Rating: 
Summary: Reverence for Reverence
Review: "Reverence" is a wonderful book. I highly recommend it for anyone who is concerned about being the best person you can be. I enjoyed the thoughtful discussions about how ethics are not found only among specific religions and that one does not have to be a theist at all to posess the greatist virtues man can posess and share with others. It's nutrality concerning religion is refreshing and, I feel, the only honest way to look at the subject. I have taken many things from this book that will help me guide my three girls toward their potential to become truely great people.
I am currently living in a tent in the desert and have been very fortunate to have had this book along with me.
Rating:
Summary: New/Old Wisdom About Human Limits
Review: Christopher Lasch once raised what he called the "forbidden topic of limits" in our society. In his new book Reverence, Paul Woodruff explores in a fresh and compelling way the topic of implacable human limitations and what it means to acknowledge or fail to acknowledge them in the business of living. His work brings to light a much obscured dimension of human life and living, and ought to be of keen interest to philosophers, social theorists, social scientists, and seekers after wisdom generally. In Woodruff's view, "reverence" has as much to do with politics and power as religion and often transpires outside the sphere of religion altogether. Reverence "begins in a deep understanding of human limitations" and from it "grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control"--God, the gods (beneficent or evil), truth, nature, justice--in his words, "conceived as an ideal, dimly grasped and much disputed"--death, or, if that is how one sees it, nothing at all. This capacity and its exercise is a virtue, indeed a cardinal virtue, Woodruff claims, in just the sense that courage or fairmindedness are virtues. He argues that reckoning with this dimension of human life is a universal, inescapable task. Of course, it takes myriad forms in different times and cultures. But he points out that people from very different religions commonly much admire one another's outlook and practices, which can't be based on the content of their creeds. It appears that we can detect and admire this quality anywhere. I would add (I am sure he would agree) that the same sense of admiration and commonality often occurs among religious and nonreligious individuals. Woodruff explores how the Greeks before Plato and Confucius and his immediate followers in China, such as Mencius, defend reverence as an indispensable bulwark of human society, the thing that alone keeps leaders from trying to act like gods (tyranny and hubris for the Greeks), and is necessary if ordinary people are to find a place of belonging in society, with its inevitable differences and hierarchies, one that avoids the extremes, we might say, of emotional isolation and domination. Woodruff points out that Western philosophers since Plato largely ignore reverence, perhaps because they have so often pursued utterly objective and timeless truth. But poets from Homer and the Greek tragedians to Tennyson and Philip Larkin , and others like Lasch, bring it to the fore again and again. Reverence, in Woodruff's words, is "the virtuous capacity for awe, respect, and shame" in the face of what "cannot be changed or controlled by human means" ( p. 7). In our time, we mainly hear praise of irreverence. But reverence is not only compatible with but often calls for the mocking of pompous solemnity and arrogant hypocrisy. Of course, more than irreverence is needed, lest we fall into mere negativity or cynicism. In the civic republican tradition, any viable alternative to excessive independence or subservience to others must include shared or overlapping notions of the common good and mutual deliberation about them. Most of us are understandably leery about these ideas. But Woodruff contends that we have to be serious about them because we simply cannot cultivate or practice virtues like courage, compassion, or reverence apart from membership and participation in the life of a community, including its ceremonies that powerfully install a sense of limits and mutual respect. For example, you can't be a courageous soldier in a unit of cowards who are unwilling to take risks because to take them yourself would amount to throwing your life away, which is foolish, not courageous. Similarly, you can't practice altruism or compassion among cruel or narrowly self-seeking individuals because to do so would simply be to portray yourself as a sucker in their eyes, and to an extent be one! Without a community, Woodruff points out, such virtues "have no outlet." Consider the interesting example of respect. Respect "helps us avoid treating others with contempt, partly because it reminds us of our limitations, and partly because it can be shared in a variety of practices" (p. 7). Respect can be too "thin" when it is accorded to everyone regardless of "whether they respond to it or not" or are accountable for their actions. Kant's concept of respect as a mutual recognition of autonomy falls largely in this category. Respect also can be too "thick," as when it is claimed on the basis of unquestioned authority or expertise. The enormous limitations of all our perspectives, capacities for moral insight, and knowledge make such thick respect a recipe for stultification and arrogance. Reverence for our enduring limitations and imperfections requires a sense of common humanity. Thus, skillful leaders and knowledgeable teachers must extend respect to and really listen to their followers and students, just as the latter would be foolish not to feel and show respect for those in their communities who seem to have greater knowledge, maturity, or wisdom than they do. If so, reverence and an abiding appreciation of our human limitations requires the sort of just dialogue I outlined earlier in the paper, and is an essential virtue for the practice of that dialogue. Woodruff argues that the exercise of such virtues is "dependent on the presence of virtue in the community," and that we are therefore more dependent upon one another in the pursuit of a good life than we commonly acknowledge. This book succeeds very well in "renewing a forgotten virtue," as Woodruff puts it. As a result of reading it, I am currently exploring how contemporary psychology and psychotherapy are somewhat distorted because they tend to obscure the crucial dimension of human life named by "reverence." I feel sure many others will find the book illuminating and useful, as well.
