Vexed
Ethics Beyond Political Tribes
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.27
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
James Mumford
-
By:
-
James Mumford
About this listen
Bloomsbury presents Vexed written and read by James Mumford.
Across the democratic West, politics has become deeply polarised and profoundly personal. Challenge someone’s political views and increasingly you challenge their very being.
And yet, do our political tribes even make sense? Look carefully, and on the most important ethical issues of the age – assisted dying, social welfare, sexual liberation, abortion, gun control, the environment, technology, justice – the instinctive positions of both the Left and the Right are riven with contradictions.
In this refreshing and eye-opening audiobook, James Mumford, a public thinker and independent commentator, questions the basic assumptions of our political groups. His challenge is simple: ‘Why should believing strongly about one topic mean the automatic adoption of so many others?’
Vexed is an essential and provocative account that will appeal to anyone of independent thought, and a welcome call for new reflection on the moral issues most relevant to our modern way of life.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Doppelganger
- A Trip into the Mirror World
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Naomi Klein
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who.
-
-
Elite Psychobabble
- By A Reviewer on 09-30-23
By: Naomi Klein
-
Morality
- Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times
- By: Jonathan Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Sacks
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With liberal democracy embattled, public discourse grown toxic, family life breaking down, and drug abuse and depression on the rise, many fear what the future holds. In Morality, respected faith leader and public intellectual Jonathan Sacks traces today's crisis to our loss of a strong, shared moral code and our elevation of self-interest over the common good.
-
-
The world needs to read this!
- By Isaac W on 02-11-21
By: Jonathan Sacks
-
The Blank Slate
- The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
-
-
Don't bother. Outdated science & poor logic...
- By ejf211 on 03-31-10
By: Steven Pinker
-
The End of Woman
- How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us
- By: Carrie Gress
- Narrated by: Monroe Jillian
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fellow at Ethic & Public Policy Center, scholar at The Institute for Human Ecology at CUA and the nationally best-selling author of the Theology of Home series, Carrie Gress argues that fifty years of radical feminism have had the opposite of the intended effect and have granted primacy of place to the traditionally male sphere of life, while simultaneously devaluing the typical attributes, virtues, and strengths of women.
-
-
A dark look into the religious right’s hatred of women
- By Shevaun Bastarache on 10-30-23
By: Carrie Gress
-
Strange New World
- How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution
- By: Carl R. Trueman, Ryan T. Anderson - foreword
- Narrated by: Carl R. Trueman
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman discusses how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of "expressive individualism." Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas.
-
-
Read and reread
- By Daniel on 04-04-22
By: Carl R. Trueman, and others
-
How to Be a Conservative
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Roger Scruton’s How to be a Conservative presents the case for modern conservatism not in the terms of an elegy but rather as a practical example of how to live as a conservative despite the pressures to live otherwise. As he writes, the book ‘is not about what we have lost, but about what we have retained, and how to hold on to it’. In this witty and frank account, Scruton draws on his years of experience as a counter-cultural presence in public life.
By: Roger Scruton
-
Doppelganger
- A Trip into the Mirror World
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Naomi Klein
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who.
-
-
Elite Psychobabble
- By A Reviewer on 09-30-23
By: Naomi Klein
-
Morality
- Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times
- By: Jonathan Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Sacks
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With liberal democracy embattled, public discourse grown toxic, family life breaking down, and drug abuse and depression on the rise, many fear what the future holds. In Morality, respected faith leader and public intellectual Jonathan Sacks traces today's crisis to our loss of a strong, shared moral code and our elevation of self-interest over the common good.
-
-
The world needs to read this!
- By Isaac W on 02-11-21
By: Jonathan Sacks
-
The Blank Slate
- The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
-
-
Don't bother. Outdated science & poor logic...
- By ejf211 on 03-31-10
By: Steven Pinker
-
The End of Woman
- How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us
- By: Carrie Gress
- Narrated by: Monroe Jillian
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fellow at Ethic & Public Policy Center, scholar at The Institute for Human Ecology at CUA and the nationally best-selling author of the Theology of Home series, Carrie Gress argues that fifty years of radical feminism have had the opposite of the intended effect and have granted primacy of place to the traditionally male sphere of life, while simultaneously devaluing the typical attributes, virtues, and strengths of women.
-
-
A dark look into the religious right’s hatred of women
- By Shevaun Bastarache on 10-30-23
By: Carrie Gress
-
Strange New World
- How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution
- By: Carl R. Trueman, Ryan T. Anderson - foreword
- Narrated by: Carl R. Trueman
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman discusses how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of "expressive individualism." Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas.
