Amazon.com
Author Philip K. Howard returns with the same storytelling style and supreme reasonableness that made his first book, The Death of Common Sense, such a smash hit in 1995. He begins The Lost Art of Drawing the Line by noting the damage predatory litigation has done to the communal fabric of the United States: "Social relations in America, far from steadied by law's sure hand, are a tangle of frayed legal nerves." He tells how seesaws have started to vanish from playgrounds, how teachers are banned from touching students, and how emergency-room staff are blocked from attending to patients off hospital grounds--even if they can see them bleeding to death just 30 feet away. These aren't just speculations, a parade of hypothetical horror stories--they are actual trends and events that Howard describes and documents. The ability to weave dozens of anecdotes like these into his narrative is one of Howard's great strengths, and it allows him to make important points in entertaining ways.
Yet the book is much more than a collection of outrageous stories or a mere broadside against the legal system--though the legal system does come in for plenty of criticism. Instead, it's a meditation on the meaning of freedom, why freedom cannot exist outside of authority, and why individuals in positions of authority should have the ability to make decisions based on sound judgment. There is a temptation to secure liberty by restricting authority through the law, but this can be overdone, and it carries a high price: "Put law or any other formal construct in the middle of daily dealings, and people will start looking to the law instead of to one another." Then things get much worse: "The more our common institutions fail us, the more Americans want to limit their authority. Through a downward cycle of distrust, legal controls, [and] worse failure ... we drive Americans' governing institutions further into the bureaucratic maw." That is a terrible place to be, where no one is held accountable and antisocial behavior rules. And it has nothing at all to do with freedom. --John J. Miller
From Publishers Weekly
Howard offers a powerful though myopic look at our litigious society. When the common interest is undermined by the fear of being sued, as in America today, Howard claims, we have a social dysfunction rooted in the embrace of individual rights. Understanding justice as the right to champion individual interests and judicial fairness as neutrality between claimants provides no standard for what is good or even reasonable: "Justice today is purposeless" and has become "a kind of sporting contest." Instead of protecting society, law has become a vehicle for the pursuit of individual entitlement, while judges shy away from making value judgments. What's missing, says Howard, is authority, a recognizable source of values and leadership that asserts a hierarchy of goods in place of the undifferentiated arena of individual rights. Far from threatening individual freedom and democracy, Howard argues, authority is indispensable if we want to overcome the "structural flaw" of individual rights, with its unintentional transfer of "power for common decisions to self-interested individuals." While this argument is sensible and persuasive as far as it goes, it suffers from an oddly truncated view of the world. It's as if society consists only of individuals and government, with interests limited to individuals and the public as a whole, without corporations, interest groups and other organizations anywhere in sight. With the exception of teacher's unions, Howard strips his analysis of much of the sources of power and interest in American society, leaving his otherwise thoughtful efforts seriously incomplete. (Apr.) Forecast: Howard's last book, The Death of Common Sense, earned him a reputation as a cultural pundit, so his 10-city tour should garner him media attention if not respectable sales. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The author of the best-seller The Death of Common Sense (1995) turns to the evolution of the U.S. from being a nation defined by risk taking to one that is cautious to the point of inertia. An explosion of litigation has prompted Americans to avoid legal risks of any kind; hence, a municipality removes a slide from a playground, and a hospital refuses to treat a wounded man just outside its doors. Howard traces trends in commerce, education, and government--from appeals for organization and efficiency to mistrust of authority and the nation's condition--that have led to institutional reluctance to take responsibility. Americans have lost a sense of the ability to effect change and the freedom to innovate or even deliver more than minimal service. Reciting a litany of everyday irritants that have been litigated, Howard calls for the revival of the American ideals of freedom and sense of the common good but cautions that change probably won't come from Washington and other seats of authority unless individual citizens press for it. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“YOU’LL NEVER SEE AMERICA THE SAME AGAIN. . . . [This book is] like nothing you ever read, better even than The Death of Common Sense.”
–ANDREW HEISKELL
Former Chairman and CEO, Time Inc.
