Reviews for Older Volunteers: A Guide to Research and Practice

The average rating for Older Volunteers: A Guide to Research and Practice based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-03-22 00:00:00 M R In much of the first world, we live in an era of triumphal liberalism, so it's hard to imagine how anything could turn the tide the other way. This eye-opening book points out liberalism's Achilles heel: it's failure to produce children. Indeed, the core of liberalism is structured around anti-natalist "sacred cows" like birth control, abortion, homosexuality, and working women. So liberal dominance faces a serious demographic challenge from fundamentalist religions meeting two conditions: 1) a high total fertility rate, 2) segregation from the mainstream and other measures to minimize defections. In short, liberalism can be conquered, over the long-term, by fighting on a battleground where it is sure to lose: the maternity ward. The most interesting section of this book was the chapter about the Haredim (ultra-orthodox Jews) of Israel. It turns out that the "outbreed secular liberals" strategy has actually worked for the Haredim, and it's just a matter of time until they take over the country. As Kaufmann writes: "At the end of the Second World War, the Haredim looked to be a fading relic. The new state of Israel and the wider Jewish diaspora indulged their needs, largely out of pity and nostalgia. Then in the 1950s, the Haredim began to cordon themselves off and their fertility advantage over other Jews increased. With increasing retention of members and three times the birth rate of other Jews, their share of world Jewry began to skyrocket. In Britain, they constitute only 17 percent of Jews but account for 75% of Jewish births. In Israel, they have increased from a few percent of Jewish schoolchildren in 1950 to a third of all Jewish pupils. In both places, the majority of Jews may be Haredi by 2050 and certainly by 2100." As this takeover plays out, the Haredim are sure to be an inspiring model for fundamentalists everywhere. The idea is "hot," and Kaufmann details Haredi-like trends in the US, Europe and the Islamic world. Problems: This is a fascinating five-star book, but I docked a star due to issues with the writing. First, the book is too long. It contains a lot of material, on Islam in particular, which is tangential to the book, and familiar from other sources. He should have kept the focus strictly on demographics and trimmed the page count. Second, the citations were sloppy and inadequate.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-09-21 00:00:00 Michael Darracott As someone who has read far too many European philosophers writing about the death of God (from Hegel, who was the lantern that Nietzsche's madman was holding, to Heidegger and the rest), I have to say that it's incredibly amusing to think that this supposed end of history and endgame of Western thought will just fizzle out in a century or two due to secular Europeans contracepting and aborting themselves out of existence. (I mean, I suppose it's also sad at some level, but after all they're choosing to do it ...?) When you think about all of the autumnal and vaguely melodramatic things written about this topic, from Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," to Eliot's line about "these fragments I have shored against my ruins," Heidegger spending a decade desperately trying to find some way to revive European religious life (through his 1930s writings on the "last god" etc.), it turns out that this was just a temporary condition, a case of certain people in certain cities in America and Western Europe turning away from God for a couple centuries, until they simply fade out of existence and humanity returns to its usual religious orientation. And the beauty of it is that even if religious populations slowly 'moderate' or secularize over time -- for example, Europe will almost certainly be majority Muslim by 2080, but let's say that these Muslims slowly secularize -- the cycle will start again; believers will have children, secularists will stop having children, etc. Popular/nerd culture (and Vox et al.) seem to accept it as a given that the inevitable endgame of history is, like, the Starfleet Federation Council in 2342 A.D., a super-U.N. where culture is irrelevant, no one is religious, everyone is a scientist, etc., but this may not necessarily be the case . . . hormonal birth control is a hell of a drug.