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Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (Dover Thrift Editions) Review

I had not read this growing up but wish I had. This is such a wonderful book. There are not many pictures in here - just a hand drawn map in one part of the book. Its excerpts from Thoreau's journal over the two year period when he lived on Walden's pond. He did not live like a recluse (he went in to Concord almost every day) so its not a book about living alone per se. Its more about reflecting on life, considering why one "is" and recognizing the beauty and mystery of nature around us every day, everywhere. Thoreau talks of regular daily things too like what it costs him to farm, or having cider, or building a chimney. The writing style is conversational, open, honest. He doesn't try to get tricky with words, he just tells it like he sees it. It's so beautiful. For anyone (like me) who indeed sees nature as their "religion" or sees the Great Spirit in every leaf, tree and bug, this book will be adored. So many wonderful messages, thoughts, woven throughout this book. Its an incredible work.

Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (Dover Thrift Editions) Overview

One of the great books of American letters and a masterpiece of reflective philosophizing. Accounts of Thoreau's daily life on the shores of Walden Pond outside Concord, Massachusetts, are interwoven with musings on the virtues of self-reliance and individual freedom, on society, government, and other topics.

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Best Buy for Society: The Basics (10th Edition) Review

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Society: The Basics (10th Edition) Review

I have to use this book to teach Sociology 101, and it frustrates me to no end. The book is a failure in every aspect.
Introductory textbooks have to simplify things, of course, but Macionis oversimplifies to the point where my students feel that their intelligence has been insulted, and worst of all, don't realize that the sociological concepts he's talking about are more than simple stereotypes and platitudes. He writes at one point, essentially, that "white people don't understand poverty", while every college freshmen knows that poor whites do exist, and that the author must be either a racist or an idiot for thinking otherwise. But what does the cultural construct of race have to do with social hierarchy and economics? Macionis doesn't start that conversation, you'll have to do it yourself.
And that's the general flaw of the book, Macionis writes chapter after chapter of superficial lists of concepts, theorists, and vocabulary, but never does the real work of laying out key sociological theories in a simple and thorough way, which of course is exactly what a textbook is for. As a teacher, I'm then forced to spend class time laying out the basics that Macionis didn't cover, everything from culture to symbolic interactionism. He'll give a few paragraphs to Weber, Marx, or Freud, but doesn't actually explain them in any coherent way.
Some things are completely absent. Macionis doesn't mention some key concepts, like social capital, and doesn't explain at all how sociologists use statistics. With glaring omissions like those, it's obvious that Macionis simply doesn't understand sociology.
Finally, the book just isn't organized in any worthwhile way. Macionis puts the three big "approaches" (StrucFunc, Conflict, Interaction) in the first chapter, before the students have been exposed to enough material to understand why they're useful or important. Then the rest of the book is a laundry list of concepts, clumped into chapters without any real theme. For example, chapter 4 is about social interaction, status, role, emotion, and humor, but gender, class, race, social groups, and social stratification are spread out in other chapters. Sure, the students learn their vocabulary, but it becomes very difficult to connect the different concepts to each other.
Macionis offers snippets of narrative to help explain the concepts, but nothing big enough for actual analysis, so you'll have to do it instead. All in all, this book does nothing that it's supposed to do, and should not be bought by anyone.

Society: The Basics (10th Edition) Overview

Seeing Sociology in Everyday LifeJohn Macionisshares his enthusiasm, excitement and teaching experiencewith a clear and engaging writing style that connects with students. Macionis', Society: The Basics,10th editionis designed to help students see the relevance of the sociological theories and ideas thatinform their own lives.Four main themes are found throughout the text:Seeing Sociology in Everyday LifeSocial DiversityGlobal ComparisonsCritical ThinkingThe new edition has an innovate new design, contemporary and compelling student applications, plus a wealth of author-written and author-managed supplemental material. This revision elevates Society's high standard of excellence, ensuring that it remains one of the foremost introductory sociology resources for students and instructors alike.

