RADICAL HOPE — ETHICS IN THE FACE OF CULTURAL DEVASTATION by Jonathan Lear. Harvard University Press, 2006
INTRODUCTION FROM BOOK JACKET
The last great Chief of the Crow Nation, Plenty Coups (which means “many achievements") told his story shortly before he died:
“When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground. They could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.”
This book explores the philosophical and ethical results when a group of people are faced with the end of their way of life. The Chief’s story raises a profound ethical question that transcends his time and challenges us all: How should one face the possibility that one's culture might collapse?
This question points to a vulnerability that affects all human beings since we are all inhabitants of civilization, and civilizations are themselves vulnerable to historical forces.
Using the available anthropology and history of the North American Indian tribes during their confinement to reservations, the book draws on philosophy and psychoanalytic theory to explore the Crow Nation at an impasse as it dealt with its inevitable collapse. Since we live at a time of a heightened sense that civilizations are themselves vulnerable, can we make any sense out of facing up to such a challenge courageously ourselves?
PART 1 — AFTER THIS, NOTHING HAPPENED (p1-52)
1) A peculiar vulnerability (p-10)
2) Protecting a way of life (p10-21)
3) Gambling with necessity (p21-26)
4) Was there a last coup? (p26-33)
5) Witness to death (p34-41)
6) Subject to death (p42-50)
7) The possibility of crow poetry (p50-52)
PART 2 — ETHICS AT THE HORIZON (p55-102)
8) The end of practical reason (p55-56)
9) Reasoning at the Abyss (p56-62)
10) A problem for moral psychology (p62-66)
11) The interpretation of dreams (p66-73)
12) Crow anxiety (p73-80)
13) The virtue of the Chickadee (p80-82)
14) The transformation of psychological structure (p82-91)
15) Radical hope (p91-100)
PART 3 — CRITIQUE OF ABYSMAL REASONING (p103-156)
16) The legitimacy of radical hope (p103-108)
17) Aristotle's method (p108-113)
18) Radical hope vs. mere optimism (p113-117)
19) Courage and hope (p118-123)
20) Virtue and imagination (p124-136)
21) Historical vindication (p136-142)
22) Personal vindication (p142-148)
23) Response to sitting bull (p148-154)
NOTES (p159-178)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (p179-180)
INDEX (p181-187)
BOOK REVIEWS
Scholar and author Lear (Therapeutic Action: An Earnest Plea for Irony) decodes the courage and wisdom of the last great chief of the Crow peoples, Plenty Coups (1848-1932), in this "philosophical anthropology" which seeks to pin down the way societies --- and the individuals who lead them --- carry on in the face of "cultural catastrophe."
The first part of the book explores the meaning of "nothing happened," explicating the idea that history itself comes to an end when the concepts a culture uses to define its world. In this case, concepts tied to hunting, battle, and honor become obsolete. The second part tackles the possibilities for "radical hope" in the face of inconceivable cultural change through courage, wisdom and flexibility, on both a personal and cultural level. The third part discusses the ramifications of "radical hope," both practically and philosophically.
Lear's study is probably too rigorous rhetorically to appeal to a wide audience, and his insistence that "we live at a time of a heightened sense that civilizations are themselves vulnerable" could have been supported with some explicit contemporary parallels, but for those interested in the final years of the Crow nation or the ethical challenges faced by victims of cultural destruction, this book will prove enlightening. Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
In this very engaging book, Lear (philosophy, Univ. of Chicago) examines the cultural collapse of the tribe of Native Americans known as the Crow Nation. He describes his analysis as a form of philosophical anthropology, as he focuses on the tribe's thinking and how its members attempted to live when their values and lifestyle were being threatened. He begins by examining the importance of bravery, courage, and honor within the tribe's culture and how these values were tested when the Crow were forced to abandon their warrior lifestyle and move onto a reservation. Their chief, Plenty Coups, inspired the Crow to use what Lear describes as "imaginative excellence" by trying to imagine what ethical values would be needed in their new lifestyle.
Plenty Coups did this with a combination of such traditional sources as dream interpretation and past ethical values, which gave the Crow an opportunity to overcome their despair and lead a meaningful life. In his analysis, Lear creatively uses philosophical ideas to explain what it must have been like for the Crow to make this radical change. Highly recommended for academic libraries. Library Journal Review
Lear, a psychoanalyst and professor of philosophy, delves into what he calls the blind spot of any culture: the inability to conceive of its own devastation. He molds his thoughts around a poignant historical model, the decimated nation of Crow Indians in the early decades of the twentieth century. The last Crow chief, Plenty Coups, told his white friend and biographer, Frank B. Linderman, about what happened to his people when the buffalo went away. They were despondent, and in Plenty Coups' words, After this nothing happened. Lear dissects this phenomenon, and the Crows' struggle for continued survival, in a highly esoteric discussion drawing on the writings of Aristotle, Plato, and other philosophers. What makes this discussion relevant to mainstream readers is his application of the blind-spot hypothesis to the present, in which the twenty-first century was ushered in by terrorist attacks, social upheavals, and natural catastrophes, leaving us with an uncanny sense of menace and a heightened perception of how vulnerable our civilizations are to destruction, as was the Crow's. DeborahDonovan. Booklist Review
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