Rating:
Summary: New/Old Wisdom About Human Limits
Review: Christopher Lasch once raised what he called the "forbidden topic of limits" in our society. In his new book Reverence, Paul Woodruff explores in a fresh and compelling way the topic of implacable human limitations and what it means to acknowledge or fail to acknowledge them in the business of living. His work brings to light a much obscured dimension of human life and living, and ought to be of keen interest to philosophers, social theorists, social scientists, and seekers after wisdom generally. In Woodruff's view, "reverence" has as much to do with politics and power as religion and often transpires outside the sphere of religion altogether. Reverence "begins in a deep understanding of human limitations" and from it "grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control"--God, the gods (beneficent or evil), truth, nature, justice--in his words, "conceived as an ideal, dimly grasped and much disputed"--death, or, if that is how one sees it, nothing at all. This capacity and its exercise is a virtue, indeed a cardinal virtue, Woodruff claims, in just the sense that courage or fairmindedness are virtues. He argues that reckoning with this dimension of human life is a universal, inescapable task. Of course, it takes myriad forms in different times and cultures. But he points out that people from very different religions commonly much admire one another's outlook and practices, which can't be based on the content of their creeds. It appears that we can detect and admire this quality anywhere. I would add (I am sure he would agree) that the same sense of admiration and commonality often occurs among religious and nonreligious individuals. Woodruff explores how the Greeks before Plato and Confucius and his immediate followers in China, such as Mencius, defend reverence as an indispensable bulwark of human society, the thing that alone keeps leaders from trying to act like gods (tyranny and hubris for the Greeks), and is necessary if ordinary people are to find a place of belonging in society, with its inevitable differences and hierarchies, one that avoids the extremes, we might say, of emotional isolation and domination. Woodruff points out that Western philosophers since Plato largely ignore reverence, perhaps because they have so often pursued utterly objective and timeless truth. But poets from Homer and the Greek tragedians to Tennyson and Philip Larkin , and others like Lasch, bring it to the fore again and again. Reverence, in Woodruff's words, is "the virtuous capacity for awe, respect, and shame" in the face of what "cannot be changed or controlled by human means" ( p. 7). In our time, we mainly hear praise of irreverence. But reverence is not only compatible with but often calls for the mocking of pompous solemnity and arrogant hypocrisy. Of course, more than irreverence is needed, lest we fall into mere negativity or cynicism. In the civic republican tradition, any viable alternative to excessive independence or subservience to others must include shared or overlapping notions of the common good and mutual deliberation about them. Most of us are understandably leery about these ideas. But Woodruff contends that we have to be serious about them because we simply cannot cultivate or practice virtues like courage, compassion, or reverence apart from membership and participation in the life of a community, including its ceremonies that powerfully install a sense of limits and mutual respect. For example, you can't be a courageous soldier in a unit of cowards who are unwilling to take risks because to take them yourself would amount to throwing your life away, which is foolish, not courageous. Similarly, you can't practice altruism or compassion among cruel or narrowly self-seeking individuals because to do so would simply be to portray yourself as a sucker in their eyes, and to an extent be one! Without a community, Woodruff points out, such virtues "have no outlet." Consider the interesting example of respect. Respect "helps us avoid treating others with contempt, partly because it reminds us of our limitations, and partly because it can be shared in a variety of practices" (p. 7). Respect can be too "thin" when it is accorded to everyone regardless of "whether they respond to it or not" or are accountable for their actions. Kant's concept of respect as a mutual recognition of autonomy falls largely in this category. Respect also can be too "thick," as when it is claimed on the basis of unquestioned authority or expertise. The enormous limitations of all our perspectives, capacities for moral insight, and knowledge make such thick respect a recipe for stultification and arrogance. Reverence for our enduring limitations and imperfections requires a sense of common humanity. Thus, skillful leaders and knowledgeable teachers must extend respect to and really listen to their followers and students, just as the latter would be foolish not to feel and show respect for those in their communities who seem to have greater knowledge, maturity, or wisdom than they do. If so, reverence and an abiding appreciation of our human limitations requires the sort of just dialogue I outlined earlier in the paper, and is an essential virtue for the practice of that dialogue. Woodruff argues that the exercise of such virtues is "dependent on the presence of virtue in the community," and that we are therefore more dependent upon one another in the pursuit of a good life than we commonly acknowledge. This book succeeds very well in "renewing a forgotten virtue," as Woodruff puts it. As a result of reading it, I am currently exploring how contemporary psychology and psychotherapy are somewhat distorted because they tend to obscure the crucial dimension of human life named by "reverence." I feel sure many others will find the book illuminating and useful, as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Caveat Emptor
