This is a lucid book written with clarity and elegance. There are a total of eighteen essays most of which are relevant to living with psychiatric disability. It is very easy to become so engrossed in our own struggle to survive that we do not broaden our horizons and seek other thinking. These essays reveal a broad philosophical sweep around some of the moral dilemmas that are faced by us all: Why is freedom important, when is lying a matter of courtesy, when does tolerance go so far it condones fanaticism, what is the nature of equality, how can betrayal be defined, why respect nature, who and what is God, superstition and its role, the value of virtue and many more.

The ideas in each essay are clearly and logically developed. For example, the first essay on equality starts with assessing its meaning, clarifies the confusion between equality under the law, equality of abilities, equality by virtue of being human and demonstrates that equality means “all men…are equal in human dignity, which we all possess and which no one has a right to violate.” (p.19)

Practical dilemmas that arise from a belief in equality, including the equal distribution of goods, are then discussed and the essay ends with a lucid summation of the arguments. The construction of each essay is very similar although, of course, some are longer than others. In their reading I was sometimes brought up short. For example, the opening line of On Collective Responsibility – “The phrase ‘collective responsibility’ is bound up, in our minds, with associations of the worst kind.” (p.53) – totally contradicts my experience working within the Mental Health Consumer Movement.

So for those whose everyday life is a struggle to integrate contradictory experience and paradoxical behavior these essays are disappointing in their scope. The author exhibits the academic fallacy that his experience of both fascist and communist regimes and his training in rational thinking produces complete objectivity in his expression: an irony for he writes of concepts that cannot solely relate to human rationality. He assumes a universality in his conclusions but his essay on God is solely of a Christian God and his negative images are of a Eurocentric past. There is no awareness that an individual’s reality can change so markedly that the accidental betrayal of friends can be very real. And yet the possibility that this need not be deliberate and thus not ‘true’ betrayal is dismissed.
“in cases such as these, where we are dealing with individuals, we find it fairly easy to decide whether or not someone has been betrayed” (p.75).

Reading this collection of philosophical essays has been both pleasurable and enlightening, for Kolakowski writes with great clarity on subjects whose depth could easily cause confusion. It is fascinating to learn how elegantly such ideas can be expressed when the assumption is made that, generally, speaking, humanity functions in the same way. Perhaps in the future this distinguished author could address the paradox of an individuality that is so inconsistent that it contains within it the regular capacity to behave contrary to itself.

Categories: Philosophical, General, ClientReviews