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Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation
Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his story--up to a certain point. "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground," he said, "and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened." It is precisely this point--that of a people faced with the end of their way of life-
...morePaperback, 187 pages
Published
April 30th 2008
by Harvard University Press
(first published September 22nd 2006)
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Like Williams's Shame and Necessity, this book engages in ethical investigation by studying a distant culture. But Williams was looking at canonized works of Greek literature, while Lear is dealing with the much more obscure history of the Crow tribe. It is admirable that Lear is willing to explore material far outside the philosophical mainstream: explaining what it means to embrace the virtues of the chickadee, for example. The payoff in new, interesting raw philosophical material is substant...more
The following premise piques your curiosity when you pick up this book: “When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground,” he said, “and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.” Then, you realize that the author takes too many detours and repetitions to get to his point. Sometimes you hope that his philosophical musings are backed up by something more substantial--like ethnography or voice narrative. "Radical Hope" is an interesting read, i...more
This book addresses something I've been thinking about constantly for some time--that is how people who have been stripped of a context in which to live as human beings manage to imagine survival and then to venture forth on that imagined thread. The author does not pretend to be an expert on Crow Indian culture of but he uses the situation of cultural collapse they found themselves in the late 1900's to examine the
difference between wistful or magical thinking and radical hope springing ...more
difference between wistful or magical thinking and radical hope springing ...more
I enjoyed reading this book for its literary value - Lear takes a fairly poetic approach to the cultural devastation experienced by the Crow people - but I'm not sure I really buy all the philosophical points he is selling. Definitely interesting, though. Also, I read it just after a Bernard Williams book, so it felt light and fun by contrast.
This is a book mining the effects of cultural devastation from the point of view of one Native American Indian tribe - the Crow of Montana. It is an interesting premise, and well thought through, but should have been just a long New Yorker type article. The author is very repetitive, and as a philosphy professor, the book is kind of hybrid between accessible by lay audiences and being academic. My book group got a good 1 and half discussion out of it though - better read if discussed with oth...more
brin stevens wrote a cool review in the harvard divinity school bulletin about the film 'children of men.' he talked about lear's book as trying to do something similar to the film...envisioning the end of civilization in order to change the present and our ways of being in the world.
A study of the autobiographical testimony of the last great chief of the Crow nation, Plenty Coups, reflecting on the devastation of the Crow's traditional way of life. "The goodness of the world transcends one's limited and vulnerable attempts to understand it."
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especially enlightening/thought-provoking to read after driving through so many Indian reservations (including the Crow Reservation and Little Big Horn battlefield) out west.
Lear examines how Plenty Coup, the last Chief of the Crow Nation, overcomes the end to the Native American culture. Philosophically enlightening
Most interesting when discussing the paradigm shift involved in the genesis of the Crow culture.
what is our buffalo?
OIL.
CAPITALISM.
what would our culture be like without them?
OIL.
CAPITALISM.
what would our culture be like without them?
You could live on this book alone I think.
Korri
marked it as to-read
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