This Unbearable Boredom of Being: A Crisis of Meaning in America

This Unbearable Boredom of Being: A Crisis of Meaning in America

By: Genrich Krasko  

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Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5

The gist of this book, This Unbearable Boredom of Being, is that the most burning problems of today's America: crime, drugs, greed, ugly gender polarization, disintegration of family, decay in morals, racism, and so on, are the direct consequences of a crisis of meaning that has engulfed America. The author, Genrich Krasko, an acclaimed scientist and follower of Viktor Frankl, analyzes the causes of this existential crisis.

Genrich Krasko identifies one powerful factor that plays an enormous and decisive role in exacerbating our crisis and virtually all our problems: the degradation of our educational system. He also discusses the roots of this degradation and a future, true, educational reform. However, what Genrich Krasko suggests is almost diametrically opposed to the measures that are being widely discussed (and implemented) today.

This Unbearable Boredom of Being is an eye opener. It will also help you to envisage a new America, healthy and flourishing, a light unto the nations.

Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
This Unbearable Boredom of Being - I read this book after reading "The Dumbest Generation." I believe strongly that "Unbearable Boredom" is what "Dumbest Generation" (and I'll be so bold as to say any other book of that ilk) should have been.

Krasko's points are well-argued, and really seem to be spot on. He says that America is in a crisis right now, and that issues like racism, drugs, civic indifference, and ignorance have become rampant problems throughout the country. He argues--in most cases, highly effectively--that the way to resolve these problems is through better education. In fact, Krasko goes so far as to say that what this country needs more than anything else is an educational revolution.

His points are well-made. Americans, relative to multiple countries in Europe and Asia (for a start), are uneducated. Krasko points out that even our day-care and elementary-school teachers do not have the same academic qualifications as those in other Western countries. He blames middle and high-schools for not keeping students busy enough (and while you may hear on the news that children's back-packs are too heavy, you also can't deny that children that age spend exorbitant amounts of time playing video games and playing on the computer). He argues that colleges have been concentrating more on 'training' their students than actually 'educating' them. This last point he sees as a crucial problem within our society; we do not care about education for its own sake anymore. Instead, our society has become obsessed with becoming trained to perform the job that will bring in the most money.

There is a lot of logotherapy in this book. Krasko is an ardent follower of V. Frankl and references many of his books in his arguments. Both men believe that problems in society and in the individual occur when the purpose or meaning of life has been lost. Krasko at the same time argues that throughout our society there are indications that we have lost our individual meanings, that we are functioning in an existential vacuum and that our only escape is through the more barbaric and base pleasure-seeking activites like drinking, gambling, doing drugs, and in extreme cases being violent.

Unlike other authors--who, when writing a book like this choose to do nothing but complain--Krasko offers some alternatives. He suggests that college students be required to mentor high school students for some amount of time during their college careers. For example, he suggests that college orchestras and chorales give monthly (or in an ideal world, weekly) concerts at the local high schools to expose those children to culture. He argues that giving middle and high school children mentors that are close to their own ages is better than our current system for mentoring. He suggests that mandatory extra-curriculars through the school should be instated. Math clubs, book clubs, theater groups--all these programs, when run through the school and required by the student body--Krasko argues will only help both the education and boredom-related problems of our youth. And these are just some of his legitimate, well-presented suggestions.

I highly recommend this book to absolutely anyone. Its topic is important and relevant to today's society. It is to-the point and well-written. It challenges the reader to think, and it inspires him to become a better person too.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
it is life and not wealth that gives each person value - This Unbearable Boredom of Being: A Crisis of Meaning in America

I have had the privilege to read this very fine book and to hear the author speak on the desperate situation in which our young find themselves. The situation is an existential crisis. It is characterized by all or some of the following elements: ennui, a restlessness of soul, a loss of hope, impatience with books, and addiction to drugs or video games, and aversion to spending easy conversational or recreational time with family or friends.

The overall sickness is caused by a failure of vision, our failure to insist on the primacy of meaning in our lives -- a failure to identify our fulfillment in those things grounded in the real of absolute values. What benefit can we derive from a new x-box or game cube or big TV if we have lost our hold on the meaning of our lives? These material things cannot satisfy our need to be grounded in a meaningful cosmos. Indeed they more typically tend to prevent us from discovering the meaning of our lives. Our educational system has failed utterly to protect us from this illness because it has rejected meaning.

