SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
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An error occurred while searching, try again later.When you can’t see the wood for the trees
JOHN GREEN is dissatisfied with a book that fails to address the promotion of ignorance as a ruling-class strategy to maintain control
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Ignorance and Bliss – On Wanting Not To Know
Mark Lilla, Hurst, £18.99
MARK LILLA, Professor of Humanities at Columbia University, purports to investigate the contrary disposition to curiosity: the will not to know, the will to ignorance.
Certainly an interesting subject, but he treats it quintessentially as a disquisition from the ivory tower of academe. He takes us on a seemingly aimless ramble though the thickets of mythology, Biblical narratives and religious belief.
He begins by using the example of Oedipus, the most notorious case of someone whose ignorance determines their tragic fate, then races on through the mythological basis of fascism, to the role played by Christian fundamentalism in the historical self-narrative of the US, but in a very superficial way.
More from this author
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JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR
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JOHN GREEN advises caution when reading a highly informative account of the way thousands of top Nazis escaped justice and found employment in the West
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Driven on by novel forms of hard-right populism like Modi and Trump, European neofascists are skillfully rebranding themselves and taking power by copying the left's language — just as they did in the last century, writes JOHN GREEN
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JOHN GREEN debates the potential of a book that explores fascism in US history and its contemporary impact to reach the audience it deserves