Fears and Symbols : An Introduction to the Study of Western Civilization / Elemér Hankiss.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hankiss, Elemér, Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (333 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Budapest ; New York : Central European University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This is a serious scholarly work that is, at the same time, somewhat unorthodox. On the one hand, it elaborates a systematic theory of civilization. It surveys the major theories of civilization and develops a new hypothesis, according to which existential fear has been a major factor in the generation of human culture. The author argues that in order to mitigate this fear and anxiety, human beings and communities have surrounded themselves not only with the walls of their houses and cities, with tools and weapons, laws and institutions, but also with protective spheres of symbols: myths and religions, values and belief systems, ideas and scientific theories, moral and practical rules of behavior, and a multitude of everyday rituals and trivialities. In a word, with the brilliant construct: civilization. It is, on the other hand, an unorthodox book in that it studies an unusually wide range of examples and shows that the struggle for safety and freedom, for a meaningful life and human dignity, is present not only in the great symbolic systems of humankind but also in the most trivial of everyday activities and aspects of human existence; in tragedies as well as jokes, in the sacred as well as the profane, in the symbolism of medieval cathedrals as well as in that of contemporary shopping malls, in the great drama of Sin and Salvation as well as in the trivial mythology of perfumes. Ultimately, our trivialities are not trivial at all.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One. Fear and the Social Sciences

Chapter Two. The World of Symbols

Chapter Three. An Alien World?

Chapter Four. The Garden of Eden

Chapter Five. The Image of the World

Chapter Six. The Moral Universe

Chapter Seven. The World of Guilt

Chapter Eight. The Rational World

Chapter Nine. The World of Beauty

Chapter Ten. The World of Play

Chapter Eleven. The World of Jokes

Chapter Twelve. The World of Trivialities

Chapter Thirteen. Symbols and Civilization

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2022)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

963-386-517-4

OCLC:

1415893092