Adel van de geest: een vergeten ideaal

by Rob Riemen

November 1943. Vanuit de staatsgevangenis in Rome schrijft de Italiaans-Joodse uitgever en humanist Leone Ginzburg een brief aan zijn jonge vrouw. Enkele dagen daarvoor is hij door de nazi's gearresteerd vanwege zijn werk voor een verzetskrant. Ginzburg eindigt zijn brief met de oproep ‘Wees dapper’ – zoals hij zelf in de geest van Socrates probeert te handelen, ondanks de martelingen en de angst om zijn lot. De brief zal zijn laatste blijken te zijn.
Ginzburg heeft zijn strijd tegen het fascisme met de dood moeten bekopen. Zijn leven in dienst van het humanisme en het Europese beschavingsideaal is exemplarisch voor wat Rob Riemen de ‘adel van de geest’ noemt in dit gelijknamige boek. Aan de hand van meeslepende gesprekken en verhalen neemt Riemen ons mee naar onder anderen Socrates, Spinoza, Nietzsche en Thomas Mann, en houdt hij een hartstochtelijk en overtuigend pleidooi voor klassieke humanistische waarden: de cultivering van de menselijke ziel; de onophoudelijke zoektocht naar waarheid; de moed om zelf wijs te durven zijn.
Adel van de geest, waarvan de vertaalrechten aan twintig landen zijn verkocht en dat alom wordt gewaardeerd als een klein literair meesterwerk, is een onmisbare handleiding voor weldenkende mensen in turbulente tijden, en tegelijkertijd een verheffende wandeling door de wereldliteratuur. Een essentieel boek voor lezers op zoek naar wijsheid, over de grote vragen van nu – die van alle tijden blijken te zijn.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Essays, Contemporary, Academic

187 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Open Loop Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Rob Riemen were a writer with a different voice, who punctuated his ideas with footnotes and framed his anecdotes with jargon, his elegant volume, “Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal,” might be on heavy rotation in philosophy courses worldwide. But Riemen is a humanist with a literary impulse who takes great pleasure in the creative act. Writing, as he says, in “the small hours of the night” when he can put his work at the Nexus Institute, the independent organization he runs in The Netherlands, to one side and explore the terrain of his own mind, Riemen has produced a text that eschews the traditional definition of critical analysis; it is neither an extended philosophical essay, nor a work of academic criticism. For this reason it is hard to decide whether to shelve it in one’s personal library beside Anthony Kenny’s “A Brief History of Western Philosophy,” or if it instead belongs next to Joan Didion’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.” Yet it is this protean nature that makes “Nobility of Spirit” as much a pleasure to read as Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha,” or Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.” Riemen understands that in enjoyable reading there is opportunity for learning.

A passionate student of the German writer Thomas Mann, Riemen expresses his ideas in stories, animating conversations between great thinkers of the past. He breathes life into the meditative walks of Friedrich Nietzsche, and recounts Socrates’ trial in Athens, giving us a ringside seat for one of Western philosophy’s most crucial speeches. By doing so, he encourages contemporary readers to reconnect with some of history’s most elegant concepts: Beauty, Truth, Goodness, the importance of language. These concepts were once impartial moral guideposts, but today they are subjective measures whose definitions often rely upon individual opinion for their import. Riemen suggests that there is still room for certainty, that there are unassailable truths, and that morality and human decency have a crucial role to play in contemporary culture:

“No, for the sake of human dignity the free individual is not allowed to ignore universal, timeless values. Intellectuals in particular should resist this kind of nihilism. Not everything is allowed. Human freedom is in essence relative; it is subordinate to the immortal and never completely attainable ideal of human dignity. Furthermore, absolute freedom obliterates justice. There are transcendental absolute values that have priority and are obligatory for everyone.” –“Nobility of Spirit,” page 70

Rob Riemen sees his life “as a kind of mission to restore the meaning of certain words.” When one closes the covers of “Nobility of Spirit” for the last time, one does so with the sense that communication itself is at the very heart of being human, and that in the face of incredible challenge one has the resources to persevere.

