On the Pleasures of Owning Persons

On the Pleasures of Owning Persons
Author: Volney Gay
Publisher: Ipbooks
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2016-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780996548199

The real reason Americans owned slaves was not just financial. They did it because they liked it. For the first two centuries of American history, starting with the colonists, slavery was a part of the social, economic, and governmental order. Looking back, many of us find it more comfortable to view slave owners as evil or sociopathic. The startling truth is that many were otherwise admirable. To understand America's struggles with race relations, we must take an uncensored look at our country's involvement with slavery. We examine three questions: - What were the pleasures of owning slaves? - How did freedom-loving, American Christians explain ownership to themselves? - How did they defend themselves against this double contradiction? Answering those questions will help us face our future with greater clarity. From the Preface to On The Pleasures of Owning Persons: The Hidden Face of American Slavery: This book is a study of the pleasures that slavery gives to owners. This is a demanding, if not an unfathomable topic that rests upon a simple, self-evident truth. The unfathomable part is because slavery seems remote from us now in the 21st century we struggle to imagine its workings from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The self-evident truth is that millions of Americans, over a span of nearly four centuries, owned slaves because they wished to. They actively chose and maintained a way of life which they felt merited protection and permanency. A small number of these people were sociopathic, most likely between 2 and 4 percent, the usual norm for large populations.[i] Most were not. Indeed, outstanding persons, among them undoubted geniuses like Thomas Jefferson, engaged in slavery all their lives. It is difficult to understand sociopathic persons, but the vast majority of owners were like you and me, normal. Great men who laid the foundations of American freedom defended to their graves the institution of slavery. This book addresses three questions: what were these pleasures; how did freedom-loving, American Christians explain ownership to themselves; how did they defend themselves against this double contradiction? [i] Buckels, Erin E., Paul D. Trapnell, and Delroy L. Paulhus. "Trolls just want to have fun." Personality and individual Differences 67 (2014): 97-102. They conclude, "Thus cyber-trolling appears to be an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism" p. 97.

On Ambivalence

On Ambivalence
Author: Kenneth Weisbrode
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 90
Release: 2012-02-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262301075

A concise guide to ambivalence, from Adam and Eve (to eat the apple or not?) to Hamlet (to be or not?) to globalization (e pluribus unum or not?). Why is it so hard to make up our minds? Adam and Eve set the template: Do we or don't we eat the apple? They chose, half-heartedly, and nothing was ever the same again. With this book, Kenneth Weisbrode offers a crisp, literate, and provocative introduction to the age-old struggle with ambivalence. Ambivalence results from a basic desire to have it both ways. This is only natural—although insisting upon it against all reason often results not in "both" but in the disappointing "neither." Ambivalence has insinuated itself into our culture as a kind of obligatory reflex, or default position, before practically every choice we make. It affects not only individuals; organizations, societies, and cultures can also be ambivalent. How often have we asked the scornful question, "Are we the Hamlet of nations"? How often have we demanded that our leaders appear decisive, judicious, and stalwart? And how eager have we been to censure them when they hesitate or waver? Weisbrode traces the concept of ambivalence, from the Garden of Eden to Freud and beyond. The Obama era, he says, may be America's own era of ambivalence: neither red nor blue but a multicolored kaleidoscope. Ambivalence, he argues, need not be destructive. We must learn to distinguish it from its symptoms—selfishness, ambiguity, and indecision—and accept that frustration, guilt, and paralysis felt by individuals need not lead automatically to a collective pathology. Drawing upon examples from philosophy, history, literature, and the social sciences, On Ambivalence is a pocket-sized portrait of a complex human condition. It should be read by anyone who has ever grappled with making the right choice.

