Showing results by author "Morris Berman" in All Categories

The present volume consists of three major essays I wrote during the years 2024-25, in addition to a series of lectures I gave at UNAM, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City, during the latter part of 2025. Topics discussed include the way in which American sitcoms—Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends, The Sopranos, and The Big Bang Theory—can be seen as “X-rays” of the American psyche; an imaginary discussion among great thinkers such as George Orwell, Wallace Shawn, and Leo Tolstoy as to where the human race is headed; and an investigation into the sources of human ...

Shver tsu zayn a yid, goes an old Yiddish saying: It’s hard to be a Jew. In this surprising collection of essays, Morris Berman examines Jewish history and identity from a variety of angles, trying to figure out what is distinctive about Jewishness, and Judaism. He begins by exploring Canaanite culture, the matrix out of which Yahwism, the original faith of the Israelites, originally emerged. The core conflict was between Yahweh and Baal, the Canaanite god of fertility and storms, and which, he argues, was ultimately between two principles and interpretations of life—a conflict which, ...

In various ways, and in a utilitarian cultural context that is not very receptive to poetry, a number of American poets have urged us to depart from a scripted, socially approved life—one defined by the dominant culture—and instead to follow a path of authenticity, one that resonates with who we really are, or imagines what we could be. The list of poets included in this book is both personal and very selective, chosen because at various points in my life they spoke to me in ways that shifted that life in what I now, in my twilight years, can see was the right direction. They were, in ...

Perhaps the greatest blind spot of Western civilization has been its persistent inability to see other civilizations from their own point of view; to put ourselves in their shoes, as it were. The colonial record, in particular, is one of viewing the Other as inferior, and in need of Westernization—a perspective that has brought death, and untold misery, to millions. Franz Boas, known as the “father of American anthropology,” believed that anthropological research might be able to correct this distorted perspective, and that, in his words, we might learn “to tolerate to a greater ...

In 1918 Lytton Strachey published Eminent Victorians, which was a take-down of popular Victorian heroes. In reality, he argued, these paragons of virtue had feet of clay, a dark side that had been conveniently overlooked. The book was an enormous hit, for in speaking to his generation, he was preaching to the converted: even beyond the influential Bloomsbury Circle, of which he was a leading light, there was a widespread revulsion against the hypocrisy, the stilted formalism, and the emotional repression of the Victorian era. In the following study, Morris Berman aims to do the reverse, i.e...

Robert Pirsig’s book of 1974, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, took the world by storm, selling over five million copies. When asked how he would account for this, Pirsig said that Zen was a “culture-bearing book”; that he just wrote down what he was thinking, and it turned out that everyone else was thinking the same thing. And what they were thinking was that our Western, scientific, rational mindset was making us crazy. In The Crisis of Our Time, Morris Berman argues that the source of this was the loss of the oral-poetic, or sensuous-mythological, tradition, that was ...

During the last few years I have written a number of books consisting of “cameos,” or profiles, of great thinkers, artists, and writers of various peoples: Italians, Brits, Russians, Jews, and American poets. I decided it was finally time to take on the Germans, specifically those in the German literary tradition. This runs from Goethe to Bernhard Schlink, in between discussing the work of writers such as Heine, Nietzsche, Rilke, Hesse, Brecht and a few others in that illustrious category. Why am I doing this? I guess I believe that these folks have something to teach us in terms of how...

The year is 2030, and America has finally collapsed. The former ruling plutocracy has flown the coop, reconstituting themselves in a wealthy residential area of Buenos Aires, their vast wealth withdrawn from America and shuttled off to Zurich and the Cayman Islands. American political progressives undertake the task of rebuilding the country from the ground up. Chief among these is Sam Field, a middle-aged man going back and forth between therapy sessions and political organization. Once a reporter for the Washington Post, he is now consultant to a journalistic consortium. He is also caught...

Michael Holdin, an author and journalist, meets Julia, an aspiring artist, in a neighborhood bar. They hit it off, and start a relationship. Michael encourages her to show her paintings to an upscale art gallery, which leads to a very successful show. She then does two series of paintings based on Anthony Powell’s book A Dance to the Music of Time, involving voyeurism. Enter Miriam, an attractive hospital administrator in her forties, which eventually leads to the formation of a ménage à trois. Julia starts administering breathing exercises to people who seek to be free of their “isms...

Reaching for Utopia is the story of six clear-eyed dreamers who seek to resurrect the Surrealism of the 1920s, and the Situationism of the 1960s, in an attempt to overthrow the deadening regime of capitalist-consumer society and replace it with a joyous way of life. Accompanying this is the assassination of a president, the secession of large sections of the country, and the collapse of the American empire. The “gang of six” sponsor a series of heart-expanding adventures, as more and more Americans join the movement. Much has changed by the end of the story, as our heroes can say, in ...

A writer by the name of Carl Franklin is taking a walk in Central Park, when he comes across a little girl, crying her eyes out, because she lost her dolly. Carl tells her to come back in twenty-four hours, while he goes and buys her another doll; which he gives her the following day. She hugs him, and they depart. Thirty years later, the little girl, Gretchen, has become a celebrated poet, and writes a memoir for the New Yorker based on this event. Carl runs across it by accident, and goes crazy with joy. He contacts Gretchen, and the two of them launch a number of adventures, one of which...

In Healing, Morris Berman seeks to explore a condition that has become a national, if not international, disease: almost all of us believe, on a deep level, that we are not OK. As one therapist puts it, we experience our lives through a lens of personal insufficiency, a “trance of unworthiness,” a “noose of self-hatred.” The eminent body worker, Alexander Lowen, summarizes this by saying that the hidden slogan of our lives is “Grim and bear it.” Healing is a synthesis of Berman’s review of some of the great healers—Donald Winnicott, Alfred Adler, Wilhelm Reich, and F.M. ...

In terms of literature, music, and film, it would be hard to outdo the sheer genius and creativity of Russia. These things constitute the soul of the nation, and it is this that Morris Berman explores in his latest work, The Soul of Russia. His central argument is that at the heart of this brilliance lies a particular idiosyncratic theme: the peasant-shamanic-folkloric tradition of the Russian people, which these artists, from Pushkin to Tarkovsky, drew upon for their inspiration.

Welcome to A Little More Good, a podcast where we explore the fascinating areas that wellness, mindfulness, sustainability, movement, business, our own evolution and adventure intersect. Join hosts Dean Morris and Zach Berman as we have fun and meaningful conversations centring on human stories that inspire us to get out and live full, healthy, and meaningful lives. Our intention is to create a dialogue that is not only interesting to listen to but inspires YOU to take what you’ve learned through the conversation and apply it to your own life in a meaningful way. Visit our Website or follow...

Morris Berman hace la analogía con el Imperio Romano del "pan y circo", sólo que en el caso de Estados Unidos, la estulticia se encarna en la glorificación de los valores corporativos, en el consumismo y entretenimiento masivos, en pocas palabras, en todo lo que proyecta la llamada cultura "McWorld".

Horace Manifold, a mild-mannered professor of English at a college in the Midwest, discovers a strange phenomenon in the course of writing a novel. It seems that whenever he describes an event that occurs in the life of his protagonist, Mortimer Fandangle, that event subsequently happens to him as well. When he publishes an excerpt of the novel in an upscale literary journal, one that demonstrates this Fellini-esque device, he is awarded a "Pre-Pulitzer Prize," and is later hailed as “having forever altered the face of American literature.” He then embarks on a series of exotic ...