~Carlin M. Wragg, Editor, Open Loop Press

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Apodera-te do tempo! Usa-o! Tem consciência de cada dia, cada hora! Se não tiveres cuidado, o tempo pode eclipsar-se muito fácil e rapidamente!» Esta auto-advertência no seu diário é apenas um dos muitos exemplos da maneira como Mann partilha a convicção do seu adorado mentor, Goethe, de que o tempo é o nosso bem mais precioso.

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an encomium to some very old-fashioned values, as one might glean from the near-disappearance of the first word in the title (the Dutch word "adel" has connotations of gentility and modesty absent from the English translation). But the $64,000 question is: how many of those old-fashioned values do we miss?

Riemen, a devoted student of Thomas Mann, writes with unapologetic nostalgia for the great European culture that was. (In fact, I picked this up after hitting another wall in The Magic Mountain, hoping for succor or at least some insight into the author: I think it might have helped a little.) He makes the case for the German idea of Bildung - which encompasses, but goes far beyond, a liberal arts education - in the face of 20th century nihilism, and moral relativism. And following a little-remembered French philosopher named Julien Benda, he indicts European intellectuals for their induction into politics, and subsequent culpability in the crimes of Nazism and Stalinism.

Deriving from a number of conversations - one from The Magic Mountain, one from the beginning of Plato's Republic, another from Camus's diary, between the young writer, Sartre and André Malraux - Riemen surveys the ways in which intellectuals try to engage politically. Enlightenment rationalist triumphalism, dogmatic humanism, the platonic reign of the philosophers - all have unspooled into horrific tragedies. Rather, he suggests, philosophers ought to keep themselves separate from the public sphere, focusing on art, on the world of Forms, on the never-ending refinement of human knowledge and moral character.

Thus the argument, as far as I got it. The author's sentimentality, the driving force of his rhetorical engine, sometimes comes at the cost of cogency. Without further evidence, it's hard to accept his claim that past European authors and thinkers possessed some intangible ideal of greatness now lost to us. But that shouldn't detract from his arguments for greater moral courage and the depoliticisation of art. To reject out of hand anything we may learn from the old European morality is to err on the side of Whiggism; to do the opposite is utterly anachronistic.

[Ariadna Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

¿Cuál es el papel del intelectual en nuestro tiempo? ¿Qué se requiere en un mundo que ha criticado sus cimientos y en eso se ha derrumbado? ¿Debemos conformarnos con el devenir de la violencia e irracionalidad?

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um livro fundamental e extremamente atual.

Análise no blog: http://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2...

[Hugo Fidalgo · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Será possível algo imortal exprimir-se de uma forma contemporânea?»

[Luisfer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se sale encandilado de mentes y valores que hicieron una civilización; soplar las ascuas siempre es generoso. Aunque pesa la tendencia a la nostalgia del tiempo perdido; aunque el libro incurra en esa pereza, bien intencionada (escrito separado, nótese), de equiparar ideologías que por algo son antagónicas (y la no ideología, esa pureza de espíritu, es ideología pura); aunque el elitismo desborde y todo tenga ese halo de hombría burguesa dada al deleite intelectual, algo despótico (en versión ilustrada)... Y sin embargo, entre Thomas Mann, Camus, Platon, Socrates, Spinoza, Ginzburg (Leone, que ya se dijo que aquí sólo piensan ellos)... no se puede más que salir mejor. El empeño de recuperar "una idea olvidada" corresponde a un hombre que no lo habría escrito si una mujer no le alienta. Ya se sabe. Esa intrahistoria que hace de presentación forma parte del deleite general. Antes hay un prólogo ¿desganado? de Steiner

[David Ranney · Rating 3 out of 5]

The politicization of the spirit is nothing other than another reduction of reality. Just as commercialization—the spirit blinded by gold, that little god—can see the world only in terms of profit and loss, so the politicized spirit can see only the political interests of society. Humanity’s division is as old as humanity itself. There are always the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. What is just? Who is entitled to what? Like humanity, the politicized spirit is divided, for it can see with only one eye at a time. Its right eye looks through the glass of “property” and sees primarily wealth, order, law, preservation, tradition, the past, culture, and the nation. The left eye looks through the glass of “lack of property” and sees poverty, disorder, injustice, renewal, the future, science, solidarity and the international.

