Our Tragic Flaw: A Case for Nonviolence
by Parke Burgess (Paperback, 368 pp.)
(August 2008)
ISBN: 978-0-557-00026-5
List Price: $24.95
"A deep look at our perilous times, how we arrived here and how to live ethically and joyously by changing our interior lives. With a surprising balance between alarm and hope, Burgess presents what he sees as the only option for our survival as a species—the creation of a nonviolent society.
Intriguing, elegant and radical, insightful, fresh."
--Kirkus Discoveries
For the first time in the history of life, a single species has acquired the means to destroy itself and all other living things on the planet. By most indications—if we ignore what it says but examine what it does—this species seems perversely bent upon its own destruction. This species, of course, is us. How did we come to imperil ourselves? And why do we continue to do so? Is it too late to change course? If not, how can it be done?
Looking deeply into these questions, Our Tragic Flaw locates the root cause of our collective perversity in the “logic of violence.” Embedded in our biology, psychology, and culture, this logic is the tragic flaw that threatens humankind. But author Parke Burgess does not accept that this flaw inevitably dooms us to self-destruction. Another way is possible, now as never before. The logic of violence can, in fact, be transcended through a conscious and intentional process of deepening self-awareness, and a corresponding process of sharing power and increasing collaboration in our social relations.
Our Tragic Flaw challenges many established paradigms. It deconstructs most conventional assumptions of modern American culture, which are entirely steeped in the logic of violence. And it confronts violence in traditional leftist ideas about social change and revolutionary struggle. This book is visionary and revolutionary, providing a unique and persuasively argued perspective on the most urgent questions of our age.
This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the ultimate fate of our species.
