A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered
by M. Scott Peck
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Book Summary Information
Author: M. Scott PeckEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-03-01
ISBN: 055337317X
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Bantam
Book Reviews of A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered
Book Review: Mixed Feelings--worth about 3.5 stars IMHO
Summary: 3 Stars
Herein, Peck maps his definition of civility onto organizations in 4 parts: civility, marriage, business, & community. He says p. 347: "My basic identity...is that of a scientist before that of a religious person." While largely applying a scientific perspective, he explicitly & IMHO unnecessarily inserts Christian biased references to the p. 51 "God of my Christian orientation" & a plethora of Christian Bible stories. Though he effectively employs Jungian psychology, he attributes serendipity to God's grace rather than Jung's synchronicity. But, per the Hasidic master, Seer of Lublin--"Be careful not to speak differently from the way people commonly speak, for example, using very pious language or even expressing a more than ordinary humility" (in Buxbaum's "Jewish Spiritual Practices"). Peck also overlooks the Dalai Lama's innate civility. Furthermore, his politically correct/modern liberalism, applying his value judgments to others, over generalizations, connotations vs. denotations, utopian social engineering, alternating he-she paragraphs (chapters would have made it less choppy), verbosity, & naiveté detract from an otherwise valuable work.
He makes some unusual, but edifying observations on marriage: p. 133: "For psychotherapists, the greatest problem in healing marriages is not too much separateness, but too much togetherness," pithy remarks on psychotherapy (e.g. when to enter/leave it, mental blocks/`Swiss cheese intelligence'/`hole in the mind'), the relationship between depression & attachment, transference (an outdated mapping of childhood responses into adulthood), & esp. narcissism (p. 106: "Sometimes narcissists seem unable to recognize the "personhood" of other people...unable to recognize the difference between themselves & others at all"), creatively relating it to Buber's I-Thou. He states p. 109: "Narcissism is the principal precursor of incivility. One way of looking at narcissism is to regard it as a type of thinking disorder" though p. 111: "We are all born narcissistic...we can & routinely do grow out of it." He then applies civility & psychology to business: organizational myths, primitive functioning in groups, flexibility & balance (p. 310: "A business needs both its hard-liners & its soft-liners to maintain the tension & it needs the form of community to maintain the tensions right in the forefront of the organization's collective consciousness. Business fails ethically when either the soft-liner or the hard-line positions are so in ascendancy that the debate between them becomes silenced"). Then the commercial: his Foundation for Community Encouragement's community bldg workshops. Their description reminds me of organizational development team bldg, the Landmark Forum & the Mankind Project's New Warrior Weekends.
He states that p. 112: "I once defined mental health as an `ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs,' but strangely he predicted his workshops would appeal to churches vs. businesses--his philosophy needed practicality of reality! For example, he espouses p. 266 "servant leadership" (an oxymoron), a return to God, & community (p. 283: "A true community is a `group of all leaders') saving the world vs. Peter Block's insightful "Stewardship," leadership is from the front not the back or sides, Jung's individuation & personality types, & theories of evolution/history (big man vs. tide of events). In summary, Peck does well with psychology but is too idealistic IMHO. I have mixed feelings about this book--and it isn't fun reading either.
Summary of A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered
Just as The Road Less Traveled provided hope and guidance for individuals seeking growth, this major new work by M. Scott Peck, M.D., offers a needed prescription for our deeply ailing society. Our illness is Incivility--morally destructive patterns of self-absorption, callousness, manipulativeness, and materialism so ingrained in our routine behavior that we do not even recognize them. There is a deepening awareness that something is seriously wrong with our personal and organizational lives. Using examples from his own life, case histories, and dramatic scenarios of businesses that made a conscious decision to bring civility to their organizations , Dr. Peck demonstrates how change can be effected and how we and our organizations can be restored to health. This wise, practical, and radical book is a blueprint for achieving personal and societal well-being.Happiness Books
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