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Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other Review

What I love about this book is that a whole person wrote it. Turkle includes both original research and her everyday experiences as a mother and a friend.
Unlike many books about technology, this book does not try to tell a simple story about it being good or bad. Its goal seems to be to help us live a better life in partnership with technology. Do we really want to give up privacy online? Do we really want to text during family dinners? Do we really want our companionship to be replaced by robotic companionship?
Instead of pretending you must take a side for or against technology, "Alone Together" asks us to look out for ourselves and what is good for us. My favorite idea is that the point is not to get rid of technology but that each individual must stop and think where it fits in his or her life.
"Alone Together" is a great read. The language is sometimes poetic and sometimes funny, but always compelling. Its ideas and questions are powerful and are long-lasting.
Highly recommended for everyone.

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other Overview

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Utilitarianism Review

I read this book for a graduate Mill seminar in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.
John Stuart Mill, 1806-73, worked for the East India Co. helped run Colonial India from England. Minister of Parliament 1865-68 he served one term.
Mill develops a theory of morality in Utilitarianism. He argues against the group of people who think that morality is intuitive. Intuitionists think that God put morality in us, thus, morality is a priori. Moral rules or principles were programmed in us, we can see these rules, they are binding, however they do acknowledge that on a case by case basis we still need to use them to reason out the ultimate answer for a particular case.
Mill also believes that there are a set of moral principles that we ought to be thinking about. Intuitionists today think that case by case we can reason out what is right or wrong. However, they would be suspicious that of believing there were general moral principles. Intuitionists say it is not up to us to investigate what is right or wrong. Mill would disagree. Mill doesn't like Intuitionists theory because they can't prove their view; and they can't explain why "lying is wrong" as an example. In addition, they do not provide a list of these innate morals we are suppose to have, and they do not have a hierarchy for them to resolve the conflict between two morals when they arise.
Background on essay, written in 1861 came out in 3 magazine articles, pretty scanty which sometimes drives one crazy trying to deduce what Mill is saying. A lot of interpretation is necessary.
Chapter 2: The second paragraph is official statement of the theory.
"The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."
Happiness=pleasure and freedom from pain. This makes him a Hedonist philosophically.Higher Pleasures Doctrine- Jeremy Bentham says how valuable pleasure was based on 2 dimensions that we evaluate our experience of pleasure by, intensity and duration. Bentham says this determines quantity in pleasure. Bentham said this determined how much a given experience adds to a person's happiness.
Mill adds a third value to evaluate pleasure by and that's its quality, how good it is. Many don't understand Mill's idea that pleasure has value and quality. Most people think that Mill is really talking about quantity, or they don't believe one can be a hedonist, that pleasure is the only thing that has value, and yet think that there is something more to judging how valuable an experience is than the intensity and the duration of the pleasure it contains. So, they say that one of two things must be going on here. Of course, some people are sure it is one thing, and some are sure it is another. Either what Mill is talking about when you get right down to it is quantity in pleasure and different experiences, or all the different things he says about quality can be somehow resolved into quantity. So that really what is going on is that when Mill talks about a pleasure being of a higher quality that just means that there is a lot more pleasure there that the quantity is much greater. Or, Mill is giving up on hedonism at this point and he is admitting that some things are valuable aside from pleasure. So, when he says an experience like reading a good book or something like that is more valuable than an experience of some kind of animalistic pleasure, that really what he is saying is this experience is more valuable for reasons that go beyond the amount of pleasure involved. In addition to how much pleasure is involved there is also that maybe the experience is more beautiful or more noble or something like that and this gives it additional value. So something other than the amount of pleasure involved gives it additional value. Mill can be a consistent hedonist and he can consistently say that pleasure is the only thing that can have value and yet it is still the case that some pleasures are just more valuable than other pleasures.

Utilitarianism Overview

This expanded edition of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism includes the text of his 1868 speech to the British House of Commons defending the use of capital punishment in cases of aggravated murder. The speech is significant both because its topic remains timely and because its arguments illustrate the applicability of the principle of utility to questions of large-scale social policy.

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