Another Way of Seeing: Essays on Transforming Law, Politics and Culture

In ANOTHER WAY OF SEEING, Peter Gabel argues that our most fundamental spiritual need as human beings is the desire for authentic mutual recognition. Because we live in a world in which this desire is systematically denied due to the legacy of fear of the other that has been passed on from generation to generation, we exist as what he calls “withdrawn selves,” perceiving the other as a threat rather than as the source of our completion as social beings. Calling for a new kind of “spiritual activism” that speaks to this universal interpersonal longing, Gabel shows how we can transform law, politics, public policy, and culture so as to build a new social movement through which we become more fully present to each other—creating a new “parallel universe” existing alongside our socially separated world and reaffirming the social bond that inherently unites us.
• “Peter Gabel is one of the grand prophetic voices in our day. He also is a long-distance runner in the struggle for justice. Don’t miss this book!” —Cornel West, The Class of 1943 Professor, Princeton University, and Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice, Union Theological Seminary
• “Peter Gabel has delivered a set of unmatched phenomenological analyses of the profound alienation that pervades everyday life in America in the early 21st century. His insightful descriptions of the way things really are challenge us to open our eyes, minds and hearts to our own and one another’s deepest longings, and together, to bring one another back home. ... Like a pick axe thrown ahead to anchor us all, to paraphrase one of his most evocative images, Gabel’s polemic teaches and inspires us to ‘think with our hearts,’ to genuinely and confidently love ourselves and our brothers and sisters on this very planet Earth, to lift ourselves and one another on the strength of our authentic Presence, and to move things forward together. Now.” —Rhonda V. Magee, Professor of Law, University of San Francisco