“This book sits at the center of important questions about frivolous litigiousness, disdain for authority, and the tendency of bureaucracy to stifle judgment and initiative.”
–The New York Times Book Review
Review
?YOU?LL NEVER SEE AMERICA THE SAME AGAIN. . . . [This book is] like nothing you ever read, better even than The Death of Common Sense.?
?ANDREW HEISKELL
Former Chairman and CEO, Time Inc.
?This book sits at the center of important questions about frivolous litigiousness, disdain for authority, and the tendency of bureaucracy to stifle judgment and initiative.?
?The New York Times Book Review
Book Description
In pursuit of fairness at any cost, we have created a society paralyzed by legal fear: Doctors are paranoid and principals powerless. Little league coaches, scared of liability, stop volunteering. Schools and hospitals start to crumble. The common good fades, replaced by a cacophony of people claiming their “individual rights.”
By turns funny and infuriating, this startling book dissects the dogmas of fairness that allow self-interested individuals to bully the rest of society. Philip K. Howard explains how, trying to honor individual rights, we removed the authority needed to maintain a free society. Teachers don’t even have authority to maintain order in the classroom. With no one in charge, the safe course is to avoid any possible risk. Seesaws and diving boards are removed. Ridiculous warning labels litter the American landscape: “Caution: Contents Are Hot.”
Striving to protect “individual rights,” we ended up losing much of our freedom. When almost any decision that someone disagrees with is a possible lawsuit, no one knows where he stands. A huge monument to the unknown plaintiff looms high above America, casting a dark shadow across our daily choices. Today, in the land of free speech, you’d have to be a fool to say what you really think.
This provocative book not only attacks the sacred cows of political correctness, but takes a breathtakingly bold stand on how to reinvigorate our common good. Only by restoring personal authority can schools begin to work again. Only by judges and legislatures taking back the authority to decide who can sue for what can doctors feel comfortable using their best judgment and American be liberated to say and do what they know is right. Lucid, honest, and hard hitting, The Collapse of the Common Good shows how Americans can bring back freedom and common sense to a society disabled by lawyers and legal fear.
From the Inside Flap
In pursuit of fairness at any cost, we have created a society paralyzed by legal fear: Doctors are paranoid and principals powerless. Little league coaches, scared of liability, stop volunteering. Schools and hospitals start to crumble. The common good fades, replaced by a cacophony of people claiming their “individual rights.”
By turns funny and infuriating, this startling book dissects the dogmas of fairness that allow self-interested individuals to bully the rest of society. Philip K. Howard explains how, trying to honor individual rights, we removed the authority needed to maintain a free society. Teachers don’t even have authority to maintain order in the classroom. With no one in charge, the safe course is to avoid any possible risk. Seesaws and diving boards are removed. Ridiculous warning labels litter the American landscape: “Caution: Contents Are Hot.”
Striving to protect “individual rights,” we ended up losing much of our freedom. When almost any decision that someone disagrees with is a possible lawsuit, no one knows where he stands. A huge monument to the unknown plaintiff looms high above America, casting a dark shadow across our daily choices. Today, in the land of free speech, you’d have to be a fool to say what you really think.
This provocative book not only attacks the sacred cows of political correctness, but takes a breathtakingly bold stand on how to reinvigorate our common good. Only by restoring personal authority can schools begin to work again. Only by judges and legislatures taking back the authority to decide who can sue for what can doctors feel comfortable using their best judgment and American be liberated to say and do what they know is right. Lucid, honest, and hard hitting, The Collapse of the Common Good shows how Americans can bring back freedom and common sense to a society disabled by lawyers and legal fear.
From the Back Cover
“YOU’LL NEVER SEE AMERICA THE SAME AGAIN. . . . [This book is] like nothing you ever read, better even than The Death of Common Sense.”
–ANDREW HEISKELL
Former Chairman and CEO, Time Inc.
“This book sits at the center of important questions about frivolous litigiousness, disdain for authority, and the tendency of bureaucracy to stifle judgment and initiative.”
–The New York Times Book Review
Home