Review: I feel compelled to issue a warning here. This is by no means the "treasure" that other reviewers are suggesting that it is. I bought it largely on the strength of Woodruff's excellent record as a translator. I was expecting something special. I didn't get it. Nor will any discerning reader. What you get here is a rather trite self-help book. Woodruff himself notes that the idea for the book began as an article and ended up as a book. Well, I'm sorry, it should have stayed as an article. The introduction is, in and of itself, intriguing. It is worth reading, and Woodruff clearly has hit on something in saying that reverence is a forgotten virtue. But it really only takes ten pages to say that. Do we need a 200 page book on the subject? It was with dismay that I read on. Page after repetitive page. Paragraph heaped upon paragraph to explain what could be explained in a sentence or two. The book itself is presented in a pocket book format - very self-helpish. The chapters are broken down into little digestible bits with handy headings - also very self helpish. The headings themselves are cutsey , "Dad Slugs the Umpire". There is, for pete's sake a section entitled, "Why go to a Meeting". This book has all the hallmarks of something cooked up and rushed to take its place in the self help market. Which may not be entirely Woodruff's fault - lord knows Oxford Press would probably love to have a best-selling little self help book. But as I read this book (and I have a background in classics as a glance at my other reviews will tell you) I grew annoyed and pevish, it was actually a waste of my time. And there is precious enough time to read as it is. I was STRONGLY reminded of Victor Davis Hanson's admonition to teachers of the classics -teach more write less. I kept asking myself - why did this book need to be written? In other reviews I have railed against the tendency of reviewers to accord 5 stars to every book they like. To me, a work of genius is a five star book. Excellent books are 4 star books. There is no way on god's green earth that this is a work of genius deserving of the five star reviews it is receiving. What I do feel compelled to draw attention to is that there are two reviews here from reviewers in Texas -- Woodruff teaches in Texas. Is this a co-incidence? In each case the reviewers have reviewed one and only one book - one reviewer with 52 helpful votes does not even have an "about me section." I find that odd. Both review have received an extraordinary number of "helpful votes". Even odder. There is also a review from the Publisher -- something I thought was not allowed. I am afraid that all of this taken together paints a suspicious picture. I realise that the rules also call for us not to comment on other reviews -- as rule I have religiously followed. I make an exception in this one case. Caveat Emptor.
Rating: 
Summary: Good premise that trails off
Review: Instead of taking sides in the ongoing debate over the future of our society, this author points out some behavioral methods which have a commonality to all viewpoints in that they are beneficial approaches to any discipline. This is a very mature approach which is unfortunately diluted by his addiction to certain assumptions common to post-Renaissance liberalism in the industrial West, and thus to avoid contradictions he runs his logical ship aground in confusion. However, for the premise and deconstruction of social pretense toward polarized action alone this book is a magnificent introduction to a traditional and natural attribute of worldview: reverence.
Rating:
Summary: A most remarkable work
Review: Paul Woodruff may have written one of the more important books I have ever read. At this time of near war and religious terror, with our country, and the world, being rapidly torn apart by political and sectarian certainties, Woodruff's book is as welcome as a breath of clean, gas free air might have been on the night of the Bhopal catastrophe. If I could afford it, and if I thought they would read it, I would send a copy to every politician and religious leader in the world. In the past 20 of the almost 68 years of my life, I have read many works of moral philosophy and ethics. Reverence has been one of the very few truly awe inspiring books I've ever read. And the remarkable thing about Reverence is that it can speak to almost any one, of whatever religious or political persuasion, or to those with none. It is written in such a manner as to be accessible to readers of almost any level above, say, the seventh grade, and speaks with comparable interest to those whose lives may have been devoted to a study of moral philosophy. According to Woodruff, while reverence may certainly be involved in religion, and in fact, religion without true reverence is one of the most distructive forces in the world, it should be embraced even more closely by the politician and the great leaders of the world, as well as us ordinary mortals. If you don't read anything else in the year 2003, read Reverence. William F Harrison
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Idea but Overworked.
