Encyclopaedic

I was enchanted and educated by the scholarship and lovely writing of this excellent book, although unconvinced by its deconstructive argument that disenchantment is a myth. The book is beautifully read, but would be better if the reader didn’t mangle the many French and German quotations.

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Full of suggestive ideas

Many great plusses: he writes/speaks extremely clearly, perfect for listening and walking. He draws on writers from Frankfurt school and French postmodern school in a crystal clear way, which is very rare. He makes a strong case for including biographies in academic work. His basic arguments are challenging to many ideas about modernity: 1. (On Elites) the biographies of great scientists and scholars are full of interest in magic and the supernatural where we would least expect it, like the Curies or logical positivists. 2. (Non elites) Ordinary people do believe in supernatural phenomena despite the enlightenment, industrial revolution etc. The minus I found (much less a weakness than it sounds) was that he does not really establish his main claim that disenchantment is a myth. ok so many people believe today in magic, but perhaps it is that they ONLY believe? He doesn't ask what depth of conviction is expressed by saying you believe in ghosts to a telemarketer. And then on Weber, the culmination of the book, it's surprising how little of Weber is affected by Storm's arguments: Weber discusses modern western phenomena eg classical music in such careful detail and with so little dogma that Josephson Storm's more one-sided arguments dont seem to touch him much. Eg Weber tries to capture our amazement at both the rational system and the irrational aspects of ("western" or "global") classical music. Even if many of the players and audience members go and play tarot cards after the concert, there is still a striking phenomenon to understand... As for the fact that elites, scientists, intellectuals, are very open to unexplained phenomena - that is how it should be (Storm consciously avoids evaluating, but this has its risks), scientists are much less dogmatic than their fans often are. But does that mean that disenchantment hasn't happened at all? In any case, Ill definitely be reading it again :)

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1 person found this helpful