Universal and timeless truth, goodness, beauty, and justice are reduced to historical, socially determined political views. They lose their universality because that which is historical and political always divides. For in social reality there are always those who work hard and those who do not work, families and those without family, our own people and others, our traditions and that which we do not understand, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. The politicized spirit fosters these distinctions and bases its values therein. What is good and what is evil? What is true and what is not? What is beautiful and what is ugly? These questions, which never before received a definitive answer, now have answers on the basis of a historical-social analysis that permits only one correct answer: that which the left eye sees or that which the right eye sees. Left or right, one or the other, is always wrong. No matter what, the answer is by definition political.

The world of the spirit is silenced. There is no need any longer for a wisdom and art that isn’t always unequivocal, that creates doubt, is intangible, requires receptivity. There is but one view of what is “good” morality, “good” art, philosophy, literature, truth, the right way to live. The proprietor of this “wisdom” is the modern philosopher-king: party ideologue, pundit, leftist, or conservative thinker.

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“Aren’t we all responsible for the lack of values? Shouldn’t we be the ones to openly declare that we were wrong and that moral values do exist?” That thought never left Camus again. Neither “society’s interests” nor “historical necessity” could release him from his intellectual responsibility to serve civilization, to reason candidly, and to speak the truth. Together with Thomas Mann and Julien Benda, he came to see that the politicization of the spirit is also a kind of nihilism. The individual is no longer a spiritual being with questions to which no answer is forthcoming. The question about the meaning of life is replaced by the goal. The goal is happiness, and politics will provide that. No worries, no doubts, no questions. Myth or reason, tradition or science, right or left: one or the other will show the way—the way to the perfect society and the perfect human being. But the nobility of spirit has been cast out. The perfect barbarians have arrived.

[Ricardo Gomes · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The truth sets us free because it has power over us; it gives us instructions, not the other way around. However, this absolute, inaccessible truth that our consciences can know but never possess, cannot, by definition, be curtailed by any transient form of truth. Therefore, no mortal can ever own the truth. Orthodoxy - whether theist or atheist - becomes fundamentalism when this essential truth is not respected. The ever-changing world constantly demands new forms for revealing the truth. Another word for theses forms is "culture". Annihilation of culture signifies annihilation of the truth. And annihilating the truth is nothing than depriving the individual of dignity."

[Ed]

A simple yet complex book on how the world appears to lack a true understanding of freedom and democracy. Although slim by page count, it is deep in thought. It takes some time to digest the material but it has been an enlightened reading adventure for me.

[Evan Milner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was all over the place.

Riemen makes the well worn humanist case that human dignity is to be found in the 'cultivation of the human soul' by way of the 'quest for truth, love, beauty, goodness, and freedom' of a lasting kind. All very noble sounding, but also remarkably vague. However, Riemen takes just the right approach in his first chapter by examining what these terms meant in the life and work of a particular individual, the writer Thomas Mann. He brilliantly traces Mann's development from his early cultural chauvinism—'he makes the almost classical error of equating cultural conservatism (preserving a spiritual heritage) with political conservatism (maintaining an existing social order)'—to his later championing of a brand of humanism that bridges the purely aesthetic with political and social commitments. He sums up the chief lesson as follows: "clinging to forms that have outlived themselves is not merely pointless but actually dangerous. To remain faithful to values is precisely why individuals must be open to a change in forms". This openness to change is compatible with the quest for eternal truths, according to Riemen, because

only when humans honor their eternal questions can they remain receptive to the values and meanings without which there is no human dignity. Being receptive will not bring eternal life on earth—earthly existence is and will always be transitory—but it will bring a survival of what ought to be eternal…

This is a very effective defence of tradition conceived as continuity maintained through change.

The second, central chapter, a celebration of the notion that dialogue is the means to truth, is where things start to go wrong. This can be illustrated in one short quote: 'one basic standard of civilization still holds true: no violence is needed to bring about political change'. This is both naive and ignorant, for it overlooks the enormous amount of violence required to prop up the status quo and even the pre-conditions for the sorts of elevated philosophical dialogue that Rieman treasures. In fact he goes further, embracing the very instruments of violence as the guarantee of his notion of 'freedom' and 'civilization':

The symbol of military might, the Pentagon, and the symbol of prosperity, the World Trade Centre, where people from many countries, from all across the globe, worked, became the target of violence precisely because both buildings symbolised the conditions of security and prosperity that allow Western civilization, with its values and freedoms, to continue to exist.

