Why grow up? : subversive thoughts for an infantile age /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Neiman, Susan.
Edition:First American edition.
Imprint:New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.
Description:231 pages ; 20 cm
Language:English
Subject:
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/10337149
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9780374289966 (hardcover)
0374289964 (hardcover)
9780374713201 (e-book)
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:In "Why Grow Up? "the philosopher Susan Neiman asks not just why one should grow up but how. In making her case she draws chiefly from the thought of Kant and Rousseau, who articulated very different theories on the proper way to "come of age." But these thinkers complement each other in seeking a "path between mindlessly accepting everything you're told and mindlessly rejecting it," and in learning to live without despair in a world marked by painful realities and uncertainties.
Description
Summary:

Our culture is obsessed with youth-and why not? What's the appeal of growing old, of gaining responsibilities and giving up on dreams, of steadily trading possibility for experience?
The philosopher Susan Neiman argues that the absence of appealing models of maturity is not an accident: by describing life as a downhill process, we prepare young people to expect-and demand-very little from it. In Why Grow Up? she challenges our culture of permanent adolescence, turning to thinkers including Kant, Rousseau, and Arendt to find a model of maturity that is not a matter of resignation. In growing up, we move from the boundless trust of childhood to the peculiar mixture of disappointment and exhilaration that comes with adolescence. Maturity, however, means finding the courage to live in a world of painful uncertainty without giving in to dogma or despair. A grown-up, Neiman writes, helps to move the world closer to what it should be while never losing sight of what it is.
Why Grow Up? is a witty and concise argument for the value of maturity as a subversive ideal: a goal rarely achieved entirety, and all the more worth striving for.

Physical Description:231 pages ; 20 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780374289966
0374289964
9780374713201