FINALLY finished. Fascinating, will require much reflection. Took me a long time to get through. Will also bear referring back to.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Tuesday, August 09, 2016
the spirit catches you and you fall down
Enjoyed. It's good to be reminded, as a pretty sure atheist and pro-science person, that there are systems of belief that are incompatible with mine but that have no less power for the people who hold them than mine do for me.
And an interesting, insightful reportage of the problems that can arise from committed altruism when that commitment, that moral clarity, is not tempered by humility. Maybe that's just my own baggage that I'm bringing to it but one of the most resonant passages for me was at the end, when Fadiman is talking to the Harvard professor who chides Lia's doctors (indirectly) for their arrogance. Much more satisfying than Strangers Drowning.
Some kinship with the meditation at the end of Awakenings, as well, in that illness-as-more-than-sum-of-medical-charts sense.
And an interesting, insightful reportage of the problems that can arise from committed altruism when that commitment, that moral clarity, is not tempered by humility. Maybe that's just my own baggage that I'm bringing to it but one of the most resonant passages for me was at the end, when Fadiman is talking to the Harvard professor who chides Lia's doctors (indirectly) for their arrogance. Much more satisfying than Strangers Drowning.
Some kinship with the meditation at the end of Awakenings, as well, in that illness-as-more-than-sum-of-medical-charts sense.
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