing the glory of the Earth and touching/loving the pain of birth/re-birth.
O for your comfort but
Y ou and I and everyman can gain in clear-sightedness, maybe even in courage, which I consider to
be the key character traits of Mr Allen
G o,but for the journey, not for any destination
B reak through the self,not necessarily a futile endeavour, but tough, damn tough...
I is seen as ego, as in Pascal, but also, for the descendants of slaves, for example,as a focus of
emancipation. It may also be viewed as that part of the universal unself which we are endowed
with at birth. Your unself and mine may be diametrically opposed, so to speak, to our egoic self,
yet it is the ever-present help in times of trouble [which means all the time, since civilisation
has invaded virtually all of our living space ,except that of small children, unself also perhaps
vestigially present among some of the very old, without their needing to evoke it
V erily I say unto ye,unless ye become again as little children
A rainbow?? yes,since I was reading another stupendous book in parallel with this : Beloved, by Toni Morrison, where one of the key characters, dying, is obsessed with colours, She reaches yellow ,then dies. See p.266 for Mr Allen on colour, pp 310 and 393-5 on death
Death,indeed, an area where I think, possibly going further than the author, we have most clearly "lost it" ,or, still biblical, sold our heritage for a mess of potage. The American Way of Life is pretty adolescent, I think, and the American Way of Death [Mitford 1963, 1998] just appalling.
Citing Ivan Illich among his influencers [!!] Allen includes over-medicalisation as one of the outputs of the mechanistic/technological world of hollow men we now endure . Except, he argues, we don't endure it : we welcome it all with open arms , like zombies.
A reminder of the SMART system [p.365] enough to send shivers down your spine, dear reader ! We have, generally, lapped up the witches' brews of the Masters of the World, not often, perhaps,with enthusiasm,but passively, one has to say impotently. We are increasingly at home in a virtual world,
At the end of my rainbow, the pot of gold which is Self and Unself. You may not easily accept Allen's estimate that metaphysics is straightforward and enjoyable, but , with his masterful writing, the book is approachable and sometimes you'll get a laugh. Or a wry smile, recognising, dare I say it ? yourself. Myself.
"There are true flowers in this painted world "
Unlikely that Mr Allen's masterpiece, or, indeed, his other fine books will be bought for academic dissection and poring over; a pity, because they contain rare wisdom and punchiness.
Recipes for survival ? Listening to the sound of silence, seeing the glory of the Earth and touching/loving the pain of birth/re-birth.
July 8, 2021
A work of art. Took much longer to finish than what was expected, but I found myself dwelling over each chapter for a considerable length of time - I really gained a lot from this. I would recommend this, and his other work "33 Myths Of The System" to anyone. Although I'm afraid that work like this may not connect to everyone in the same way it does for me, I can only hope!
July 16, 2022
Books like this don't come around often. Made my ego scream and life vivid.
September 19, 2021
Don't get me wrong, I love reading rants by well read people. But author's earlier book, The Apocalypedia: A Utopian Guide to What Is and What Isn't, was much better--had a sense of humor. And Brothers Karamazov was saying similar things, albeit more persuasively.
December 2, 2024
The question “who am I?” has always been an uncomfortable one - I start to think of things I like and dislike, the things I’m good and bad at, where I come from, my friends, my family. None of this gets to the heart of what being -me- actually, for lack of phrasing that doesn’t simply link back to subjectivism, “is like”. On the whole I found the question depressing and preferred to avoid it.
Self and Unself goes some way to “answering” this question though - by not answering it, by honestly admitting that if who we are is like anything then what we are thinking about is just one thing among many that is attached to us but isn’t actually us.
It’s a correction of Schopenhauer’s otherwise brilliant metaphysical turn inwards that overly identified the Will (called consciousness by Allen) with self-centred desire. Though Schopenhauer was right to call the Will objectless.
This is then connected with a holistic philosophy that aims to demonstrate that it’s this misconception - that reality (that includes us) is a series of graspable facts - that has lead society at large to its current dire straits.
Allen clearly has his cultural favourites, and there are times when the writing necessarily becomes comparable to the Lovecraftian “too horrible to describe!” style, but I never felt like he was dead wrong.
Self and Unself goes some way to “answering” this question though - by not answering it, by honestly admitting that if who we are is like anything then what we are thinking about is just one thing among many that is attached to us but isn’t actually us.
It’s a correction of Schopenhauer’s otherwise brilliant metaphysical turn inwards that overly identified the Will (called consciousness by Allen) with self-centred desire. Though Schopenhauer was right to call the Will objectless.
This is then connected with a holistic philosophy that aims to demonstrate that it’s this misconception - that reality (that includes us) is a series of graspable facts - that has lead society at large to its current dire straits.
Allen clearly has his cultural favourites, and there are times when the writing necessarily becomes comparable to the Lovecraftian “too horrible to describe!” style, but I never felt like he was dead wrong.
November 18, 2023
Do you want to see God, at last, after all this time? Do you want to be egotistically exposed? Do you want it all to just make some goddamn sense?
Read this book.
Read this book.
June 24, 2024
We keep asking questions that we know the answer to. We keep seeking a solution to avoid the one right in front of us. We erect terrible cathedrals to avoid the responsibility of actually ever living life. Self and Unself looks directly at the answers right in front of us, tears down the cathedrals we cling to, and shows us that really there is something far more lively and beautiful underneath them, as terrifying as it may be. It winds a thread through metaphysics and societal critique and science and an entire history of the rise and fall of mankind's terrible project to remind us of who we really are and what the hell is up with this Hell we seem to be trapped in. It is at once conceptually precise, simple and straightforward, and a spiritually sublime work, lively with metaphor and a vital mythic sensibility.
I first read Self and Unself at a difficult time in my life, and I come back to it whenever I feel unsure of the road ahead. A book can never replace people, but it can show you that yes, really, someone else in this unbelievable world gets it, someone else has stood where you stand, and when you are alone against the entire world, that alone is enough to revive your courage.
It is a miracle that a work like this can come out of the West, and be written in English, a language thoroughly disenchanted by Latin influence and the developments of the Norman conquest. Western philosophy is, as a whole, a poisoned tradition, with sparse glimpses of the shining truth spotted in between the holes in the pointless dialect and rigor that defines the tradition. Self and Unself somehow takes these glimpses and brings them together with a crystal clarity. I can't say it's the best philosophical work I've ever read, but I can say with confidence that it is the most essential philosophical work of the 21st century, and that Darren Allen is our greatest contemporary author.
I first read Self and Unself at a difficult time in my life, and I come back to it whenever I feel unsure of the road ahead. A book can never replace people, but it can show you that yes, really, someone else in this unbelievable world gets it, someone else has stood where you stand, and when you are alone against the entire world, that alone is enough to revive your courage.
It is a miracle that a work like this can come out of the West, and be written in English, a language thoroughly disenchanted by Latin influence and the developments of the Norman conquest. Western philosophy is, as a whole, a poisoned tradition, with sparse glimpses of the shining truth spotted in between the holes in the pointless dialect and rigor that defines the tradition. Self and Unself somehow takes these glimpses and brings them together with a crystal clarity. I can't say it's the best philosophical work I've ever read, but I can say with confidence that it is the most essential philosophical work of the 21st century, and that Darren Allen is our greatest contemporary author.
June 6, 2021
I'll put a five star rating because it's very difficult to find fault in this book. Read it over the course of the last month, and found it a delightfully accurate portrayal of basically everything, with fresh/age old insights and a relatively clear steering toward how one might gain more contentment in life; living. Toward the end, as Darren began describing the end of days, I found a bizarre joy in the vision of what would come after the collapse, of a return to, or rather, maturation of the pre-civ golden age. Only qualm I have with it is I suppose now I'll have to be off getting rid of my awful ego now. What a bother.
August 1, 2024
Happy birthday, and sad birthday. Exciting birthday, and boring birthday. I hope you have all the birthdays today and every day.
With love and camaraderie always,
Ryan
With love and camaraderie always,
Ryan
June 26, 2025
Rare all encompassing philosophy, it does not shy away from anything. Very high chance of being really true, if not accurate, which is not to be expected. Besides that, it's a delight to read.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews