Why Grow Up?

Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age

In Why Grow Up, the latest volume in the Philosophy in Transit series, world-renowned philosopher Susan Neiman looks at growing up as an ideal with urgent relevance today 
 
Becoming an adult today can seem a grim prospect. As you grow up, you are told to renounce most of the hopes and dreams of your youth, and resign yourself to a life that will be a pale dilution of the adventurous, important and enjoyable life you once expected. But who wants to do any of that? No wonder we live in a culture of rampant immaturity, argues internationally-renowned philosopher Susan Neiman, when maturity looks so boring. 
 
In Why Grow Up, Neiman explores the forces that are arrayed against maturity, and shows how philosophy can help us want to grow up. Travel, both literally and as a metaphor, has been seen as a crucial step to coming of age by thinkers as diverse as Kant, Rousseau, Hume and Simone de Beauvoir. Neiman discusses childhood, adolescence, sex, and culture, and asks how the idea of travel can help us build a model of maturity that makes growing up a good option and leaves space in our culture for grown-ups. Refuting the widespread belief that the best time of your life is the decade between sixteen and twenty-six, she argues that being grown-up is itself an ideal: one that is rarely achieved in its entirety, but all the more worth striving for.

An excellent work ... Parts are as thought-provoking as reading Kant himself - and a damned sight easier

A spirited defence of the aspiration to maturity. As Neiman sagely observes, by clinging impotently to youth, we impoverish youth and maturity alike . . .  Neiman is an impassioned and lucid expositor of some very recondite concepts, with that rare ability . . . to convey the continued relevance and urgency of philosophy for our distracted times

[Neiman] is not only a fine analyst but an acute stylist too, both scintillating and self-disciplined - a very rare thing in a philosopher

This elegant and accessible book is the philosophical kick up the arse my generation desperately needs

To the barricades, armed with reason: Susan Neiman makes the case for toppling society's infantilism. Plumbing the depths of philosophy, she has written the most important book of the hour

Neiman makes the case not only for thinking but for political engagement. Her passion eliminates any sort of pedantry

The way Neiman interprets the Kantian idea of growing up - that of a never-ending task - has something subversive, and that's almost enough to make one young again

Neiman's view on using philosophy to guide ourselves into adulthood is a wonderful example of how the writings of past philosophers can be applied to our current lives. Her writing is accessible for those without a background in philosophy, and her book is a pleasant introduction to those unfamiliar with Kant and Rousseau

Philosophy doesn't get much better than this ... Neiman's sense of humour is a plus, but her greatest strength is her ability to distill centuries of thought to their essence, provoking her readers along the way. Neiman convincingly makes the case that growing up is not tantamount to "inevitable decline," and that the hard work to make maturity fulfilling is worth the effort

Philosopher Susan Neiman restores some measure of sanity to the discussion of age, infantilism, "growing up," and all of its attendant fussing. Hopefully this considered, often brilliant book will shape the discourse on maturity for the foreseeable future

Neiman's book is a pleasure to read because she writes well and thinks lucidly and because her values are invigorating

This is the most positive description of adulthood I have ever encountered. One that is about strength and thought, not about the sage bodycon or even the houses and children. We can get there. Are you ready yet?

Stirring stuff . . . [Neiman is] impassioned and thorough, alive with curiosity, devilishly well read, fairminded, and funny. Her writing is strongest when she employs her good humour and graciousness . . . The philosophers' calls to grow up, and grow up well, are frequent, and in Neiman's hands surprising and moving

Star philosopher Susan Neiman makes a stand for maturity, and that is refreshing

Wonderful . . . Surely a small treasure every bit as interesting as Bertrand Russell's gem What is Philosophy?

Neiman knows how to keep philosophy fresh and contemporary

Neiman comes as a welcome relief in the confusing sea of thinkers. Her language is natural and familiar and her style simple and smooth. She has a keen insight into the history of thought ... She makes us see Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant in a completely new light ... This is a book on parenting as much as it is a book about rereading Enlightenment. Philosophy has for once become readable and more importantly, enjoyable. Recommended for anyone interested in human life

Susan Neiman is an American philosopher, cultural commentator and essayist. She writes for wide-ranging international audiences on the juncture between Enlightenment moral philosophy, metaphysics and politics. Formerly a professor of philosophy at Yale University and Tel Aviv University, she is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Her previous books, translated into many languages, include Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin, The Unity of Reason, Evil in Modern Thought, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists and Why Grow Up? She currently lives in Berlin, Germany, where she is the director of the Einstein Forum.

A Guide for Grown-up Idealists

Moral Clarity

Distinguished scholar, Susan Neiman, argues for a commitment to a more just world that is rationally grounded, implacable and insatiable.

