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Wide as the World

Cosmopolitan Identity, Integral Politics, and Democratic Dialogue

Jack Crittenden author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Lexington Books

Published:17th Mar '11

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Wide as the World cover

Albert Einstein said, though no one can verify when or where he said it, that the problems facing us cannot be solved at the level of thinking that created them. If that is so, then it must surely be true of global problems. To solve global problems we need a new level of thinking. In Wide as the World: Cosmopolitan Identity and Democratic Dialogue Jack Crittenden examines and brings to life in a dialogue between two fictional characters this new level of thinking:dialectical thinking. Found through psychological research to be a higher-order thinking characteristic of advanced adult development, dialectical thinking transcends but embraces and integrates difference and ambiguity. It permits those using it to expand their perspectives, their worldviews, and even their identities to cosmopolitan or worldwide proportions. Crittenden suggests that when built in as part of the structures of democratic dialogue, dialectical thinking can help elected officials and ordinary citizens alike, from local meetings to global institutions, address and solve our most vexing problems.

This is an innovative and intriguing book. If our time is ushering in a global conversation of humankind, then Crittenden is offering a conversation about this conversation. -- Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame
Calls for 'dialogue' have become commonplace, but what if we truly engaged in such talk across the globe? Jack Crittenden imagines such a dialogue, literally, by using a fictional dialogue for the book's style, and in doing so shows how it would transform us to truly listen and honestly engage with one another's experiences and viewpoints. Part philosophy, part social psychology, part literary performance art, Wide as the World opens a conversation about how we might understand our shared world if we could only understand each other. -- John Gastil, Senior Scholar at the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, Penn State University
Writing in an accessible style, Crittenden calls on a number of major thinkers and traditions to explore some of the most vital issues of our day. He shows how cosmopolitan identity and democratic dialogue simultaneously contribute to and benefit from an approach to politics that affirms and includes while taking differences into account. Highly recommended. -- Michael E. Zimmerman, professor of philosophy, University of Colorado at Boulder
This is an important book on an equally important topic—the democratic process itself. Simple yet profound, it touches on all the major issues with new and compelling insight. Highly recommended! -- Ken Wilber, The Integral Vision

ISBN: 9780739148549

Dimensions: 239mm x 163mm x 27mm

Weight: 685g

348 pages