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The great brain suck : and other American epiphanies
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ISBN: 0226314677 1282005030 9786612005039 9780226314679 9780226314655 0226314650 9780226314662 0226314669 Year: 2008 Publisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press,

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More and more information is pumped into our media-saturated world every day, yet Americans seem to know less and less. In a society where who you are is defined by what you buy, and where we prefer to experience reality by watching it on TV, Eugene Halton argues something has clearly gone wrong. Luckily Halton, with scalpel-sharp wit in one hand and the balm of wisdom in the other, is here to operate on the declining body politic. His initial diagnosis is bleak: fast food and too much time spent sitting, whether in our cars or on our couches, are ruining our bodies, while our minds are weakened by the proliferation of electronic devices-TVs, computers, cell phones, iPods, video games-and their alienating effects. If we are losing the battle between autonomy and automation, he asks, how can our culture regain self-sufficiency? Halton finds the answer in the inspiring visions-deeply rooted in American culture-of an organic and more spontaneous life at the heart of the work of master craftsman Wharton Esherick, legendary blues singer Muddy Waters, urban critic Lewis Mumford, and artist Maya Lin, among others. A scathing and original jeremiad against modern materialism, The Great Brain Suck is also a series of epiphanies of a simpler but more profound life.

Bereft of reason : on the decline of social thought and prospects for its renewal.
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ISBN: 0226314626 Year: 1995 Publisher: Chicago (Ill.) : University of Chicago press,

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Bereft of reason : on the decline of social thought and prospects for its renewal
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ISBN: 0226314618 Year: 1995 Publisher: Chicago ; London University of Chicago Press

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Meaning and modernity: social theory in the pragmatic attitude
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ISBN: 0226723313 Year: 1986 Publisher: Chicago (Ill.) University press

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The meaning of things : domestic symbols and the self
Authors: ---
ISBN: 0521239192 052128774X 1107384605 1139167618 9780521287746 9781139167611 Year: 2002 Publisher: Cambridge Cambridge University Press

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The meaning of things is a study of the significance of material possessions in contemporary urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. Drawing on a survey of eighty families in Chicago who were interviewed on the subject of their feelings about common household objects, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton provide a unique perspective on materialism, American culture, and the self. They begin by reviewing what social scientists and philosophers have said about the transactions between people and things. In the model of 'personhood' that the authors develop, goal-directed action and the cultivation of meaning through signs assume central importance. They then relate theoretical issues to the results of their survey. An important finding is the distinction between objects valued for action and those valued for contemplation. The authors compare families who have warm emotional attachments to their homes with those in which a common set of positive meanings is lacking, and interpret the different patterns of involvement. They then trace the cultivation of meaning in case studies of four families. Finally, the authors address what they describe as the current crisis of environmental and material exploitation, and suggest that human capacities for the creation and redirection of meaning offer the only hope for survival. A wide range of scholars - urban and family sociologists, clinical, developmental and environmental psychologists, cultural anthropologists and philosophers, and many general readers - will find this book stimulating and compelling.

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