HOW TO KNOW YOUR SELF

This freewheeling tour of human history and psychic life—by a professor of political science at the University of Chicago—invites us to think about our inner beings. The human “self” is no real thing out there, Oliver argues, but rather a complex construction of social, religious, and political institutions. The ancient Greek dictum, “know thyself,” really meant something more like “know your place”—know what your role is in the world and in the cosmos. So, too, Eastern religious traditions do not offer up a vision of an inner being as much as they guide ways of living in a changing world. Oliver interlards reflections on psychology and history with personal accounts of growing up and learning yoga. He weighs in, sometimes judiciously, sometimes superficially, on such current debates as the role of medication in mental health, the possibilities and pitfalls of psychedelics, the history of psychotherapy, and the rewards of meditation. “We’re typically the authors of our own distress,” he writes. Owning that authorship becomes the start of self-discovery. Oliver admits that his book is “an odd hybrid…part applied philosophy, part popular science, part intellectual history, and part ‘thinking person’s self-help’ book.” Based on a class he has taught at the University of Chicago, the book captures the tone of the charismatic professor. His advice will remain familiar to many: accept life’s challenges, don’t panic, think of others, go with the flow. He offers, ultimately, a vision of “transcendent loving”: “deliberately confronting our limitations” and “striving to rise above ourselves.” The final lesson of the book is “letting go,” to live courageously with life’s uncertainties.