19 days left & more on Bradshaw

I’m down to 19 days on this quest. Tick. Tick. Tick. There’s not enough time. I’m panicking, but I’m also relishing the deadline because I can’t avoid or ignore the Goodness Project now. I have to make this work.

Today, I’m also chafing under the burden of the too-careful review of John Bradshaw’s Reclaiming Virtue that I posted yesterday.

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John Bradshaw and the path to goodness

John Bradshaw’s book Reclaiming Virtue: How We Can Develop the Moral Intelligence to Do the Right Thing at the Right Time for the Right Reason is delightful, eye-opening, and infuriating. In the months — and I do mean many months — I’ve dragged myself through its pages, I’ve alternated between shouting for joy and throwing the book against the wall in frustration. For all its faults, however, Reclaiming Virtue provides the clearest vision of goodness I’ve read to date.

Best known for his PBS-TV shows on family dynamics in the 1980s and 1990s, Bradshaw has worked as a psychologist, teacher and addiction counselor. His books include the bestselling Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, Healing the Shame that Binds You (Recovery Classics), and Creating Love: A New Way of Understanding Our Most Important Relationships.

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Owning Our Dark Side

Sometimes I think I sound like a wimp in political arguments. I’m forever talking about the mistakes and frailties of my own side, instead of slamming full speed into the weakness of my political opponents. Conducting an all-out assault on conservatives’ ideas and moral character would certainly feel sweet. Such a nasty-laden attack might even be effective, and yet most of the time I can’t bring myself to berserk the opposition. I’m finally beginning to figure out why.

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Quote of the day

The problem with goodness, as a moral absolute...

Yet another fellow traveler: John Bradshaw

On the recommendation of a friend, I just started reading John Bradshaw’s book, Reclaiming Virtue, and may I say that it’s such a relief after wading through the casual cruelty and skim-the-surface rigidity of Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape.

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