-
-
Read and reread
- By Daniel on 04-04-22
By: Carl R. Trueman, and others
-
How to Be a Conservative
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Roger Scruton’s How to be a Conservative presents the case for modern conservatism not in the terms of an elegy but rather as a practical example of how to live as a conservative despite the pressures to live otherwise. As he writes, the book ‘is not about what we have lost, but about what we have retained, and how to hold on to it’. In this witty and frank account, Scruton draws on his years of experience as a counter-cultural presence in public life.
By: Roger Scruton
-
America’s Choice
- A Nation Under God or Without God
- By: Tad R. Callister
- Narrated by: Tad R. Callister
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America’s Choice asks, “What is the greatest challenge facing our society today?” The economy, national security, immigration, gun control, poverty, racism, crime, national pandemics, climate change? While each of these is a valid concern and deserves attention, none of them strikes at the heart of our greatest challenge, namely, finding a way to build stronger homes and in the process bringing about a return to family, God, and moral values. To put our prime focus on challenges other than these is to strike at the leaves, not the root of the problem.
-
-
Amazing, very needed book!
- By mifflinity on 11-14-24
By: Tad R. Callister
-
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution
- By: Louise Perry
- Narrated by: Louise Perry
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sexual revolution has liberated us to enjoy a heady mixture of erotic freedom and personal autonomy. Right? Wrong, argues Louise Perry in her provocative new book.
-
-
A feminist's advice to girls and young women
- By Wayne on 02-17-23
By: Louise Perry
-
Whose Story Is This?
- Old Conflicts, New Chapters
- By: Rebecca Solnit
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who gets to shape the narrative of our times? The current moment is a battle royale over that foundational power, one in which women, people of color, and non-straight people are telling other versions, and white people and men (and particularly, white men) are trying to hang onto the old versions and their own centrality. In Whose Story Is This?, Rebecca Solnit appraises what's emerging, why it matters, and what the obstacles are.
By: Rebecca Solnit
-
Women Without Kids
- The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood
- By: Ruby Warrington
- Narrated by: Ruby Warrington
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Foregoing motherhood has traditionally marked a woman as “other.” With no official place setting for her in our society, she has hovered on the sidelines: the quirky girl, the neurotic career obsessive, the “eccentric” aunt. Instead of continuing to paint women without kids as sad, self-obsessed, or somehow dysfunctional, what if we saw them as boldly forging a first-in-a-civilization vision for a fully autonomous womankind? Or as journalist and thought leader Ruby Warrington asks, What if being a woman without kids were in fact its own kind of legacy?
-
-
this book should be called "how not to deal with trauma im ignoring"
- By Hayden Mills on 07-15-24
By: Ruby Warrington
-
For the Love of Men
- From Toxic to a More Mindful Masculinity
- By: Liz Plank
- Narrated by: Liz Plank
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A nonfiction investigation into masculinity, For the Love of Men provides actionable steps for how to be a man in the modern world, while also exploring how being a man in the world has evolved.
-
-
Important and thought provoking
- By David Tanner on 09-28-19
By: Liz Plank
-
While Time Remains
- A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Maureen Taylor
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After defecting from North Korea, Yeonmi Park found liberty and freedom in America. But she also found a chilling crackdown on self-expression and thought that reminded her of the brutal regime she risked her life to escape. When she spoke out about the mass political indoctrination she saw around her in the United States, Park faced censorship and even death threats.
-
-
This should be required reading. Amazing book
- By Amazon Customer on 02-15-23
By: Yeonmi Park
-
How to Survive the Apocalypse
- Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World
- By: Robert Joustra, Alissa Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is going to hell. So begins this book, pointing to the prevalence of apocalypse - cataclysmic destruction and nightmarish end-of-the-world scenarios - in contemporary entertainment.
-
-
Media teaches us about what it means human
- By Adam Shields on 09-19-17
By: Robert Joustra, and others
-
Suicide of the West
- How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Jonah Goldberg
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle.
-
-
Put some gratitude in your attitude
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-18
By: Jonah Goldberg
-
The Unholy Trinity
- Blocking the Left's Assault on Life, Marriage, and Gender
- By: Matt Walsh
- Narrated by: Rand Archer
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This highly anticipated debut from Matt Walsh of The Blaze demands that conservative voters make a last stand and fight for the moral center of America. The Trump presidency and Republican Congress provides an urgent opportunity to stop the Left's value-bending march to destroy the culture of our country. Republican control of the presidency, senate, and House of Representatives for the next two years is a precious - and fleeting - gift to conservatives.
