For Those who may have missed it....
The Common Good: An Introduction to
Personalism
by Jonas Norgaard Mortensen
Our traditional ways of thinking about politics and
society are becoming obsolete. We need some new points of reference in order to
re-imagine the possible character, growth, and functioning of our private and
common life. Such re-imagination would imply doing away with
every-man-for-himself individualism as well as consumption-makes-me-happy
materialism and the-state-will-take-care-of-it passivity.
There is an alternative:
Personalism is a forgotten, yet golden perspective on humanity that seeks to
describe what a human being is and to then draw the social consequences.
Personalism builds upon the thinking of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas,
among others, and has been a source of inspiration for Martin Luther King,
Desmond Tutu, and other important personalities in recent history.
According to personalism, humans
are relational and engaged and possess dignity. The person and the relationship
amongst persons are the universal point of departure: Human beings have
inherent dignity, and good relationships amongst humans are crucial for the
good, engaged life and for a good society.
Personalism has been greatly
neglected in Western political thought. In this book, Jonas Norgaard Mortensen
attempts to introduce personalism while simultaneously demonstrating its
historical origins, acquainting the reader with its thinkers and those who have
practiced it, and showing that personalism has a highly relevant contribution
to make in the debate about today’s social and political developments.
“The Common Good captures personalism's
core insight, interpersonal relations as the key to understanding God, Persons,
and the world. This presentation of personalism is the first, as far as I know,
to present personalism to a general audience. From that perspective, The Common
Good, accomplishes an important goal: Personalism is central to daily grappling
with our common lives together. Pulled to something greater than ourselves, we
must embrace personalism with unrelenting passion.” Thomas O. Buford,
Professor, Furman University, North Carolina.
https://vernonpress.com/title?id=220 (12% Discount using
WRFLPR12 at checkout)
Sample chapter available here: https://vernonpress.com/files/1490273335.pdf
The links to the Amazon pages:
https://www.amazon.com/Common-Good-Introduction-Personalism-Philosophy/dp/1622731921/
and https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1622731921/
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