Thereafter he constructs a crude strawman that purports to represent criticism of the war on terror and uses it to put the intellectual opponents of the war on trial for moral treason. All of the nuance that was found in the previous chapter, when the enemy was European fascism, goes out the window when dealing with the threat of militant Islam: eg. 'there is no difference ... between anti-Semitism, anti-Islamism, and anti-Americanism'. Indeed, anti-Americanism is much on Riemen’s mind:

the anti-American mind attributes a moral legitimacy to the cynical murder of three thousand innocent people. Obviously, this murderous assault was a crime, but... there is capitalism, globalization, imperialism, militarism, own fault, not without blame. Thus the victims are to blame, the attackers are not so blameworthy, and the evil of murder is not so terrible.

This sort of rhetoric was all the rage in the mid 2000s among the morally militant (Christopher Hitchens was a master at deploying it against his ideological foes). But all one has to do is flip it around to see that the moral rectitude flows along a geographical, racial, and economic axis—the sarcasm that is immediately obvious in the above quote would not be as immediately evident if he were to write, for instance: 'obviously this [insert Western atrocity of choice] was a crime, but... there is terrorism, fundamentalism...' You get the idea. There is no number of Raymond Aron quotes about the moral failure of intellectuals that can distract from Riemen’s blatant hypocrisy in this chapter and the book never recovers.

In Riemen’s defence, the book is quite well written. There is the occasional cringeworthy allusion—the sight of Ground Zero in the wake of the 9/11 attacks apparently brought to his mind the cry of "The horror! The horror!" from Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Well, perhaps. On the other hand, Riemen’s fictional excursuses in the personas of Nietzsche, Leone Ginzburg, etc. are mostly successful at capturing these author's voices and deploying them to serve his argument (though I found his reimagining of Socrates' apology less convincing).

And finally, it did make me want to read more Thomas Mann, so that's something.

[Travis Bow · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Why be wealthy?” Socrates forced Plato to ask himself. Why follow politics, or expectations, or pursue the glory of war and patriotism? Why do anything? What does it all mean?

In Plato’s accelerated three-year experience of life, he found that intelligence, affluence, loyalty, and bravery had little correlation to a person’s goodness, that talk of “the common good” or doing what was best “for the people” was mostly rationalization for doing what was best for one’s self, that even the best people give in to their basest passions and desires, and that few resist the pull of conforming to their environment.

In short, Plato – like the preacher who wrote the Jewish book of Ecclesiastes – tried wealth, fame, pleasure, and everything else under the sun – and found that it was all vanity, vapor, chasing after the wind.

But Socrates – and Joseph Goodman, Goethe, Thomas Mann, and Leone Ginzburg, in their own ways – answer Plato’s despair with “nobility of spirit,” while the Ecclesiastical Preacher answers his despair with “fear God and keep his commandments.”

The disease is the same. Without morality or virtue of some kind, the nihilism of Nietzsche and the hedonism of Callicles destroy culture and society and leave us “at the mercy of the present and of mortality alike… adrift in a meaningless universe, haunted by lack of time.” By ousting eternity and reducing people to soulless beings, they teach that “there is nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry” (in the Preacher’s words), that one may as well “obey the ruling power; adapt, and try to amas as much power for yourself as possible” (in the words of Ginzburg’s tempter).

The cures for this disease look the same. Both the Preacher and Rob Riemen’s assembled witnesses seek a way to rise above, to avoid “wasting your life with all sorts of things that… are of no importance at all.” Both prescribe dedication to something greater than our own immediate desires, the practice of virtue and quest for truth, the bravery to spend a life doing hard things instead of easy things.

The cures even carry the same warning label. “Your entire life, everything you’ve accomplished, [could] rest on nothing but one huge, ghastly error,” warns Ginzburg’s tempter. “If we have hoped in Christ only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied,” says Paul the Apostle. In other words, virtue and morality are all well and good, but holding to them closely will almost certainly make your life harder… a pointless and pitiful exercise if there isn’t some transcendent reason to do so.

