Reviews for The Batsford book of religious verse

The average rating for The Batsford book of religious verse based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-07-29 00:00:00 Luke Veitch I originally read this book in my younger days and thought it was a terrific book. Now, some 45 years after its publication, it's become something of a mixed bag. As with many books of this nature, it's analysis of the past has remained more relevant than its vision of the future. Bookchin's critique of Marx and the old left is pretty much spot on. Marx's conception of the way forward, according to Bookchin, was rooted in circumstances that were particular to his time and are no longer applicable to the modern world. Unfortunately for Bookchin, his own view seems to be rooted in the circumstances of the late 1960s, which are no more applicable to the 21st century than were those of the mid 19th century of Marx. While I agree with Bookchin on some of the forms that a reconstituted society may take, his analysis on how we get there is lacking. Bookchin's model of action is the May 1968 events in France - the student protests and general strike that came tantalizingly close to radically remaking French society. But as should be apparent to modern readers, the protests withered away. DeGaulle came out stronger than ever. And the entire 1960s ultimately failed to alter the workings of the consumerist society in any substantial way. The reason for these failings, I think, is rooted in Bookchin's conception of how a revolution ought to proceed. While Bookchin correctly critiques Marx for his insistence on seizing state power (which inevitably results in the reconstitution of state power in a new elite), his own conception of revolution also aims straight for the top through the seizure of state power via the action of the general strike. That these events are supposed to prevent the ossification of state power in a new elite by being spontaneous and decentralized in nature is only somewhat reassuring. The fact is that the actions of the general strike took France to the brink of a new society, but they couldn't seal the deal. A few chance events resulted in the entire movement withering away is short order. And the supposition that those particular set of circumstances can ever reconstitute themselves again, especially in the 21st century, is absurd. That the events of May 1968 dissipated so rapidly is because there was nothing at the base of society to sustain the events swirling around at the top. Any revolution that aims to seize the top of society without first transforming its base is doomed to either reconstitute state power with a new elite, or to lack the nourishment to sustain itself. The Bolsheviks were of the former variety, while the French general strike was of the latter. If the French students and workers had instead put their considerable energy into the day to day task of building worker cooperatives and/or intentional communities, an interlocking and mutually sustaining network of such entities would have provided a solid base from which lasting change could have sustainably percolated up through the layers of society. Lacking such a base, though, once the height of the moment had passed, the French students and workers were left with nothing but to drift back to their ordinary jobs and activities, with nothing but bitter memories to accompany them.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-06-16 00:00:00 Ralf Ramm Bookchin is an idealist, and on a certain level that hurts this book -- instead of detailed solutions there's flowery prose about affinity groups and ecological justice. Still, we need idealists in this age as much as we need realists, and there are a lot of the latter and not enough of the former. Post-Scarcity Anarchism is a curious book because in some respects it feel outdated -- the post-1968 assertion that revolution is just around the corner -- and in others it's well ahead of its time -- the concern about global warming. Bookchin assumes that we're living in a post-scarcity society, which I'm not so sure about, especially if you take a global view. However, our technology is definitely headed to post-scarcity (if the planet doesn't blow up first), and at some point we need to figure out how to change our society to deal with these advances. When machine labour eliminates jobs, this is at some level a good thing, but the current system ensures that instead of getting to live in leisure the humans it replaces will be reduced to nothing. This book is a solid, but flawed, start in that mission to envision a new world.