The Peripatetic Philosopher shares his newest book!

THE SHORT INSCRUTABLE LIFE & TERRIBLE FATE OF THE DOMESTICATED LION, ZIMBA!  AND HUMAN CRUELTIES OF A SIMILAR KIND

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

This is perhaps the most different book I've written to date. It is obvious that I have been quite taken by the fate of the young lion, which is a story that appeared in the CLINTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S newsletter this spring.

Cobbled together in this work is the cruel and unusual treatment of that pet lion named Zimba; then this work veers off to present a bizarre and chilling episode in The Case of Thomas N, a novel by John David Morley, a novel I read thirty years ago but which has never left my consciousness.  It relates to the cage awaiting those who escape the demands of freedom for comfort and complacency but relegates them to self-imprisonment.  

Often those determined to escape the demands of freedom fall into the magnetic field and senseless cruelty of prominent political leaders or evangelical preachers who angle for their vote or for their coin only to see them for that deception fall from grace and into Dante’s Hell.  

In this very brief book, the reader encounters the cruelty to Zimba, the nightmarish experience of Thomas N with the man at the window, and then the crushing cruelty of US presidents, evangelical preachers and prominent celebrities -- all richly profiled - to suggest we are in a cultural drift away from our essence due to the “failure of memory” and the “failure of conscience."

America has increasingly departed from its core values since World War Two with shame no longer having purchase and civil discourse by everyone taking everything personal.  

As a consequence, this writer argues, society has become a collection of inexplicable pockets of insular metaphorical cages at all socioeconomic levels of American society not unlike that of the cage of the doomed Zimba.

Description of the book:

This is a story in two parts: first, it is the story of a lion cub that could fit into the palm of one's hand at birth only to grow to a two-year-old mature lion in an unnatural environment, there to be unwittingly destroyed for behaving in its innocence like a lion. Deplorable as that might be, what say we of men who exploit the trust of people who trust them? The second story deals with this "Failure of Memory" and "Failure of Conscience" as a display of human cruelties of another kind. Humans trust certain men to lead them to safety, not drive them into their own darkness. When men do, and show no shame for doing so, as they do in this story, the betrayal is as certain as that experienced by Zimba.


Amazon Kindle Paperback: $18.00: Amazon Kindle E-BOOK: $9.99.  Both editions have all the same content:132 pages, photographs of lions in their native habitat, and other photos.

The Peripatetic Philosopher reflects:

When you cry, like Chicken Little, “The sky is falling,” sometimes you are lucky and what you have been saying forever is not only heard, but echoed across the land!



James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© May 16, 2017



Loyal readers of my blogs, books, articles and missives know that I have been harping on three things, if also constantly:

ONE: We are a damaged society with a damaged subtext (CONFIDENCE IN SUBTEXT, etc.);

TWO: Our young people refuse to grow up and you can put that business at the door of their parents;

THREE: Our mania and obsessive compulsive addiction to iPhones and the like as our baby-like pacifiers to nearly everyone are a threat now to our very society.

Low and behold Senator Benjamin Sasse of Nebraska has written a book that my readers will find nothing new that they have not discovered before on these pages or in my books, but I salute him nonetheless because at least he has the clout and perhaps some people will listen.

The book is THE VANISHING AMERICAN ADULT: Our Coming of Age Crisis – and How to Rebuild a Self-Reliant Culture.

It mirrors what is in CONFIDENCE IN SUBTEXT with the only difference is that I claim the CRISIS IS HERE; it is not coming!  But I don't have to be politically correct!

The Peripatetic Philosopher announces:

Available on www.amazon.com in Kindle Library: $46.80 -- 389 pages with schematic diagrams, colored photographs and footnotes.


FOR THOSE INTERESTED

I received my copy of the book today. Kindle has done a good job of printing and binding. It is actually superior to other books I have had published in printing and binding. And yes, I had to pay the full $46.80 for the book. I noticed that Kindle, knowing it is of some expense, offers it for review at no cost with a special app. It is apparent that Kindle believes the reader, once inside its content, will want his or her own copy.

As mentioned before, Kindle set the minimum price, which $46.80 represents. Most of my readers of my e-mail are senior citizens, retired or about to retire. It is written for those in the full flush of life and career as anyone of that distinction will find once they have read the book. My sense is that a fine wine it will find people who will appreciate its bouquet at this or any price. I commend Kindle for giving me this opportunity.

For the person who is not as self-trusting as he or she would like, whatever the endeavor be it that of a student, writer, musician, engineer or professional in any endeavor, the motivation and drive, the confidence and competence, the satisfaction and elan resides in the subtext. Given our culture, given its brutal disregard for our sanity and well being and given its terrible imbalance, we all have a somewhat damaged subtext for here resides our subconscious which is the motor to everything. Being aware of that fact, we can move on and find happiness and fulfillment. That was why the book was written.

My only regret is that it is not a hard cover book. Should you check out the apps, and I think Kindle is wise in offering this possibility, the reader will want his or her own copy.

For a author of ideas, such as myself, I am amazed as I read the biography of GEORGE FROST KENNAN, the essentially unobtrusive observer behind the scenes creator of the TRUMAN DOCTRINE and MARSHALL PLAN that prevented Europe from falling into Stalinist communistic influence and control after World War Two, was very much an organizational development (OD) psychologist like this writer.

Moreover, Kennan unabashedly was very much guided by intuitive thinking when it came to the Russia that he knew and loved so much. As commonly asserted, we are separated by six degrees of separation, and in reading this biography and thinking of it in terms of CONFIDENCE IN SUBTEXT, I feel a connection with a man I have never met, a fellow United States Midwesterner and a fellow traveler -- as my book attempts to demonstrate -- who was guided by his own subtext.