But the cures are not the same. The virtue of Rob Riemen – “nobility of spirit” – is predicated on a contradiction.

On the one hand Riemen argues that virtue (and art, and beauty) have meaning because humans have a “double nature,” an existence that is both physical and spiritual, that “perfection of the soul” is the goal, that we “are more than our physical selves” and that “only the soul can teach us mortals what is truth.” On the other hand – often in the same breath – he dismisses religion and the divine, making “the soul” and “the spiritual” mere symbols undermining his own foundation. He argues against Nietzsche’s conclusions (that “there are no immortal, universal, timeless values because there is no timelessness, no transcendence”), but tacitly accepts the starting point that make Nietzsche’s conclusions inevitable (that “God is dead” and “faith is the absolute lie”).

The argument is circular. Riemen wants virtue, morality, and selflessness. He admits—even insists—that these things require some sort of transcendent value or spiritual existence. However, he doesn’t want a real God or real soul or real transcendence, so he defines those terms in a vague sense that reduces them to synonyms for what the culture currently thinks of as good (a standard which is easy to reduce to what the right people in the culture think of as good and ultimately to what people I like think of as good).

Riemen, like Socrates, puts his tongue firmly in his cheek, says, “This, I assure you, is what my ‘God’ commands,” and means nothing more than “this is what makes me feel virtuous.”

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Without a doubt, the three short essays in this book are thought provoking. Though not its core subject, Nobility of Spirit has been a serendipitous installment in my recent reading on the philosophy and historical background of liberal education. Other reviews have noted Mr. Riemen's nostalgia for old European values; I echo these reviews, but would also add my admiration for his enthusiasm in their defense. He draws on a great and lengthy history and infuses new interest in the old "conversations" (of Socrates, Spinoza, Camus, and others) which are a large part of the text.

Nobility of Spirit is not the clearest or most exhaustive book ever written. Mr. Riemen leaves a good number of things unsaid, many terms undefined, and many questions unanswered— some worthy questions are not even asked. But I don't mind this so much. These omissions do not detract from the depth of the thought presented. They, and the elegant language which pervades the whole volume, make Nobility of Spirit an essay of the best kind— a roundabout journey the path of which is its most interesting feature.

I leave this book full of thoughts and questions and a new view of what Mr. Riemen considers the "spirit" to be. Most of all, I'm eager to return to some classic texts and begin new conversations with old thinkers. I'm inspired to continue and to be brave by this little volume.

[Aletheia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 Interesante, informativo y generador de debate. Dividido en cuatro partes, un preludio y 3 ensayos, da vueltas al tema de la responsabilidad personal y la autoexigencia moral y cultural. O lo que él llama "nobleza de espíritu".
Lo mejor: toca muchos temas en los que profundizar y pensar, menciona muchos autores del siglo XX que quiero conocer mejor.
Lo peor: no profundiza nada, no se moja, le falta cohesión interna y muchas veces da la sensación de que mezcla churras con merinas.

Es breve y denso, se lo recomendaría a cualquiera que esté interesado en leer más. Riemen es más un generador de debate que un intelectual, se nota que le encanta Sócrates y no solo por las 40 veces que lo menciona.

[Alejandro Enríquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has renewed my love for philosophy, human spirit and the noble art of being human.
I will recommend it to anyone interested in figuring out what this world has become.

It really portrays what ideas and ideals are. It is truly a Socratic text; dialogue is the cornerstone of the author’s arguments. There are no footnotes, everything is directly referenced in the text which gave me many leads to follow the thoughts through other authors and masterpieces, both ancient and current.

It is really short and although you may read it all at once, it happened to me that I needed to stop to think about what I had just read.

[Ricardo Melo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Colocar as questões certas proporciona maior discernimento da existência humana do que repetir sem critério respostas que outros nos dão."

“A obra de arte pode ter um efeito moral, mas exigir uma finalidade moral do artista é fazê-lo arruinar a sua obra.”

