We’ve pursued and achieved the modern dream of defining ourselves—but at what cost? An influential columnist and editor makes a compelling case for seeking the inherited traditions and ideals that give our lives meaning. “Ahmari’s tour de force makes tradition astonishingly vivid and relevant for the here and now.”—Rod Dreher, bestselling author of Live Not by Lies and The Benedict Option As a young father and a self-proclaimed “radically assimilated immigrant,” opinion editor Sohrab Ahmari realized that when it comes to shaping his young son’s moral fiber, today’s America is woefully lacking. For millennia, the world’s great ethical and religious traditions have taught that true happiness lies in pursuing virtue and accepting limits. But now, unbound from these stubborn traditions, we are free to choose whichever way of life we think is most optimal—or, more often than not, merely the easiest. All that remains are the fickle desires that a wealthy, technologically advanced society is equipped to fulfill. The result is a society riven by deep conflict and individual lives that, for all their apparent freedom, are marked by alienation and stark unhappiness. In response to this crisis, Ahmari offers twelve questions for us to grapple with—twelve timeless, fundamental queries that challenge our modern certainties. Among them: Is God reasonable? What is freedom for? What do we owe our parents, our bodies, one another? Exploring each question through the lives and ideas of great thinkers, from Saint Augustine to Howard Thurman and from Abraham Joshua Heschel to Andrea Dworkin, Ahmari invites us to examine the hidden assumptions that drive our behavior and, in doing so, to live more humanely in a world that has lost its way.
Reviews with the most likes.
The Unbroken Thread by Sohrab Ahmari
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R13KDYJ6LWMLTF?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
I listened to this as an audible book. The effect was like having a conversation with a smart and deep friend. I enjoyed it tremendously.
The basic frame of the book is that Ahmari wants his infant son to have something better than the intellectual wasteland it looks like will be his lot in the future. Ahmari's answer is to ask the classic questions about life and consider what the traditional answers have been. Ahmari introduces each chapter with a person who illustrates the issue in question, such as C.S. Lewis or St. Thomas Aquinas. These introductions are empathetic, inspirational, and insightful. I learned things about Aquinas that I had not known before. His skill is put to the ultimate test when he uses Andrea Dworkin as the springboard for a discussion about modesty and pornography, where he makes the point that fat, lesbian, loud Dworkin's concern about the kultursmog of porn was something to be concerned about.
I enjoyed the whole book and recommend it highly.