-
-
An excellent read
- By Don Huslage on 12-18-19
By: Matt Walsh
-
America's Real War
- By: Rabbi Daniel Lapin
- Narrated by: Rabbi Daniel Lapin
- Length: 3 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is a tug of war going on for the future of America. At one end of the rope are those who think America is a secular nation; at the other end are those who believe religion is at the root of our country's foundation. In this audio release of the thought-provoking America's Real War, renowned leader and speaker Rabbi Daniel Lapin encourages America to reembrace the Judeo-Christian values on which our nation was founded and logically demonstrates why those values are crucial to America's strength in the new millennium.
-
-
I really enjoyed the thoughts and information.
- By Anonymous User on 05-28-19
-
Feminism Against Progress
- By: Mary Harrington
- Narrated by: Mary Harrington
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Feminism Against Progress, Mary Harrington argues that the industrial-era faith in progress is turning against all but a tiny elite of women. Women's liberation was less the result of human moral progress than an effect of the material consequences of the Industrial Revolution.
-
-
Author/Narrator sets the right tone
- By Marie on 05-21-23
By: Mary Harrington
-
The Invincible Family
- Why the Global Campaign to Crush Motherhood and Fatherhood Can't Win
- By: Kimberly Ells
- Narrated by: Becky White
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Socialists and feminists have long targeted the family as an enemy, even the enemy. For socialists, the family is an obstacle to the full power of the progressive state. For feminists, the family denies female independence and equality. Today, however, the battle has grown even fiercer, as socialists and feminists have found a global ally in the United Nations, which is using its extraordinary power to undercut the authority and the sanctity of the family around the world - even in the United States.
-
-
Must read for all mothers.
- By Andrea G on 07-07-23
By: Kimberly Ells
Critic reviews
"James Mumford has written the most intriguing and original reflection on political tribalism that I have ever read. Vexed is an intellectual page-turner." (David Goodhart, author of The Road to Somewhere: The New Tribes Shaping British Politics)
"An important contribution to understanding the polarization of our global politics from one of the most exciting young ethicists working today." (James Davison Hunter, Labrosse-Levenson Professor, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia and author of Culture Wars)
Related to this topic
-
The Unholy Trinity
- Blocking the Left's Assault on Life, Marriage, and Gender
- By: Matt Walsh
- Narrated by: Rand Archer
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This highly anticipated debut from Matt Walsh of The Blaze demands that conservative voters make a last stand and fight for the moral center of America. The Trump presidency and Republican Congress provides an urgent opportunity to stop the Left's value-bending march to destroy the culture of our country. Republican control of the presidency, senate, and House of Representatives for the next two years is a precious - and fleeting - gift to conservatives.
-
-
An excellent read
- By Don Huslage on 12-18-19
By: Matt Walsh
-
The Invincible Family
- Why the Global Campaign to Crush Motherhood and Fatherhood Can't Win
- By: Kimberly Ells
- Narrated by: Becky White
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Socialists and feminists have long targeted the family as an enemy, even the enemy. For socialists, the family is an obstacle to the full power of the progressive state. For feminists, the family denies female independence and equality. Today, however, the battle has grown even fiercer, as socialists and feminists have found a global ally in the United Nations, which is using its extraordinary power to undercut the authority and the sanctity of the family around the world - even in the United States.
-
-
Must read for all mothers.
- By Andrea G on 07-07-23
By: Kimberly Ells
-
The Secret Knowledge
- On the Dismantling of American Culture
- By: David Mamet
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the past 30 years, David Mamet has been a controversial and defining force in theater and film, championing the most cherished liberal values along the way. In some of the great movies and plays of our time, his characters have explored the ethics of the business world, embodied the struggles of the oppressed, and faced the flaws of the capitalist system. But in recent years Mamet has had a change of heart.
-
-
Mamet's Rubicon
- By Kirk on 08-13-11
By: David Mamet
-
A Thousand Small Sanities
- The Moral Adventure of Liberalism
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Thousand Small Sanities is a manifesto rooted in the lives of people who invented and extended the liberal tradition. Taking us from Montaigne to Mill, and from Middlemarch to the civil rights movement, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not a form of centrism, nor simply another word for free markets, nor merely a term denoting a set of rights. It is something far more ambitious: the search for radical change by humane measures. Gopnik shows us why liberalism is one of the great moral adventures in human history.
-
-
Erudite and entertaining!
- By D. A. Vail on 05-20-19
By: Adam Gopnik
-
On Freedom
- Four Songs of Care and Constraint
- By: Maggie Nelson
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with the term enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four distinct realms: art, sex, drugs, and climate.
