Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780393317039)

Rollo May defines power as the ability to cause or prevent change; innocence, on the other hand, is the conscious divesting of one's power to make it seem a virtuea form of powerlessness that Dr. May sees as particularly American in nature. From these basic concepts he suggests a new ethic that sees power as the basis for both human goodness and evil.

Dr. May discusses five levels of power's potential in each of us: the infant's power to be; self-affirmation, the ability to survive with self-esteem; self-assertion, which develops when self-affirmation is blocked; aggression, a reaction to thwarted assertion; and, finally, violence, when reason and persuasion are ineffective.

Author: Rollo May
ISBN-10: 039331703X
ISBN-13: 9780393317039
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 03/01/1998
Pages: 284
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.40w x 0.90d