The Three Christs of Ypsilanti

Title: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti
Author: Milton Rokeach
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 9781590173848

From the publisher: On July 1, 1959, at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan, the social psychologist Milton Rokeach brought together three paranoid schizophrenics: Clyde Benson, an elderly farmer and alcoholic; Joseph Cassel, a failed writer who was institutionalized after increasingly violent behavior toward his family; and Leon Gabor, a college dropout and veteran of World War II.

The men had one thing in common: each believed himself to be Jesus Christ. Their extraordinary meeting and the two years they spent in one another’s company serve as the basis for an investigation into the nature of human identity, belief, and delusion that is poignant, amusing, and at times disturbing. Displaying the sympathy and subtlety of a gifted novelist, Rokeach draws us into the lives of three troubled and profoundly different men who find themselves “confronted with the ultimate contradiction conceivable for human beings: more than one person claiming the same identity.”

The True Believer

Title: The True Believer
Author: Eric Hoffer
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780060505912

Social psychologist Eric Hoffer was born in New York City in 1902 to German-Jewish immigrants. The first of his ten books, The True Believer (1951), received critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, becoming widely recognized as a classic. It discussed mass movements - religious, social and political - stating that such movements are interchangeable: fanatical Nazis later became fanatical Communists; fanatical Communists later became fanatical anti-Communists; Saul, fanatical persecutor of Christians, became Paul, fanatical Christian. He argued that the motivations and behaviors of mass movements were interchangeable even when their stated goals or values were diametrically opposed.

Hoffer suggested that it was possible to quell the rise of an undesirable mass movement by introducing a benign mass movement, giving those prone to joining movements an outlet for their insecurities. He recognized the fundamental importance of self-esteem to psychological well-being, and postulated that fanaticism and self-righteousness were rooted in self-hatred and self-doubt. He believed that a passionate obsession with the outside world or the lives of others was merely a craven attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life. Hoffer didn't take an exclusively negative view of true believers and gave positive examples such as Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi.

War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning

Title: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning
Author: Chris Hedges
Publisher: Anchor Books
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3463-5

From the publisher: As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even addictive: “It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.”

Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting the most basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.

Louisa says: A challenging book that gave me a whole new perspective and greater understanding of the psychology of war for individuals, societies and nations. A fascinating study on the human need for meaning in life, and what we will do to create it.