Paperback / softback | |
March 26, 1999 | |
9780878407156 | |
English | |
336 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
1 Pounds (US) | |
$29.95 USD, £22.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
The Banality of Good and Evil
Moral Lessons from the Shoah and Jewish Tradition
Drawing on lessons primarily from the shoah but also from well-known obedience and altruism experiments, My Lai, and the civil rights movement, Blumenthal deftly interweaves insights from psychology, history, and social theory to create a new way of looking at human behavior. Blumenthal identifies the factors — social hierarchy, education, and childhood discipline—that shape both good and evil attitudes and actions.
Considering how our religious and educational institutions might do a better job of encouraging goodness and discouraging evil, he then makes specific recommendations for cultivating goodness in people, stressing the importance of the social context of education. He reinforces his ideas through stories, teachings, and case histories from the Jewish tradition that convey important lessons in resistance and goodness.
Appendices include the ethical code of the Israel Defense Forces, material on non-violence from the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center, a suggested syllabus for a Jewish elementary school, and a list of prosocial sources on the Web, as well as a complete bibliography.
If people can commit acts of evil without thinking, why can't even more commit acts of kindness? Writing with power and insight, Blumenthal shows readers of all faiths how we might replace patterns of evil with empathy, justice, and caring, and through a renewed attention to moral education, perhaps prevent future shoahs.
About the Author
Reviews
"Learned, eloquent, and engaging."—Ethics
"Blumenthal has written an unusually well reasoned, well researched, and well presented book involving his post-Holocaust moral and religious reflections on preventing future genocides . . . Blumenthal's effort to integrate his science-based findings about values with selected prosocial teachings in Judaism and to commend this approach for those of other faiths adds a traditional richness to his work."—Choice
"It is a pleasure and a privilege to offer this review of this excellent book Blumenthal is to be commended for the brilliance and the erudition with which he has handled a very difficult and provocative subject in this masterful work."—Conservative Judaism
Endorsements
"One of the perplexing questions to emerge from the Holocaust is what led some people to reach out and help the victims while others turned their backs or became perpetrators. If these questions could be answered it might help future generations to create a more caring society in which goodness is more common than evil. With this compelling book David Blumenthal has moved us significantly closer to that goal. But he has done more than just that. He challenges readers to confront their own behavior and ask whether they live their lives in a way that facilitates the doing of good."—Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies, Emory University
"Original in its approach as well as its interpretation."—Elie Wiesel, University Professor and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Boston University
Georgetown University Press | |
Moral Traditions | |
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Paperback / softback | |
March 26, 1999 | |
9780878407156 | |
English | |
336 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
1 Pounds (US) | |
$29.95 USD, £22.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Other Titles from Moral Traditions
The Aesthetics of Solidarity
Radical Sufficiency
The Structures of Virtue and Vice
Other Titles in RELIGION / Ethics
Pope Francis and the Transformation of Health Care Ethics
Islamic Ethics of Life
A Just Peace Ethic Primer
Other Titles in Jewish studies
Growing in the Shadow of Antifascism
Early Jewish Cookbooks
A Best-Selling Hebrew Book of the Modern Era