Live Alone and Like It

Live Alone and Like It
Author: Marjorie Hillis
Publisher: 5 Spot
Total Pages: 79
Release: 2009-11-29
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0446571172

In this witty, engaging guide, a renowned Vogue editor takes readers through the fundamentals of living alone by showing them how to create a welcoming environment and cultivate home-friendly hobbies, "for no woman can accept an invitation every night without coming to grief." "Whether you view your one-woman ménage as Doom or Adventure, you need a plan, if you are going to make the best of it." Thus begins Marjorie Hillis' archly funny, gently prescriptive manifesto for single women. Though it was 1936 when the Vogue editor first shared her wisdom with her fellow singletons, the tome has been passed lovingly through the generations, and is even more apt today than when it was first published. Hillis, a true bon vivant, was sick and tired of hearing single women carping about their living arrangements and lonely lives; this book is her invaluable wake-up call for single women to take control and enjoy their circumstances. With engaging chapter titles like "A Lady and Her Liquor" and "The Pleasures of a Single Bed," along with a new preface by author Laurie Graff (You Have to Kiss A Lot of Frogs), Live Alone and Like It is sure to appeal to live-aloners—and those considering taking the plunge.

Scholars Reading Romans 1 with Daniel Patte

Scholars Reading Romans 1 with Daniel Patte
Author: James P. Grimshaw
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2022-08-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567704017

A creative collection of essays that introduces, critiques, and dialogues with Daniel Patte's ground-breaking work Romans: Three Exegetical Interpretations and the History of Reception: Volume 1: Romans 1:1-32 (T&T Clark, 2018). Nine scholars from different cultural and methodological perspectives engage with Patte's work, critique his methodology and ethic of interpretation, and develop alternative readings. The first part introduces the format of Patte's book and the three historical interpretations: forensic, covenantal, and realized-apocalyptic. Part two debates methodology and ethical responsibility. The third part focuses on Romans 1:16-18 and 1:26-27 and includes a Confucian Chinese reading and a call for joint biblical and social-science research on the role of Romans in current public policy debates. The final part includes a chapter on pedagogy regarding how Patte's book can be used in the classroom. The final chapter is a powerful description by Patte himself of the various life experiences that shaped his reading of Romans. This book is a critical and communal conversation with Patte on the history of reception of Romans 1 and an example of the necessity of conversations among diverse interpreters that, as Patte says, “reflect the diversity of the modes of our human experience”.

This Is Pleasure

This Is Pleasure
Author: Mary Gaitskill
Publisher: Pantheon
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2019-11-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1524749141

Starting with Bad Behavior in the 1980s, Mary Gaitskill has been writing about gender relations with searing, even prophetic honesty. In This Is Pleasure, she considers our present moment through the lens of a particular #MeToo incident. The effervescent, well-dressed Quin, a successful book editor and fixture on the New York arts scene, has been accused of repeated unforgivable transgressions toward women in his orbit. But are they unforgivable? And who has the right to forgive him? To Quin’s friend Margot, the wrongdoing is less clear. Alternating Quin’s and Margot’s voices and perspectives, Gaitskill creates a nuanced tragicomedy, one that reveals her characters as whole persons—hurtful and hurting, infuriating and touching, and always deeply recognizable. Gaitskill has said that fiction is the only way that she could approach this subject because it is too emotionally faceted to treat in the more rational essay form. Her compliment to her characters—and to her readers—is that they are unvarnished and real. Her belief in our ability to understand them, even when we don’t always admire them, is a gesture of humanity from one of our greatest contemporary writers.

The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
Author: Alan Jacobs
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2011-05-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 019983167X

In recent years, cultural commentators have sounded the alarm about the dire state of reading in America. Americans are not reading enough, they say, or reading the right books, in the right way. In this book, Alan Jacobs argues that, contrary to the doomsayers, reading is alive and well in America. There are millions of devoted readers supporting hundreds of enormous bookstores and online booksellers. Oprah's Book Club is hugely influential, and a recent NEA survey reveals an actual uptick in the reading of literary fiction. Jacobs's interactions with his students and the readers of his own books, however, suggest that many readers lack confidence; they wonder whether they are reading well, with proper focus and attentiveness, with due discretion and discernment. Many have absorbed the puritanical message that reading is, first and foremost, good for you--the intellectual equivalent of eating your Brussels sprouts. For such people, indeed for all readers, Jacobs offers some simple, powerful, and much needed advice: read at whim, read what gives you delight, and do so without shame, whether it be Stephen King or the King James Version of the Bible. In contrast to the more methodical approach of Mortimer Adler's classic How to Read a Book (1940), Jacobs offers an insightful, accessible, and playfully irreverent guide for aspiring readers. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of approaching literary fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and the book explores everything from the invention of silent reading, reading responsively, rereading, and reading on electronic devices. Invitingly written, with equal measures of wit and erudition, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction will appeal to all readers, whether they be novices looking for direction or old hands seeking to recapture the pleasures of reading they first experienced as children.