Review: Paul Woodruff, a Professor of Humanities at the University of Texas, writes about what he maintains we have lost sight of, reverence. While he admits the word is difficult to define, Mr. Woodruff says it "begins in a deep understanding of human limitations; from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control--God, truth, justice, nature, even death." If we have reverence, we respect people lower than ourselves; we are kind to children. Woodruff differentiates between religion and reverence. He says that some people the most fervent about their religion do not have reverence. There is reverence outside religion. Reverence moderates war in all times and cultures. Reverent people do not say they speak on the authority of God either. Mr. Woodruff describes how a group of young people without traditional religion can experiene reverence at a memorial service for a friend when they share both their sorrow and silence. The author gives many other examples of reverence or the absence thereof, citing references in both ancient China and ancient Greece as well as calling up the Victorian poet Tennyson. I bought this book after having seen Mr. Woodruff discussing reverence in an interview by Bill Moyers. I must say that while the book is both thought provoking and thoughtful, it is far too long. The author repeats himself over and over. I could have gotten the point from a chapter or two on the subject in a book of essays or in a long journal article. Having said that, I was so taken by Mr. Woodruff's comments on The Iliad that I ordered the translation he cites to reread this work for the first time in many years.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful insights on modern vs ancient values
Review: Reverance explores what many may feel is the missing fabric in our society today. This book looks to the ancients for answers to this delema. For those who ponder what is missing in our modern, cyber world, this book provides practicial insight and examlpe. Reverance is not ponderous or padantic, it is very readable and thoughtful.
Rating:
Summary: Keeping Reverence Alive
Review: Reverence is not dead. Humanity, however, stands at a critical crossroads in the survival of reverence, its lasting relationship with the virtue and with itself. In Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, Paul Woodruff draws on two disparate yet equally influential cultures to make that and another key assertion: reverence has permeated human history through culture, religion and all other intellectual thought. Despite its universality and historical impact, reverence now more closely resembles a ghost than a living being; it is among us, yet we remain oblivious of its presence. Beginning with the importance and roles of reverence in ancient Greek and Chinese cultures to support his proposal, Woodruff proceeds to cite examples of both successes and failures of reverence in modern contexts ranging from the classroom to Little League Baseball to the Vietnam War, highlighting the remnants of this long-held virtue and showing what humanity can use as a departure point to reacquaint itself with reverence. He explains the differences between reverence and respect, suggests the importance of each in various contexts and asserts the ability and necessity of reverence to transcend both religious and cultural boundaries in an increasingly global society. He clarifies the symbiotic natures of reverence with both justice and ceremony in social and religious institutions and marks the pitfalls of inadvertently trading belief for harmony in the name of reverence in a chapter on relativism. This intriguing little book is a treasure, true to its message, as Woodruff treats both his subject and his audience with the reverence he advocates in a literary Golden Rule. His prose is rich yet flows seamlessly and deftly from point to point. It is clear that he possesses a deep and thorough knowledge of classics and ancient cultures. Despite this abundant knowledge of his subject, he does not condescend; he allows his audience an accessible and essential view of the knowledge of the traditions he uses to support his thesis, treating them as peers with a genuine interest in learning. Woodruff makes it clear in Reverence that this virtue, which stands on its own and plays an integral role in developing other virtues for oneself, is not merely an academic question for philosophers to play with in a vacuum. In this global society where nations, cultures, religions and ideologies - some coinciding, some conflicting - collide every day with far reaching consequences, reverence is a more necessary and practical virtue for both the survival of humankind and humanity. Reverence may no longer be a ghost; Woodruff fleshes it out.
Rating: 
Summary: Starts off nice....
Review: The book has a great basic premise. It's spot-on. But it begins to unravel in his chapter on "Relativism" when he criticizes one of his colleagues. His colleague may simply feel that he can't discuss how true realism is, because that's not his area of expertise, his area may be on WHAT it is. Then he criticizes his students, chalking up their behaviors to a dearth of reverence while failing to look for psychological causes, and creative solutions. Then he goes into family issues, which he'd best stay away from, and leave that to the psychologists. In short, Woodruff has a good premise, a good thesis, but he unravels in the "practical applications" of his premise, because he tries too hard to apply reverence to everything.
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