“A World Adrift” by Amine Maalouf (Book Review)
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 7, 2009
“A World Adrift” by Amine Maluf (May 6, 2009)
I have already published four posts with themes inspired from this book. I have already reviewed at least three of Amine Maaluf’s books. This French manuscript “Le Dereglement du Monde” is of 314 pages and divided into four chapters: Deceptive Victories, Misleading Legitimacies, Imaginary Certitudes, and A very long Prehistory. The main quote of the book is from William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) who wrote “Man has survived because he was too ignorant to know how to realize his wishes (desires). Now that he can realize his wishes, then he must either change them or perish”.
Amine Maluf is from Lebanon by origin and settled in France during the civil war. He writes in French and has published more ten books, most of them have been translated in Arabic and a few in English; he received the highest honors from the French Academy of Literature.
Two fundamental premises guide this essay:
First, the moral ascendance of values is inadequate to catching up with the exponential progress in sciences and technologies.
Second, most crisis are global and on world level but they are tackled on individual State’s interest, perception, regulation, management, and control.
The mains problems to analyze and resolve for the next generations are:
First, how the US and Europe reacted to the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Second, how to brake and then break off the cycle for the disappearing minorities, their particular languages, and literature. (Visit my post on minorities in Iraq).
Third, how to resolve the recurring financial and economical crisis. (Visit my post on Third World War is tolling)
Fourth, how to resolve the climatic changes and environmental degradation.
Fifth, how to satisfy the legitimate desires for consumer goods for the expanding middle classes in China and India. (Visit my posts on China and India Empires)
Sixth, how to resolve extremist attitude in religion and nationalism (terrorism, genocides, racism, apartheid, weapons of mass destruction). Please visit my post on “Misleading Legitimacies” and “Imaginary Certitudes”
Seventh, resolving the problem of instantaneous demands, acquisition, communication, information around the world. Visit my post on “instantaneous exigencies”
Eight, the urgency to creating reference values for a sustainable earth because history did not offer us any reference moral values for our modern days global problems..
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