A World Waiting to be Born: Civility Rediscovered

M. Scott Peck is known for the profound psychological and spiritual journey on which he has guided millions of readers in his earlier bestselling books.
A WORLD WAITING TO BE BORN is his long-awaited major new work of nonfiction, and it brings us the most urgent messages and the most important guidance toward change Dr. Peck has ever offered.
We are a deeply ailing society. Our illness is incivility, by which Dr. Peck means conduct far more serious than a want of politeness - and going back in time much further than the blatantly gluttonous 1980s. Morally destructive patterns of self-absorption, callousness, manipulativeness, and materialism are so ingrained in our routine behavior that we often do not recognize them. In multiple ways we engage in subtle forms of unconscious hurtfulness toward ourselves and others - ways that have come to be accepted as the norm in American society.
Yet there is a growing awareness that something is seriously wrong. If one of the many powerful themes in this book is that civil behavior has largely vanished from our lives - between individuals, in marriage and family life, in the workplace, and in organizations and businesses - another theme is that change is not only possible, it is achievable. We can learn to restore civility to ourselves and our institutions. We can make the spiritual commitment that is a cornerstone of civility. We have the power and the knowledge to become a truly civil society. This book slows us how.
Using examples from his own life, case histories of patients who sought his psychiatric counsel, and dramatic scenarios of businesses that have made a conscious decision to bring civility to their organizations, Dr. Peck demonstrates where we have gone wrong and how change can be effected. The process is likely to be painful - change hurts - but without change there is no growth, and without growth we are half alive.
Dr. Peck offers a concrete, step-by-step program to restore our organizations and ourselves to health. The key to generating organizational health is developing community, which, like civility itself, is an explicit concept with explicit components including spiritual commitment. This wise, radical, and practical book is a blueprint for change - for individuals, partners in marriage, parents, managers, and corporations themselves. Indeed, Dr. Peck proposes that restoring our institutions to civility may create the brightest prospects for both our personal and our societal well-being.

Addressing both personal and corporate interactions, psychiatrist Peck ( The Road Less Traveled ) stresses the need for increased civility, defined as "consciously motivated organizational behavior that is ethical in submission to a Higher Power." Peck recycles the wisdom, bromides and Christian theology of his earlier works as he discusses subjects like marital tensions and the value of psychotherapy. Newer material includes sound arguments that organizations have an obligation to be ethical and that no one management style is best. He concludes by describing "community-building workshops" he has led for various groups. While he reports much success, and while he promotes civility and community as steps toward a better world, his general avoidance of social and political issues vitiates his claims. 100,000 first printing; BOMC and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.