Product Description

This is a book about freedom, and above all about the idea that there is often no greater obstacle to freedom than the assumption that it has already been fully attained. While in the West few individuals today suffer physical restraint by the state, we are still constrained by powerful psychological chains-which are in many ways far more effective, if only because they are so difficult to perceive.

Influential writers such as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman have shown that the corporately controlled mass media of Western democracies serve as a giant filter system favouring powerful state and business interests: what we receive as 'objective news' about domestic politics, human rights and environmental issues, is in fact an extremely partial and biased view of the world.

Free to be Human shows how the same filter system distorts our understanding of many personal, ethical and spiritual issues, ensuring that we remain passive, conformist, confused and uninformed-and willing to accept the irrational values of corporate consumerism. David Edwards argues that, in order to counter this continual process of disinformation and disempowerment, we need to master the arts of 'intellectual self-defence' and so become able to challenge the deceptions of a system that subordinates people and planet to the drive for profit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #107389 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
"This is Namaste's book of the year. Why? Because this is a book that urges the reader to look at the world from a wider perspective. Although written in 1993, everything about which the author has written is so relevant today. It is full of wisdom that does not rely on other people's research. . . . This book shows all of us ways in which we can change, by questioning how we live and think." --Namaste Magazine

"Often raw and uncompromising, but it is precisely this quality that lifts it above the familiar blend of green bland and blather." --Jonathon Porritt

Jonathon Porritt, Resurgence
"Free to be Human is often raw and always uncompromising. But it is precisely this quality that lifts it up above the all too familiar blend of green bland and blather. It does us a service by articulating that which so many people would prefer to keep off any political agenda."

Green Line magazine
"A major contribution to understanding the forces we are up against."

Customer Reviews

The Escape Route from the Despair of Consumer Society
A powerful book that blows apart the myth that we are 'free' societies. It brings a clarity and insight to the way we are manipulated by a captive media working to a self-policing paradigm. We make a Faustian compact - get on the consuming bandwagon and find power and status but at the price of losing our sanity. We are missing the information that is 'filtered out' by a system of mass communication that only tells us what is necessary to keep us in buying mode.

In many ways we are worse informed than we were 50 years ago. I feel this myself in my own field of nutritional anthropology. Common wisdom about how we should be feeding ourselves has been obliterated and replaced by a modern dysfunctional paradigm that only serves to seduce people into eating ever more processed and inappropriate foods - because that is what "shifts product" and builds short-term profits.

This book gives one the arguments and strength to resist the blandishments of corporate driven advertising. Much more, it makes it clear that we will only find a true harmony and peace in life if we actually DO something about this situation. We have to take control of our own destiny - no one will do it for us. And we must do it leaving ourselves open to doubt. False certainties that are at odds with reality are a great source of psychological stress in modern society.

I have a couple of niggles. For example, in the author's rush to condemn corporate driven profit motives he derides perfectly understandable fears (in human evolutionary terms) of mass immigration. It is perfectly normal for the baby wrens, turfed out of the nest by a newly hatched cuckoo, to be upset by it. Indeed, it is the brushing aside of these fears by well meaning authorities that lead to the psychological distress of multiculturalism. Nothing to do with corporate profits.

In his enthusiasm for attacking shibboleths the author lashes out unfairly at some vulnerable targets. For example, he manages to drill down very deep into Darwin's writings to find an excuse for calling Darwin a 'racist'. The author had to drill past all the other matter that demonstrates Darwin's humanity. (Darwin was immensely upset by the slavery of Brazil). This is one case where the term 'racist' has become just a six-letter term of abuse that can be made to mean whatever the user wishes it to mean.

These are just a couple of minor points which demonstrate that even the author is not exempt from false certainties! Still a great book - thought provoking and an escape route for people trapped in the despair of modern Western society.

A brilliant and incisive book.
I first read this book in 1996 when it was published in England. I think I must have re-read it at least five or six times since, returning to favourite passages when life around me seemed to make little sense.

Using a passionate compelling language, David leads us through a treatise on illusions and the huge role they play in denying personal happiness aswell as contributing to massive human suffering.

He implores us to join these two "wounds" of inner disallusionment and outward worldly suffering by asking the necessary compelling questions that are rooted in a real human relevance and to challenge our instinctive desire to avoid seeing uncomfortable truths when they threaten our short term escapism.

The real secret of this book though is that by the end David has made a devastating case for looking beyond the illusionary comfort of this short term escapism and seeing instead the true happiness of a long term re-alignment to the business of our intrinsic humanity.

Should inspire and bring a sense of relief and... well... human-ness to the reader. A massive recommendation!

Post-Chomski revelations: a self help book to freedom
Fed up of books fannying around with the meaning of life, existence of God etc. Not really telling it how it is. Then dare to read this. Dare to put into question your beliefs on war on money on tv, on countries, on , , life and death and prepare to face the world as it is. Not as we want it to be...how it really is.

Too good to be true? No. On top of this it is so convincingly written, so heartfelt and well researched, so draw dropping in its incisiveness its difficult to critisise.

It's the type of book I've been looking for. The type that can really change the way you look. For conspiracy theories and isms and ists, hide away in flights of imagination this book unwraps it all and gives you answers to all your greatest questions.

One of the greatest books ever been written on the nature of human existence. I MEAN IT. But a warning- the answers are painful.

Everyone who believes in humanity and that things are not quite right in the world should read this and those that don't should have it read to them.

Read it if your human.