"Numa democracia que não respeita a vida intelectual nem é guiada por ela, a demagogia tem rédea livre, e o nível da vida nacional é rebaixado ao do ignorante e do inculto".

[Antonio Aguilar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un ensayo sobre el escenario filosófico de la Europa del último siglo, donde la falta de valores heredada del materialismo histórico, nihilismo y nietzscheismo está produciendo una sociedad que ha olvidado qué debe motivar y mover la vida de una persona y los pueblos a los que pertenece.

Si bien me gustaron muchas de las ideas del texto, había muchas otras partes a mi juicio redundantes e innecesarias.

[Arturo Herrero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nobleza de espíritu, ¿se puede evitar amar a un libro con ese título?

Bueno... Rob Riemen lo ha logrado. Ha logrado que no llegue a amar su libro por culpa de una escritura totalmente desestructura y caótica donde parece que importan más sus referentes Sócrates, Spinoza, Goethe, Thomas Mann, Walt Whitman y Albert Camus que sus ideas.

[Alejandro Tovar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este libro no es tanto de él. Propone regresar al discurso o a la tarea de los intelectuales, la nobleza del espíritu. Loable causa, ayudada de múltiples y largas citas de pasajes de muchos filósofos.
Tiene spoilers de La Montaña Mágica de Thomas Mann. Se pudo ahorrar todo el primer capítulo donde mas bien parece querer legitimarse o presumir su cercanía con el jet set intelectual del mundo.

[Jesús Ramón Ibarra · Rating 4 out of 5]

En 4 textos y un epílogo, Riemen echa luz sobre la necesidad de establecer conceptos como libertad, cultura, arte, justicia y nobleza, como los ejes de un ejercicio espiritual riguroso, en la permanente búsqueda de nobleza y civilización. Riemen traza sus ideas sobre postulados que orientaron el camino de occidente ante el terror de la guerra.

[Oscar Manuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jean-Clarence Lambert: "Hablar de poesía, frente al caos, es maravilloso". De estos tres ensayitos de Rob Riemen se puede concluir: Hablar de justicia, libertad, verdad, frente al caos, es maravilloso y necesario.

[Adrián · Rating 2 out of 5]

No me ha gustado mucho, realmente a veces da en la clave de la muerte de las esencias universales pero enseguida se pierde. La anécdota de Camus y Sartre me ha gustado. Mejor el libro de Javier Gomá Dignidad.

[Vi Otamendi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"... it is ultimately a cruel misunderstanding of youth to believe it will find its heart's desire in freedom."

[Ghislaine Cow · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Book Notes] PDF. A major springboard for further learning. Commit to reading entire bibliography.

[L B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some excellent thought provoking passages but this doesn't really define the ideal or argue for it. Some parts in the middle are more of a rant

[Johnny De Berggeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

voor mijn nog te lezen lijst;
Mann: Toverberg
Spinoza: Ethica
Plato: verdediging van socrates

[Bert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grote namen, grote woorden, maar wat zegt hij nu eigenlijk? Toch heeft dit boek mijn interesse in het werk van Thomas Mann gewekt.

[Huib · Rating 3 out of 5]

Herinner me er niets van

[María L · Rating 3 out of 5]

No estaba yo lo suficientemente concentrada pero hay reflexiones que sí que dan que pensar.

[Dagný · Rating 4 out of 5]

An thought provoking book! It has references to cultural and philosophical issues and authors I happen to be familiar with; at the same time it shines a spotlight on them to create a new insight. This new insight in turn makes me want to visit again with the corresponding issues/authors themselves. Indeed it is one of the themes of the book to have these conversations within our Western cultural commonwealth. The author reconstructs or mediates conversations which he thinks highlight our most important concerns, some Socratic ones and the ones taking place in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain.

Thomas Mann is very much at the forefront of the author's interest; if you are a fan of Thomas Mann as I am, this is very gratifying and actually one reason this book arose my curiosity in the first place.

At the core here are the searing questions about human nature and human spiritual abilities, truth and responsibility, democracy, culture, value, good and evil. The author keeps his quest well enough tethered to a recognizable social or historical reality so that the reader can find her way and follow the path of his thinking.

This books wants to encourage the Socratic quest of examining life and thus make it worth living.