gimley reviewed The great partnership by Jonathan Sacks
Review of 'The great partnership' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I often found this book very annoying. For one, he says he's not trying to convince anyone but I wasn't convinced of that. Why write a (non-fiction) book with arguments if not to convince your readers of something? I gave it 4 stars despite my annoyance because he says some important things I don't hear anyone else saying.
It cannot be said often enough that religion isn't meant to be an alternative science--one that doesn't work as well. Religion has a completely different purpose--one the author calls making meaning. What exactly that is I'm not going to say, except to point out that people need to experience it. If it doesn't feel meaningful to a person, it's failing them. Religion is too often presented in ways that prohibit it from feeling relevant.
Since we on goodreads are readers, I will compare the concept of meaning to a book that is …
I often found this book very annoying. For one, he says he's not trying to convince anyone but I wasn't convinced of that. Why write a (non-fiction) book with arguments if not to convince your readers of something? I gave it 4 stars despite my annoyance because he says some important things I don't hear anyone else saying.
It cannot be said often enough that religion isn't meant to be an alternative science--one that doesn't work as well. Religion has a completely different purpose--one the author calls making meaning. What exactly that is I'm not going to say, except to point out that people need to experience it. If it doesn't feel meaningful to a person, it's failing them. Religion is too often presented in ways that prohibit it from feeling relevant.
Since we on goodreads are readers, I will compare the concept of meaning to a book that is highly praised but which no one can or wants to read. What good is a classic that has no audience? A book has to reach its readers--at least some of them. It has to be meaningful to them.
At the risk of relativism (but with "faith" defined as the ability to take risks, I will proceed faithfully) applying an absolute standard "greatness" to something widely rejected is philosophically problematic. We would like our values to have some relationship to what people actually value, though, on the other hand, we would hope value meant more than winning a popularity contest. Meaningfulness is not an empirical phenomenon even while it needs to exist out in the world.
The lack of meaning in our lives manifests on an individual level as depression but then that becomes a disease to be treated by, say, righting a chemical imbalance.
I don't want to rehash his arguments here, but I do want to point out an epistemological problem which he insufficiently handles. Religion is often mistaken for bad science because it appears to be making claims that can be open to empirical verification. E.g. Are prayers answered? Sacks correctly relegates religion to the realm of framing, though, in my opinion, doesn't sufficiently explain both the importance and ubiquity of frames most of which operate invisibly. Even his discussion of civilizations falling when they lose religion is an empirical point of view.
It impossible to communicate without adopting some frames which you assume shared with your readership but Sacks too often takes for granted the dominant
political paradigms of the powerful even as he notes that religion shouldn't be in the power business and should champion the poor and disenfranchised. I assume he does this unconsciously, but I also want to point out that he insufficiently values unconscious motivation despite his references to Freud.
If you can overlook these kinds of flaws, you'll find this is an important book that will unfortunately probably not be read by those who most need to hear its message.