Iris Marion Young (1949–2006)

I wanted to love this book so bad. But the writing in some places was simply impenetrable and the return in terms of concepts and what i learned vs the tedium and struggle to get through the articles just wasn't worth it. There is definite value in these texts however. I found the articles on the pregnant body extremely enlightening. In reading it i realize that here I am looking forward to being father someday in the near future and I really don't know what being pregnant means.

Reading this book at times was trying to decipher an alchemical treatise. I did not have fun with this book at all.
… (mere)

Young's books typically are closer to a collection of essays -- one can read individual chapters in isolation without losing much, if anything. This isn't to say her ideas aren't complex -- much the opposite: Young simply writes across an extremely wide range of issues, all of which she provides unique and insightful contributions in an exceptionally lucid manner (all the more impressive given the density of some of her subject matter). My more academically-inclined friends and I joke that Young is the sort of writer who makes us despair of ever getting tenure. She's just right about everything that we care about. What more is there to do?… (mere)

An interesting book on social justice in complicated cases where the problems are structural, not personal. Young argues for her social connection model of justice as an alternative to the liability model which applies only to questions of personal justice. The social connection model is mostly intended to provide a new way of thinking about justice and I think it serves that purpose well. I think this book is better than Inclusion and Democracy and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in questions of justice and broad perspectives.… (mere)