A powerful wake-up call for the progressive left to have some faith in its Enligtenment project

Forget the Man Booker long list. Susan Neiman's superb new book should be at the top of beach reads this summer. For what Neiman beautifully chronicles is how in all sorts of policy areas the left has let slip its Enlightenment bearings and is no longer able to act on moral impulses.... Now is the time to turn to Neiman and re-inject some morality into progressive politics - for the good of everyone

In Moral Clarity Susan Neilman criticises the philosophical ideas that dominate contemporary culture and politics on a grand scale... By the end of the 20th century, scepticism about reason and agnosticism about morality pervaded political life and popular culture. Neiman skewers this well-worn genealogy with splendid directness

Neiman asks people to reject the false choice between Utopia and degeneracy. Moral progress, she writes, is neither guaranteed nor hopeless. Instead, it is up to us

Neiman's particular skill lies in expressing sensitivity, intelligence and moral seriousness without any hint of oversimplification, dogmatism or misplaced piety. She clearly and unflinchingly sees life as it is, but also sees how it might be, and could be, if we recaptured some of the hopes and ideas that currently escape us

A subtle and energetic guide to the unjustly maligned Western canon... Neiman writes with verve and a sometimes epigrammatic wit

Fresh and exhilarating, inspiring optimism rather than recrimination...a rallying cry to return to Enlightenment values - not as heritage kitsch but as a process we are still undergoing, a demand we have yet to answer

A lucid new tome on why politics is a moral pursuit, and why we need a second Enlightenment. Where was the voice of academia in our political and financial crisis? This firebrand turned head of the Einstein Forum brings a refreshing conviction of the possibility of a deliberative public life

A tour de force: a witty, profound, and powerful successor to her breakthrough book, Evil in Modern Thought

With passion, wit, and high intelligence, Susan Neiman invites us to be moral grown-ups. Morally and politically compelling - and a delight to read

Susan Neiman's profound wisdom and courage give us a public conception of goodness and a reinvigorated progressive vision....She is a beacon of light and hope in our morally debased times

The Enlightenment project of constructing a rational morality--pronounced dead by commentators on the left and right--has found a champion determined to resurrect it for the twenty-first century

Susan Neiman is an American philosopher who taught at Yale University and Tel Aviv University, and is currently the director of the Einstein Forum. She is the author of three previous books, most recently Evil in Modern Thought. Neiman lives with her three children in Berlin.

In Moral Clarity, Susan Neiman shows how the philosophical resources of the eighteenth-century Englightenment can help us to construct a politics that does not repeat the mistakes of Marxism or succumb to the temptation of a cynicism that masquerade as realism. 
 
Through her commitment to the claims of reason and the facts of the world, her shrewd and generous readings of the Western canon, and above all through her conviction that politics is a moral endeavour, Neiman issues an irresistible invitation to make the world more just.

Susan Neiman

Susan Neiman relates hard truths from which others shrink. Her audacious work is a refreshing change from those, afraid to offend, who leave unsaid things that seem self-evident.

Growing up in the American south during the civil rights era, and spending much of her adult life in and around Berlin as a Jewish woman, Neiman has a keen ear for discomforts and awkwardnesses and the tics of guilt and avoidance

Ambitious and detailed... ranges from the initial reluctance of German citizens to begin the process of truth and reconciliation to small-town Mississippi, and the shooting of nine African American American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina

Confronting Race and the Memory of Evil

What can we learn from the past in order to move forward? 
 
Susan Neiman's Learning from the Germans delivers an urgently needed perspective on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. Neiman, who grew up as a white girl in the American South during the civil rights movement, is a Jewish woman who has spent much of her adult life in Berlin. In clear and gripping prose, she uses this unique perspective to combine philosophical reflection, personal history and conversations with both Americans and Germans who are grappling with the evils of their own national histories. 
 
Through focusing on the particularities of those histories, she provides examples for other nations, whether they are facing resurgent nationalism, ongoing debates over reparations or controversies surrounding historical monuments and the contested memories they evoke. It is necessary reading for all those confronting their own troubled pasts.

Susan Neiman

Praise for Learning from the Germans

Susan Neiman relates hard truths from which others shrink. Her audacious work is a refreshing change from those, afraid to offend, who leave unsaid things that seem self-evident.

Growing up in the American south during the civil rights era, and spending much of her adult life in and around Berlin as a Jewish woman, Neiman has a keen ear for discomforts and awkwardnesses and the tics of guilt ...

Ambitious and detailed... ranges from the initial reluctance of German citizens to begin the process of truth and reconciliation to small-town Mississippi, and the shooting of nine African American American churchgo ...

Susan Neiman relates hard truths from which others shrink. Her audacious work is a refreshing change from those, afraid to offend, who leave unsaid things that seem self-evident.

Growing up in the American south during the civil rights era, and spending much of her adult life in and around Berlin as a Jewish woman, Neiman has a keen ear for discomforts and awkwardnesses and the tics of guilt ...

Ambitious and detailed... ranges from the initial reluctance of German citizens to begin the process of truth and reconciliation to small-town Mississippi, and the shooting of nine African American American churchgo ...

Susan Neiman relates hard truths from which others shrink. Her audacious work is a refreshing change from those, afraid to offend, who leave unsaid things that seem self-evident.

Growing up in the American south during the civil rights era, and spending much of her adult life in and around Berlin as a Jewish woman, Neiman has a keen ear for discomforts and awkwardnesses and the tics of guilt ...

Ambitious and detailed... ranges from the initial reluctance of German citizens to begin the process of truth and reconciliation to small-town Mississippi, and the shooting of nine African American American churchgo ...

Books by Susan Neiman

Series by Susan Neiman

Philosophy in Transit

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter