An Other Kingdom

COMMENTARIES

We sent an early version of the book to some colleagues to ask them three questions: (1) What strikes you about the book? What point stands out to you? (2) What do you want to know more about? and (3) What kind of people in your world would find this book useful?

Their comments activated changes in our writing, and we also thought that many of the comments were worthy in their own right. They often said in simpler terms what the book is about. We have gathered these here.

ROBERT INCHAUSTI

Robert Inchausti is the author of five books, including Subversive Orthodoxy and The Ignorant Perfection of Ordinary People. He edited The Pocket Thomas Merton and Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on Writing.

This is a succinct take on our collective neurosis—our perversion of the idea of freedom into a desire to live in isolated imaginary worlds of our own creation and control. Everyone has a Facebook page; every Facebook page a “following,” and every following a would-be career. We need a new collective vision and cultural narrative to save us from this runaway megalomania—and this book clearly shows us where the battle-line resides.

You did not try to do too much but rather attend to the big picture: the big lie, the over-arching mistake, the great folly that fuels our anger, alienation, and narcissism. You lift the curse by naming our demons—ferreting out their secret Rumpelstiltskin identities. I particularly liked the short history of consumerism with its list of odd moral ...