Paperback
978-1-77212-624-2Size: 6" x 9"
Pages: 432
epub
978-1-77212-658-7Pages: 432
Pages: 432
Making Wonderful
Ideological Roots of Our Eco-Catastrophe
By Martin M. Tweedale
In Making Wonderful, Martin M. Tweedale tells how an ideology arose in the West that energized the economic expansion that has led to ecological disaster. He takes us back to the rise of cities and autocratic rulers, and analyzes how respect for custom and tradition gave way to the dominance of top-down rational planning and organization. Then came a highly attractive myth of an eventual future in which all of humankind’s material and spiritual ills would be banished and life “made wonderful.” Originating in Zoroastrianism and, through Jewish apocalyptic works, flowing into early Christianity, this belief produced utopian ideologies that set the West apart from the other civilizations of the old world. Tweedale shows how this thinking became popular among Western elites in the early modern period and eventually resulted in the distinctively Western doctrine of progress, an idea that once coupled with a virtually religious faith in the capacity of science and technology to improve human life, released economic expansion from traditional constraints. Exploring sources from philosophy, religion, and the history of ideas, Making Wonderful is for all readers who are intellectually curious about the roots of our eco-catastrophe.
Book details
Publication date: January 2023Keywords: ideology of the West; origins; civilization; instrumental rationality; cities; Stoicism; Socratic ethics; Plato; Confucianism; Buddhism; Zoroastrianism; apocalypticism; millenarianism; utopias; hedonist utilitarianism; consumerism
Subject(s): PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / General, PHILOSOPHY / General, NATURE / General, HISTORY / Europe / General, RELIGION / History, Philosophy and Religion, Economic theory and philosophy, Ancient, classical and medieval texts, Environmentalist thought and ideology, Religious Studies, Environmental Studies, History, ideology of the West; origins; civilization; instrumental rationality; cities; Stoicism; Socratic ethics; Plato; Confucianism; Buddhism; Zoroastrianism; apocalypticism; millenarianism; utopias; hedonist utilitarianism; consumerism, Philosophy / Environment / Sustainability
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press
Book details
Publication date: January 2023Keywords: ideology of the West; origins; civilization; instrumental rationality; cities; Stoicism; Socratic ethics; Plato; Confucianism; Buddhism; Zoroastrianism; apocalypticism; millenarianism; utopias; hedonist utilitarianism; consumerism
Subject(s): PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / General, PHILOSOPHY / General, NATURE / General, HISTORY / Europe / General, RELIGION / History, Philosophy and Religion, Economic theory and philosophy, Ancient, classical and medieval texts, Environmentalist thought and ideology, Religious Studies, Environmental Studies, History, ideology of the West; origins; civilization; instrumental rationality; cities; Stoicism; Socratic ethics; Plato; Confucianism; Buddhism; Zoroastrianism; apocalypticism; millenarianism; utopias; hedonist utilitarianism; consumerism, Philosophy / Environment / Sustainability
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press
Martin M. Tweedale. Martin M. Tweedale holds a BA from Princeton and a PhD from UCLA, where he specialized in medieval and ancient Western philosophy. He has published extensively in these areas as well as metaphysics. Before coming to the University of Alberta, he taught at the University of Pittsburgh, UCLA, and the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He is a life-long supporter of efforts to preserve the natural environment.
Martin M. Tweedale. Martin M. Tweedale holds a BA from Princeton and a PhD from UCLA, where he specialized in medieval and ancient Western philosophy. He has published extensively in these areas as well as metaphysics. Before coming to the University of Alberta, he taught at the University of Pittsburgh, UCLA, and the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He is a life-long supporter of efforts to preserve the natural environment.