Vic Seidler's new tome, Unreasonable Men expands his well-worked theme of the male existence as frustrated and tied up in a post-enlightenment emotional world, the corner stone of which is 'Reason'.
Very good it is too. Seidler brings together many of the strands he has explored previously, in a book which is accessible and interesting. Seidler is a lecturer in social theory and he examines the philosophical underpinnings in a sociological critique of the classical thinkers.
By exploring the juxtaposition of reason and emotion, subject and object, Seidler fires bolts into the structure of presumed 'Modernity' taking on thinkers from Durkheim to Wittgenstein using Gramsci, Simone Weil and Susan Griffin amongst others to guide us through the web of oppressive behaviours inherent in a system which presumes its dominance as a consequence of the way its Knowledge base is structured.
This creates the 'Unreasonable' man, forming structures and institutions to control others before any thought is given to one's own feelings on the issue.
His chapters using single word titles cover amongst others, Morality, Feminism, Identity, Language and Dependency. It is a clever book. And will be useful in many fields of academia, but is also, provided you like Seidler's 'sensitive man' style a good read.
Nigel Larcombe
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