This was a very quick read (small pages, large margins, low-ish page count) and I definitely appreciated it. I was torn between 3 and 4 stars, but tipped to the higher side largely because I can tell (I *think* I can tell...) that this was well-researched and well-written. The bad is on me for not knowing more about philosophy. While the author did a find job of bringing her writing to the level of a reasonably educated person, I still stumbled on some of it. One of these days I'll audit an intro philosophy course, then give this another go.

This book was written in a very academic way (by presenting ideas from a number of big name philosophers). However, although it was challenging to read, Neiman clearly relates the classical ideals of youth and maturity to modern societies' reluctance to "growing up". One of the most poignant note is that growing up is less about becoming mature, but having the courage to accept maturity in a society that promotes childishness. Becoming an adult is being more aware of how our ideals and reality intermingle without succumbing completely to naivety or cynicism. In this state, Neiman argues, will we be able to feel more fulfilled or satisfied with our lives.

It is also interesting to note that societies' perpetuation of youthfulness of the mind is perhaps a result of consumerism. A childish (or malleable) mind is easier to manipulate than someone who is more mature (or firm in their beliefs).

The book is fairly well-written and Nieman is a good philosopher, introducing me to a few ideas I'll hold onto (my favorite chapter was on the relationship between is/ought and being an adult). However, this book was wildly unpersuasive in its over-the-top Kant (and to a lesser extent Rousseau) apologetics. One of the chief maneuvers repeated throughout the book is to bring up a Kantian-infused concept (e.g., autonomy, judgment), and then run ahead of the discussion to fend off common criticisms, but only those that can be quickly dismissed as actually engaging the more substantive critiques would be out of place (but, then again, so is the extent of the defensiveness). If you took her word for it, almost anything Kant got wrong couldn't have been reasonably foreseen/understood at the time. Moreover, Kant's critics--apparently--reliably mischaracterize and ad hominem him oh so unjustly. An unsuspecting reader might understandably think of Kant as some neglected and misunderstood figure in need of a champion rather than as a titan in the field with respected academic journals *entirely* devoted to studying his ideas. I'll out myself as an admitted non-Kantian but, like most professional philosophers I know, I see Kant as obviously a great philosopher who I regularly taught as a professor.* That said, the author's near breathless defenses of the man are one of the main reasons I wouldn't recommend this book to someone.

Unsurprisingly, then, I would have enjoyed the book much more without the Kant and Rousseau hype. For such a short book, all of the "people say X but that's not quite true because Y and, and, besides, Z!" defenses of the two figures was not a good use of space. I actually enjoyed the parts where Nieman herself was theorizing, but the book had far too little of this. In addition, if I were a friend giving edits, I'd say cut a lot of the contemporary political asides as these usually distracted from the main point and added little beyond apparent signaling effects. If you do share her politics, then the asides are too brief to add depth to the relevant ideas; and, if you don't share her politics, the asides are surely unpersuasive and take the reader out of considering the larger points under discussion. Toward the end of the book Neiman talked about how much she enjoyed researching it, and I believe her. But while I did get some things out of the book and don't regret reading it, I think she should have deployed her own fine writing and deep knowledge of history of philosophy differently.

*And this is in spite of the fact that students reliably complain about having to read him because of his poor writing style, the latter judgment being a point that Neiman recognizes upfront in the book but does her utmost to explain away.

Informative view on what it means to grow up. Loved it.

It’s hard to judge whether this book is a really good book or something that messed up my head. But to borrow from the author’s own premise, growing up also invokes better judgement in our parts that should influence us in making better decisions for ourselves. And as such, I, as a human being should be able to decide for myself whether this book is good or not just like what Kant’s premise says that part of growing up is being able to think for ourselves. We cannot deny that the environment and circumstances when we grow up influenced us in so many ways, that some of them seem to be irrevocable. But if we are being asked the question of whether we want to relive, let’s say, the last 10 years of our life, most of us would be inclined to say no. So what does growing up really mean?

Growing up in most conventional sense would be to renounce all desires and hopes for an ideal world to finally accepting the world as it is. David Hume says that it is to recognize the gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought to’, without giving up the desire to reach the ‘ought to’. And there are many versions of growing up in many cultures and parts of the world as much anthropological research suggests. But since this is about growing up in the sense of a modern society in which we live, Susan Neiman turns to the aid of philosophers of the Enlightenment era, where most of our problems of growing up began.

Enlightenment-era was claimed by the author as the age when structural infantilization takes its peak with the rise of industrialization and education as the gap between infant age and adolescence. Most children in Medieval Europe would soon turn into labour as soon as their bodies were able to do so, following the steps that their fathers before them had taken for countless generations before. It was in the Enlightenment era that we began to see the unshakable nature of religions and the political systems backed by religions started to crumble, that suddenly people got bewildered by many choices presented to them. For the first time, children could choose to do different things than what their fathers did. Coming to terms with thinking for ourselves is not something that’s easy to do for most of us, depending on our cultures and circumstances of us growing up.

So why grow up? The author provides a short answer that “because it’s harder than you think, so hard that it can amount to resistance — even rebellion.” Some of us might have our own personal heroes, like let’s say the kinds of idols who serve as our biggest inspirations to turn to in face of crisis. As Kant has said, it’s less comfortable to think for ourselves in face of adversities. This book points out many ways of how our modern society, our government, our education, our digital technology and even our caring parents might be responsible to shape this society in which growing up is not encouraged. But again, growing up is a continuous permanent revolution. Who wants to encourage that?