DESCRIPTION OF “CONFIDENCE IN SUBTEXT”:

“Confidence in Subtext” is evident when people know when to go for broke and when not to; when to develop a relationship and when not to; when to take a promotion and when not to; when to join a company or community or organization and when it would be wise to take a pass; when to invest and when not to; when to buy a home, an automobile or some other major purchase and when not; when to take the advice of others and when not; when to go it alone and not; when to leave a job, a community, a relationship, a church, school or company and when not; when to counterintuitively push the hot buttons of someone else and when not; and when to be emphatic, say in a sales call, and when not.

“Confidence in Subtext” is what happens when two people fall in love at first sight! A data bank of complex and detailed information floods the mind, information with which neither party is aware, and is processed in an instant.

To understand the idea of “Confidence in Subtext,” a few examples might be helpful. Everyone has a subtext. True confidence is not possible without a healthy subtext as the stories in this volume are designed to show. Subtext is buried in our subconscious beyond our day-to-day dealing in content and context and why it may not be familiar, but it is always there.

The Peripatetic Philosopher posts a new book:

 CRUELTY of ANOTHER KIND

THE SHORT INSCRUTABLE LIFE

&

TERRIBLE FATE OF THE DOMESTICATED

LION, ZIMBA!

BOOK DESCRIPTION

This is the story of a cub lion that could fit into the palm of one's hand to a two-year-old mature lion with no sense of what it was to be a lion, only to unwittingly reveal an aspect of its nature in innocence and to be destroyed for that expression. Deplorable as that might be, what say we as humans who behave as clueless in our self-imprisoning excesses while denying or fleeing from our own identity, psychology and our cultural moorings into the vacuum of despair?

This traces the parallel tragedies as a result of retreat from cultural moorings: one imposed by circumstances; the other by the freedom of choice.

Content: 24 pages


NOTE TO REGULAR READERS:

This is the first in an occasional essay on "A Way of Thinking About Things" that was promised in an earlier missive. No missive will be more than forty pages long and the subjects will be catholic touching on biography to philosophy and philosophers to science and scientists, novels and novelists, art and artists, on creative people throughout time who have come into this author's purview in his reading and reflection. Readers across the globe have asked for more that is less. Stay tuned to see how they react to this experiment.
JRF

JAMES R. FISHER, JR., Ph.D.

© May 4, 2017

History, Commentary, Photographs & Acknowledgements

www.amazon.com A Kindle E-Book: $9.99 

The Peripatetic Philosopher is to conduct an experiment:

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

The madness of the times is consuming me at the moment, and it involves not only the "End of the American Century,"  which I have suggested happened in 1968 when I was in South Africa, but the "End of Democracy" here in the United States of Anxiety in the 21st century.

The United States has become a place where a man loses his career for what he says to women, and forks over $13 million and doesn't touch a one of them; where a National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball magnet loses his NBA $1 billion franchise when his girlfriend -- 30 years junior to him -- records his racial bias towards his athletes; where a female conservative muckraking writer cancels a college speech to prevent a riot and an honored academic is shouted off the stage attempting to give his speech because he holds ideas counter to the liberal masses; where Major League Baseball (MLB) players who happened to be black are suddenly acutely sensitive to fans who shout the "N" word at them; and when such fans do so shout, they are escorted from the ball park, and may be permanently banned from attending games, and the list goes on.  

What happened to: "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!"

It is not only that you no longer have a right to state your mind, sick as it may be, you must state it with the same sickness that is culturally acceptable to college professors and students. 

Five hundred years ago, the university was created as the citadel not only of learning what was already known, but the only safe place to exchange controversial ideas. That is now all gone.

We worry about a nuclear holocaust with the madness of the dictator in North Korea.  We don't need him to destroy civilization.  We've created our own brand of madness, so we're doing a good enough job ourselves destroying ourselves and our freedoms without any help from him or anyone else.

JRF

PS My essays are going to show "JRF" as the authorship.  Stay tuned if you like.

PSS I have two others in the cooker which may take precedence.  We shall see.  The only way you'll know, if interested, is to check amazon's Kindle Library under JRF.  Incidentally, this is an experiment.  It is not written in concrete.  

The Peripatetic Philosopher issues a new policy:

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

For the past twenty years, yes, it has been that long (actually 26 years or since I've had my website and formed The Delta Group Florida), I have been publishing 90 percent of my missives gratis and 10 percent on Kindle. This represents over 1,300 missives over that span of years.

That policy will gradually be modified to ultimately be the reverse of this as I find people value my work more when they pay for it (even at only $0.99 for an e-book) than free on my blog by the actual numbers. I am posting this on my blog as well.

The first venture into this new realm will be titled CRUELTY OF ANOTHER KIND and I suspect it will not be more than 20 - 30 pages. Then again, it may be longer or shorter as I am working on it at the moment.

As always, I wish you well in your reading.

A final word. People contact me all the time and wish to publish on my website and blog. l give them all the same advice. Set up your own website; and publish your work as e-books on www.amazon.com's Kindle Self-Publishing Library.

Amazon has found the key to 21st century publishing. As fast as retail outlets of wide reputation across the continent are disappearing (I write on this in CONFIDENCE IN SUBTEXT), I suspect the same will occur with publishing houses.

Everyone is an author! Everyone's life is unique, and high drama.

I salute all who attempt to share their spirit with a wider audience.

To that end, I wish everyone well.

Dr. James R. Fisher, Jr.