My own son who is on a 5 month service project with the sisters of charity in Calcutta India writes the following : "What I do know is that I have been happier in Calcutta, without good food, a nice bed or anything I am used to, than ever before in my life. I do not recommend, nor do I plan to permanently dispense with physical goods, but a detachment from them seems to be the secret of the happiness which is so evident here. ... The wealthy need the poor to teach them how to love and to remind them that it is life and not wealth that gives each person value."

Krasko has not written a religious book primarily. It is rather sociological, full of statistics and stories of applications of failed theories that do violence to the souls of our children. Though the author and I come from different religious traditions, this does not detract from my appreciation for his thought. We are first men, then believers. The commonality of our human experience is grounded in human nature. Our will to meaning is more central to human experience than is is our will to food! We would do well to read and re-read -- as we have done with Frankl's work, Man's Search for Meaning.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Imperfect but important - This is a flawed book. There are serious language problems (idiomatic, grammatical, syntactic) owing to the fact that the author is a Russian emigre of the 1980s. It could have benefitted greatly by the critical eye of a caring editor. Genrich Krasko's still-powerful book is self-published (iUniverse), probably because of those flaws; although the author's contention -- that his message is too controversial for mainstream publishers -- is defensible in this maninstream media environment of escapist distractions.

Krasko contends that American culture suffers from enormous ennui, meaninglessness, and, ultimately, boredom. He invokes the name and the works of Victor Frankl, the German psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor (and author of, among other works, "Man's Search for Meaning") in blaming America's complacency, its desire for sensory self-gratification, its materialism, and its decadence on its success. It is our very prosperity, and the victory of our economic system over communism that has made us lazy and bored. We struggle with nothing.

I do have some disagreements with Krasko. He's way too aggressive in his indictment of rock and roll. Stylistic modes evolve in the arts and they always will. Music will always be music. His view of education is too close to the Bloom/Hirsch mold for my comfort.

But overall, this book is a much-needed warning, a well-placed mirror on contemporary, materialist, consumer culture, a culture insulated from the harsh realities of life, and a call to action to reject "the path of least resistance" and to find meaning once again in the challenges that REAL life offers us.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
A Fresh Look at America's Culture, Safety, and Freedom - In this book, "This Unbearable Boredom of Being," Dr. Genrich Krasko gives us a fresh look at both the dangers and possibilities residing in America's culture and its educational system. Dr. Krasko brings not only the perspective of an independent mind and fresh eyes but that of a man who is widely read in many areas in the humanities as well as in diverse areas of human endeavor and thought. With his practical and creative mind, Dr. Krasko probes beneath the surface of our current crises and offers practical solutions. This book addresses issues ranging from sex to science, from drugs to politics, and the paradox of empty lives in a land of material plenty and spiritual poverty. Dr. Krasko gives us not only WAKE UP call but also a WAY OUT path.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Searching for Meaning - Genrich Krasko, a physicist by education, is a keen student of the works of the late Dr Viktor Frankl. It is this unique combination of the critically objective orientation of a natural scientist and the deeply personal quest to find meaning in life that is brought to bear on the writing of this rather unusual and highly thought-provoking book by the author.

The author is clearly an ardent believer that as human beings, we are endowed with a freedom to find and realize life's meaning contained in the tasks, responsibilities and challenges we are faced with throughout our lives. Our response in performing these tasks, embracing these responsibilities and heroically meeting life's challenges, gives shape to our commission and calling as human beings and allows us to give our lives stature and meaning. The unique slant of this book is that these truths are considered not only within an individual life context but also within the broader framework of American society. The author espouses the belief that the call to lead a highly accountable life not only addresses every individual person but also every nation and, in this case, the American people. How does American society shape in the light of these demands for meaningful living and how, particularly, does it give an account concerning the education of its young?

Genrich Krasko was born and educated in Russia, and this book is particularly interesting because it is an expression of an immigrant's personal experiences in his adopted homeland. The adjustment to his new home with the personal responsibility of raising a family and caring for a grandchild in a society earmarked by freedom and affluence, challenged his scientific mind and brought many sharp insights to bear on the nature of American society with a vivid realization of the unique challenges it faces. The author's basic contention is that freedom without the challenge of responsibility and the realization of values that transcend the immediate, here and now luxuries and pleasures can only end in the senseless void which Frankl described as an existential vacuum. The happiness secured through instant gratification is short-lived and empty of any real life content. Drug abuse, addiction, lawless and violent, decadent and indulgent behavior are all efforts to relieve what is, as the author illustrates, an unbearable boredom of being.

The book will appeal to anyone interested in understanding the existential challenges facing affluent society, and will be of particular interest to the American reader.

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