History of a Pleasure Seeker

History of a Pleasure Seeker
Author: Richard Mason
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2012-11-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307949281

“Just try to resist.... A Continental Downton Abbey plus sex, with a dash of Dangerous Liaisons tossed in.” —Seattle Times Piet Barol has an instinctive appreciation for pleasure and a gift for finding it. When his mother dies, Piet applies for a job as tutor to the troubled son of Europe's leading hotelier—a child who refuses to leave his family’s mansion on one of Amsterdam’s grandest canals. As Piet enters this glittering world, he learns its secrets and finds his life transformed. A brilliantly written portrait of the senses, History of a Pleasure Seeker is an opulent, romantic coming-of-age drama set at the height of Europe’s Belle Époque, written with a lightness of touch that is wholly modern and original.

Gabbard's Textbook of Psychotherapeutic Treatments, Second Edition

Gabbard's Textbook of Psychotherapeutic Treatments, Second Edition
Author: Holly Crisp, M.D.
Publisher: American Psychiatric Pub
Total Pages: 832
Release: 2022-09-21
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1615373268

"The second edition of Gabbard's Textbook of Psychotherapeutic Treatments provides up-to-date information on psychotherapies, including psychodynamic therapies, mentalization-based treatment, transference-focused therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, supportive psychotherapy, and interpersonal psychotherapy. The textbook also reflects social changes that have had profound impacts on how therapists practice, including the advancement of LGBTQ rights, calls for racial and social justice, and the COVID-19 pandemic"--

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Author: Alain De Botton
Publisher: Emblem Editions
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2010-06-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0771026323

From the international bestselling author of The Architecture of Happiness and How Proust Can Change Your Life comes this lyrical, erudite look at our world of work. We spend most of our time at work, but what we do there rarely gets discussed in the sort of lyrical and descriptive prose our efforts surely deserve. Determined to correct this lapse, armed with a poetic perspective and his trademark philosophical sharpness, Alain de Botton heads out into the world of offices and factories, ready to take in the beauty, interest, and sheer strangeness of the modern workplace. De Botton spends time in and around some less familiar work environments, including warehouses, container ports, rocket launch pads, and power stations, and follows scientists, landscape painters, accountants, cookie manufacturers, therapists, entrepreneurs, and aircraft salesmen as they do their jobs. Along the way, de Botton tries to answer some of the most urgent questions we can pose about work: Why do we do it? What makes it pleasurable? What is its meaning? To what end do we daily exhaust not only ourselves but also our planet? Equally intrigued by work’s pleasures and its pains, Alain de Botton offers a characteristically lucid and witty tour of the working day and night, in a book sure to inspire a range of life-changing and wise thoughts.

Creating Resistances: Pastoral Care in a Postcolonial World

Creating Resistances: Pastoral Care in a Postcolonial World
Author: Melinda McGarrah Sharp
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004412050

Multiple forms of oppression, injustice, and violence today have roots in histories of colonialism. This connection to the past feels familiar for some and less relevant for others. Understanding and responding to these connections is more crucial than ever, yet some resist rather than face this task directly. Others resist oppressive postcolonial conditions. Using intercultural stories and pastoral care scholarship, this book charts pathways through five resistances (not me, not here, not now, not relevant, not possible) to awaken creative pastoral care in a postcolonial world. McGarrah Sharp recommends practices that everyone can do: believing in each other, revisiting how histories are taught, imagining more passable futures, heeding prophetic poets, and crossing borders with healthy boundaries.