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Charles Derber introduces and vividly explains the idea of a sociopathic society and why the idea has become necessary to understand today s world.Sociopathic society is rooted in governments and economies, not psychiatry. The book offers a new sociology of societies organized around antisocial values, which ultimately lead to societal and planetary self-destruction. Most of the sociopathic behaviors are perfectly legal and are perpetrated by governments, financial institutions, and corporate capitalism.Focusing on the United States, Derber connects the dots of Wall Street meltdown, guns and murder, uninhibited greed, the 1% and the 99%, a new crisis of unemployable surplus people, Hurricane Sandy and global warming, cheating scandals, and more including the war on democracy itself.Although the book brings together a breathtaking set of stories of a system run wild, it also offers hope, showing pathways for confronting and avoiding the many ways a society can commit sociocide. FEATURES OF THE BOOK"
Illustrating "conversational narcissism" with sample dialogues, Derber analyzes the exchange and distribution of attention in conversations, and demonstrates the ultimate importance of gender, class, and racial differences in competing for attention.
From the heights of society down to the saddest corners of America, we are currently experiencing an epidemic of “wilding”—acts of self-interested violence or greed that weaken the social fabric. Derber’s fully updated Sixth Edition of The Wilding of America takes the reader on a terrifying tour of this out-of-control individualism spreading across the United States. Three exciting new chapters—Chapter 6, Sociopathic Capitalism; Chapter 7, Vigilante Justice; and Chapter 8, Wilding Against the Environment—bring fresh insight to American culture with coverage of the bankruptcy of Detroit; the shooting of Trayvon Martin; and the degradation of the environment. Additionally, each cha...
When the Women’s March gathered millions just one day after Trump’s inauguration, a new era of progressive action was born. Organizing on the far Right led to Trump’s election, bringing authoritarianism and the specter of neo-fascism, and intensifying corporate capitalism’s growing crises of inequality and injustices. Yet now we see a new universalizing resistance among progressive and left movements for truth, dignity, and a world based on democracy, equality, and sustainability. Derber offers the first comprehensive guide to this new era and an original vision and strategy for movement success. He convincingly shows how only a new universalizing wave, a progressive a...
It's not just the bully in the schoolyard that we should be worried about. The one-on-one bullying that dominates the national conversation, this timely book suggests, is actually part of a larger problem—a natural outcome of the bullying nature of our national institutions. And as long as the United States embraces militarism and aggressive capitalism, systemic bullying and all its impacts—at home and abroad—will persist as a major crisis. Bullying looks very similar on the personal and institutional levels: it involves an imbalance of power and behavior that consistently undermines its victim, securing compliance and submission and reinforcing the bully's sense of superiority and leg...
The American dream champions individualism. But at what price? In this [book, the author] chronicles the latest incidents of "wilding"--Extreme acts of self-interested violence and greed - that seem to signal an eroding of the moral landscape of American society. [The author] argues that ever-increasing individualism breeds an antisocial mentality with dangerous economic and social consequences - yet he offers a communitarian alternative that is as inspiring as it is instructive. Recent wilding events, such as the social aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq, and recent government scandals, are highlighted in [this book]. -Back cover.
A bold and hopeful book that exposes global warning as a symptom of deep pathologies in global capitalism and suggests radical and achievable change.
Renowned American sociologist Charles Derber imagines a surprise encounter with Karl Marx's ghost in London's Highgate cemetery, leading to a night-long conversation about the problems plaguing the world. The economic crisis, climate change, war, the future of capitalism and the 'Arab Spring' are all discussed. The ghost reconsiders his theories as he speaks eloquently about American labour, environmental, gender and anti-racist struggles. The engrossing, funny and provocative conversation, with appearances from other ghosts such as John Maynard Keynes, offers new insights into the relevance and flaws of Marx's thought, indicating how we can get to a better world.
Those who regard him as a “doom and gloom” critic will find an unexpected Chomsky in these pages. Here the world-renowned author speaks for the first time in depth about his career in activism, and his views and tactics. Chomsky offers new and intimate details about his life-long experience as an activist, revealing him as a critic with deep convictions and many surprising insights about movement strategies. The book points to new directions for activists today, including how the crises of the Coronavirus and the economic meltdown are exploding in the critical 2020 US presidential election year. Readers will find hope and new pathways toward a sustainable, democratic world.
In his new book, Noam Chomsky writes cogently about the threats to planetary survival that are of growing alarm today. The prospect of human extinction emerged after World War II, the dawn of a new era scientists now term the Anthropocene. Chomsky uniquely traces the duality of existential threats from nuclear weapons and from climate change—including how the concerns emerged and evolved, and how the threats can interact with one another. The introduction and accompanying interviews place these dual threats in a framework of unprecedented corporate global power which has overtaken nation states’ ability to control the future and preserve the planet. Chomsky argues for the urgency of international climate and arms agreements, showing how global popular movements are mobilizing to force governments to meet this unprecedented challenge to civilization’s survival.