a review of
Murray Bookchin, Re-enchanting Humanity: A defense of the human spirit against anti-humanism, misanthropy, mysticism and Primitivism (London: Cassell, 1995) 284 pp
In this book Murray Bookchin is out to clobber the competition. He’s been in training for this one for decades. In his previous works, he explained the crucial importance of developing a “muscularity of thought,” and revealed that his “ecological project” is a “social gymnasium for shedding the sense of powerlessness.” After much working out in that gym, he’s developed some enormous intellectual muscles, and is a powerful guy indeed. He’s often told us of his contempt for those sissified Eastern philosophers and their weak, “passive receptive” outlooks. This philosophical Marlboro Man is firmly in the Western tradition, which is, he explains, “sturdier in its thrust than the Eastern.” There will be no questions about the “sturdiness” of Murray Bookchin’s “thrust”! He has passed through the steeling school of politics, which, he tells us, is concerned with “forging a self.” Once out of the forge, the safely armored self will always be on its guard. For “the guarded mind,” he says, is the only Guarantee that we will be “guided by the thin line of truth.” This “guarded mind,” rigidly following the correct “line” is, he concludes, nothing less than “a fortress,” Eine fest Burg is unser Geist. When Murray Bookchin writes a book defending “the spirit,” it’s the spirit that comes out swinging.
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