-
-
Just great
- By Kristi Strong on 12-14-21
By: Maggie Nelson
-
The Marketing of Evil
- How Radicals, Elitists and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom
- By: David Kupelian
- Narrated by: David Kupelian
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents' generation - from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion on demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian.
-
-
This should be recommended reading.
- By E. Giuetti on 08-01-17
By: David Kupelian
-
The Unholy Trinity
- Blocking the Left's Assault on Life, Marriage, and Gender
- By: Matt Walsh
- Narrated by: Rand Archer
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This highly anticipated debut from Matt Walsh of The Blaze demands that conservative voters make a last stand and fight for the moral center of America. The Trump presidency and Republican Congress provides an urgent opportunity to stop the Left's value-bending march to destroy the culture of our country. Republican control of the presidency, senate, and House of Representatives for the next two years is a precious - and fleeting - gift to conservatives.
-
-
An excellent read
- By Don Huslage on 12-18-19
By: Matt Walsh
-
The Invincible Family
- Why the Global Campaign to Crush Motherhood and Fatherhood Can't Win
- By: Kimberly Ells
- Narrated by: Becky White
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Socialists and feminists have long targeted the family as an enemy, even the enemy. For socialists, the family is an obstacle to the full power of the progressive state. For feminists, the family denies female independence and equality. Today, however, the battle has grown even fiercer, as socialists and feminists have found a global ally in the United Nations, which is using its extraordinary power to undercut the authority and the sanctity of the family around the world - even in the United States.
-
-
Must read for all mothers.
- By Andrea G on 07-07-23
By: Kimberly Ells
-
The Secret Knowledge
- On the Dismantling of American Culture
- By: David Mamet
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the past 30 years, David Mamet has been a controversial and defining force in theater and film, championing the most cherished liberal values along the way. In some of the great movies and plays of our time, his characters have explored the ethics of the business world, embodied the struggles of the oppressed, and faced the flaws of the capitalist system. But in recent years Mamet has had a change of heart.
-
-
Mamet's Rubicon
- By Kirk on 08-13-11
By: David Mamet
-
A Thousand Small Sanities
- The Moral Adventure of Liberalism
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Thousand Small Sanities is a manifesto rooted in the lives of people who invented and extended the liberal tradition. Taking us from Montaigne to Mill, and from Middlemarch to the civil rights movement, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not a form of centrism, nor simply another word for free markets, nor merely a term denoting a set of rights. It is something far more ambitious: the search for radical change by humane measures. Gopnik shows us why liberalism is one of the great moral adventures in human history.
-
-
Erudite and entertaining!
- By D. A. Vail on 05-20-19
By: Adam Gopnik
-
On Freedom
- Four Songs of Care and Constraint
- By: Maggie Nelson
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with the term enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four distinct realms: art, sex, drugs, and climate.
-
-
Just great
- By Kristi Strong on 12-14-21
By: Maggie Nelson
-
The Marketing of Evil
- How Radicals, Elitists and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom
- By: David Kupelian
- Narrated by: David Kupelian
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents' generation - from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion on demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian.
-
-
This should be recommended reading.
- By E. Giuetti on 08-01-17
By: David Kupelian
-
Suicide of the West
- How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Jonah Goldberg
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle.
-
-
Put some gratitude in your attitude
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-18
By: Jonah Goldberg
-
America's Real War
- By: Rabbi Daniel Lapin
- Narrated by: Rabbi Daniel Lapin
- Length: 3 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is a tug of war going on for the future of America. At one end of the rope are those who think America is a secular nation; at the other end are those who believe religion is at the root of our country's foundation. In this audio release of the thought-provoking America's Real War, renowned leader and speaker Rabbi Daniel Lapin encourages America to reembrace the Judeo-Christian values on which our nation was founded and logically demonstrates why those values are crucial to America's strength in the new millennium.
-
-
I really enjoyed the thoughts and information.
- By Anonymous User on 05-28-19
-
The Blank Slate
- The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
-
-
Don't bother. Outdated science & poor logic...
- By ejf211 on 03-31-10
By: Steven Pinker
-
The Voice of Reason
- Essays in Objectivist Thought
- By: Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the years between her first public lecture in 1961 and her last in 1981, Ayn Rand spoke and wrote about topics as different as education, medicine, Vietnam, and the death of Marilyn Monroe. In The Voice of Reason, these pieces are gathered together in book form for the first time. Written in the last decades of Rand's life, they reflect a life lived on principle, a probing mind, and a passionate intensity. With them are five essays by Leonard Peikoff, Rand's longtime associate and literary executor.
