Items related to Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence

Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence - Softcover

May, Rollo

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9780393317039: Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence
Softcover
ISBN 10: 039331703X ISBN 13: 9780393317039
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998

Synopsis

Stressing the positive, creative aspects of power and innocence, Rollo May offers a way of thinking about the problems of contemporary society.

Rollo May defines power as the ability to cause or prevent change; innocence, on the other hand, is the conscious divesting of one's power to make it seem a virtuea form of powerlessness that Dr. May sees as particularly American in nature. From these basic concepts he suggests a new ethic that sees power as the basis for both human goodness and evil.

Dr. May discusses five levels of power's potential in each of us: the infant's power to be; self-affirmation, the ability to survive with self-esteem; self-assertion, which develops when self-affirmation is blocked; aggression, a reaction to thwarted assertion; and, finally, violence, when reason and persuasion are ineffective.

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About the Author

Rollo May (1909-1994) taught at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, and was Regents' Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. An influential psychologist, he was the best-selling author of Love and Will, as well as the author of The Courage to Create, Man's Search for Himself, The Meaning of Anxiety, and Psychology and the Human Dilemma.

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Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date
1998
Language
English
ISBN 10 
039331703X
ISBN 13 
9780393317039
Binding
Paperback
Number of pages
284
Rating
  • 4.19 out of 5 stars
    198 ratings by Goodreads