ENGLISH

Power and innocence: a search for the sources of violence

By May , Rollo

Book information

Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Year
1998
ISBN
9780393317039, 9780393249637, 039331703X
Language
english
Format
EPUB
Filesize
601 kB (615839 bytes)
Pages
283 pages ; 21 cm\0
Time added
2020-07-26 19:24:52
Aggressiveness;Social history;Social history--1945

Description

Stressing the positive, creative aspects of power and innocence, Rollo May offers a way of thinking about the problems of contemporary society.Rollo May defines power as the ability to cause or prevent change; innocence, on the other hand, is the conscious divesting of one's power to make it seem a virtuea form of powerlessness that Dr. May sees as particularly American in nature. From these basic concepts he suggests a new ethic that sees power as the basis for both human goodness and evil.Dr. May discusses five levels of power's potential in each of us: the infant's power to be; self-affirmation, the ability to survive with self-esteem; self-assertion, which develops when self-affirmation is blocked; aggression, a reaction to thwarted assertion; and, finally, violence, when reason and persuasion are ineffective.

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