-
-
Explains Everything Of Today
- By L. Nicholson on 11-20-15
By: Ayn Rand, and others
-
Healing the Soul of America - 20th Anniversary Edition
- By: Marianne Williamson
- Narrated by: Marianne Williamson
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now updated with a new introduction by number-one New York Times best-selling author Marianne Williamson, the 20th anniversary edition of Healing the Soul of America shares her timeless, visionary message of political healing. This is a time, according to Williamson, for Americans to return once again to our first principles, both politically and spiritually. Here, Williamson draws plans to transform the American political consciousness and encourage powerful citizen involvement to heal our society.
-
-
Marianne for president!
- By Gina Pagano Rose on 02-19-19
-
What It Means to Be Moral
- Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life
- By: Phil Zuckerman
- Narrated by: Paul Brion
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In What It Means to Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life, Phil Zuckerman argues that morality does not come from God. Rather, it comes from us: our brains, our evolutionary past, our ongoing cultural development, our social experiences, and our ability to reason, reflect, and be sensitive to the suffering of others.
-
-
Praise for Faith No More
- By Amazon Customer on 12-08-19
By: Phil Zuckerman
-
Moral Politics
- How Liberals and Conservatives Think, 3rd Edition
- By: George Lakoff
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Moral Politics was first published two decades ago, it redefined how Americans think and talk about politics through the lens of cognitive political psychology. Today, George Lakoff's classic text has become all the more relevant, as liberals and conservatives have come to hold even more vigorously opposed views of the world, with the underlying assumptions of their respective worldviews at the level of basic morality.
-
-
extremely insightful. awful to get through.
- By Dave on 05-09-18
By: George Lakoff
-
How Much is Enough?
- Money and the Good Life
- By: Edward Skidelsky
- Narrated by: Clay Teunis
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What constitutes the good life? What is the true value of money? Why do we work such long hours merely to acquire greater wealth? These are some of the questions that many asked themselves when the financial system crashed in 2008. This book tackles such questions head-on.The authors begin with the great economist John Maynard Keynes. In 1930 Keynes predicted that, within a century, per capita income would steadily rise, people’s basic needs would be met, and no one would have to work more than fifteen hours a week.
-
-
Not what I expected at all!
- By Brad and Chi on 05-22-23
By: Edward Skidelsky
-
The Way We Never Were
- American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
- By: Stephanie Coontz
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man's home has never been his castle, the "male breadwinner marriage" is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. In The Way We Never Were, acclaimed historian Stephanie Coontz examines two centuries of the American family, sweeping away misconceptions about the past that cloud current debates about domestic life. The 1950s do not present a workable model of how to conduct our personal lives today, Coontz argues.
-
-
fantastic report on the dangers of nostalgia
- By Richard Stine on 06-29-21
By: Stephanie Coontz
-
Ayn Rand Answers
- The Best of Her Q & A
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957, Ayn Rand occasionally lectured in order to bring her philosophy of Objectivism to a wider audience and apply it to current cultural and political issues. These taped lectures and the question-and-answer sessions that followed added not only an eloquent new dimension to Ayn Rand's ideas and beliefs, but a fresh and spontaneous insight into Ayn Rand herself.
-
-
It sounds like Ayn Rand
- By Anonymous User on 06-09-18
By: Ayn Rand
-
Giving the Devil His Due
- Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: Michael Shermer
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is the "Devil"? And what is he due? The devil is anyone who disagrees with you. And what he is due is the right to speak his mind. He must have this for your own safety's sake, because his freedom is inextricably tied to your own. If he can be censored, why shouldn't you be censored? If we put barriers up to silence "unpleasant" ideas, what's to stop the silencing of any discussion? This book is a full-throated defense of free speech and open inquiry in politics, science, and culture by the New York Times best-selling author and skeptic Michael Shermer.
-
-
Flawed Audio
- By Private on 04-10-20
By: Michael Shermer
-
Good Without God
- What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe
- By: Greg Epstein
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A provocative and positive response to Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and other New Atheists, Good Without God makes a bold claim for what nonbelievers do share and believe. Epstein's Good Without God provides a constructive, challenging response to these manifestos by getting to the heart of Humanism and its positive belief in tolerance, community, morality, and good without having to rely on the guidance of a higher being.
-
-
Speaker sounds too robotic
- By Lisa S. on 08-27-21
By: Greg Epstein
What listeners say about Vexed
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- wes dodge
- 05-29-20
I was hoping for more guidance to address issues.
like the premise. Do not regret digesting the book. Like the idea of using morality rather than party "packages".
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Steve D
- 07-11-21
Thanks
Really enjoyed this book and hearing different perspective to arguments. I felt the author was balanced in his approach, and very thoughtful, as well as thought provoking. .
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful